sometimes you want to go

In New York the other night, I stopped by Great Jones Cafe on a whim. With a ticket to Spring Awakening in my pocket and plenty of time to kill, I decided to walk from the tkts booth at South Street Seaport all the way up to the theatre on 49th Street, and after a while I found myself in the Great Jones neighborhood so I dropped in for a beer. Nanette and Artie were working, just like they did every Wednesday when I lived in the city. And though it had been at least a year and a half since I'd been there, they remembered me, knew my name, asked how's Chicago. I told them I wouldn't know because I live in North Carolina now, but it felt really good that they were interested. In a city where it's so easy to be anonymous, indeed, where anonymity is part of the attraction, it's nice to have a haven here or there. And now the rumblings in me shift slightly: where I only missed Chicago, now I'm also wistful for New York.