Stupidly lovely weather for March in New York.

Started the week off right with brunch at Golden Diner. The reviews we’d seen all warned to get there early and prepare to be quoted a two or three hour wait at the door, which is exactly what happened.

Please enjoy this from their Brunch FAQs under “WHY IS THE WAIT SO LONG?”:

Good question. We’re a tiny restaurant that can seat max 30 guests. Factor in TikTok youths and pancake bonanza, and you get the picture. We highly encourage making a reservation for literally any other time.

Comprehensive review: big pancakes good. Worth it.

Spent Monday night jogging through Life and Trust, the newish immersive theater thingy from some of the folks behind Sleep No More. It felt bigger and maybe a bit harder to follow on the first journey through, but well worth a trip.^[1]

Also saw Oh Mary! on Broadway which was unfathomably stupid (extremely complementary statement.) Betty Gilpin recently took over the lead from creator Cole Escola, and Tituss Burgess is also taking a run soon. Betty crushed it, and had a truly world-class Playbill bio:

My recently-reset Instagram algorithm has been feeding me nothing but ads for Broadway shows since I got off the plane, and honestly, I could live like this.

Finally made cocktail pilgrimages to Death & Co, Katana Kitten, and Employees Only. And a college-esque crawl through the West Village, closing out five(‽) different bars.

All this at the expense of forgetting to eat dinner at an actual restaurant at any point we were in town.

Ethanol and malnutrition aside, Manhattan does a body good, because I always seem to accidentally get 20,000+ steps a day when I’m here.

Always delighted and surprised at how quickly I can slip back into the energy of a place. Five minutes on the ground and I suddenly remember which subway entrances only go uptown and which streets are the right ones for jaywalking.^[2]