An epic day

What a strange day. It was bound to be a little unusual, if only because I am heading off on vacation tomorrow, and that always means there's a lot to do to get ready.

But this morning started out extra weird when I was woken up by incredibly loud thunder, really close to the apartment. It was one of those feelings where you wake up and you don't really know what just happened. Was it a dream? Did something explode? Oh, there's a rain storm. It was so dramatic that when I left for work, other people from the building were spontaneously talking to each other about it.

The rest of the day went pretty much as expected. I wrapped things up at work, and then met up with my mom who happened to be just finishing up work herself. We wandered around a little and then headed towards Bryant Park. We soon noticed that there was a suspiciously large number of people just kind of hanging around the park, and many of them were on their phones. Clearly we had wandered into something, but I couldn't tell what.

Turned out something had exploded, which immediately put me in mind of the storm this morning. But it was actually caused by an electrical problem under a building at 41st and Lex. Very weird.

So, my mom and I headed downtown, away from the madness. We kept our eye on the news and checked online, and even though every report said "explosion near Grand Central," no one was saying anything about whether or not trains were running. Finally I called 311 and the guy read me the same press release I had been hearing on the news and reading on the web. But then he connected me to Metro North, where a message informed me that trains were running on schedule, but people could only enter on the Northwest side of the terminal.

I walked my mom to the subway so she could go catch a train home, and then stopped at Whole Foods. On my way home, a guy at the corner of the Anthology Film Archives told me that they were showing a free preview screening of Charlie Bartlett. Totally random! I knew I shouldn't go because I still hadn't packed for my trip. But I had been wanting to see it, and it was free, so I went!

It was strange, there were not many people there, and the organizers videotaped us commenting about the movie as we left. I thought it was a pretty decent film, though it seemed to be trying a little too hard at times. I was already thinking that it was definitely going for a sort of Harold & Maude vibe (without the May-December romance) and then they started singing "If you want to sing out, sing out." I'm choosing to view it as an homage.

Several of the actors from Degrassi: Next Generation were playing minor characters. I thought that was pretty cool.