New York = Playa in real time

So this weekend has been an amazing combination of fantastic food and incredible friends... but what has struck me the most this trip is how much like Burning Man this experience is. I'm not naive enough (or hopeful enough!) to think that New York is just like this all the time.  It's the entire package - staying with Gravity, seeing Brian and Surly and all our amazing hippos and the almost total lack of structure we enjoyed over the weekend. 

I was thinking yesterday more about Brian's party.  It was mostly Hippos: us, Gravity, Brian and Surly, Playatollah and Ruckus, David and Victor, Marguiles... enough to feel like we were in the dome or the SAO and what I finally realized yesterday was that once again, when I'm with Hippos I'm home.  It's a lot like when I see Mom or am just at home with Ajax - I'm the most comfortable, the most at peace I ever am.  So many times at parties, even at parties where I know people really well, I feel awkward and weird and not sure of myself or what to talk about.  But just like being at Burning Man, Saturday night was a night of feeling confident, cute, sexy, smart and well, to be honest, appreciated and loved.  It's a powerful feeling.  And I think everyone felt that way - we were all sort of high in a different way from the powerful combination of our energies.  

Yesterday was really similar.  We went out for dimsum with Brian, Surly and Brian's brother Andy and adorable, non-annoyingly precocious nephew Chase (the kid can put away some dimsum!).  It was a slow morning, everyone on their own time, knowing that eventually our collective times would match up and we'd be where we were supposed to be.  After dimsum, Ajax and I tooled around Brooklyn with Gravity.  I gotta say I am loving Brooklyn.  The families, the young couples - total hipster vibe, but really just awesome.  Then Ajax and I hopped the train to Manhattan, with the idea of going by Golden Bridge so I'd know where I was going this morning.  But as luck would have it, we ended up on an express train and the first stop that made sense to get off at was Union Square.  So we called Ruckus and dropped in on him for a few hours... It was really cool to see Ajax's old place and old neighborhood - I could see why he loved living there.  After a while Playatollah came by and off we went to Katz for sandwiches, which we took to-go and then hopped a cab back to Brooklyn for one last drink with Brian and Surly who left this morning.  

Having a little taste of the playa and especially being able to hang out with Ajax, Brian, Gravity, Playatollah and Ruckus so much has been incredible.  I spent most of my time with them my first year on the playa - an experience that completed altered my life in more ways than one.  And I'd seen so many photos and heard so many stories about the NY Hippos and their parties that it was just amazing and sweet and uplifting to be here and be a part of this little family.  

Today is my day on my own - yikes!  Will be extra weird after 2 days of being with people non-stop.  I'm going to Golden Bridge for class and then to who knows where!  Just tool around the Village and SoHo I guess!