Don't Cry For Me, Patti LuPone

The truth is, I didn't see you.

But a minor blip in a wonderful holiday weekend in the Big Apple with Connie, Alex, and Christelle. Even though I had work today, I pretended break had already begun. The Rockefeller Center tree was up, surrounded in scaffolding. Saks Fifth Avenue hung unlit snowflakes. Homeless people asked for change on four of my subways. It's beginning to look a lot like Thanksgiving.

I probably spent more than I should on food, but how can you say no to a three-course pre-theater dinner that begins with warm soup and ends with chocolate mousse? It's okay, though, because we hit up the MoMA for free on Friday night, and I paid for my "suggested $10 admission" to the Met (the museum) with $5. Considering I saw about one-tenth of the place, I think that's fair. And who knew there was a temple inside? With a moat surrounding it. It makes you wish you were entombed like a mummy. There's also a very cool European sculpture court, with four statues representing the four elements (earth, fire, air, water). Captain Planet must have been hiding in another gallery that we didn't get to.

The Van Gogh exhibition was sold out at the MoMA, but Joan Miró made up for it. Go look at Still Life with Old Shoe online; it's way psychedelic. There's a sculpture there by Marcel Duchamp called To Be Looked at (from the Other Side of the Glass) with One Eye, Close to, for Almost an Hour. So I listened to directions and, once I figured out which was the other side, closed one eye and stared away. The almost-hour was interrupted by a museum guard who chastised me for being too close. It was okay, though; we went into the interactive art room where a film played around us called Pour Your Body Out. The museum allowed us to lie on a round couch, roll about in the midst of a film about women and grass and strawberries, and take our shoes off. Total zen.

Christelle signed us up for her RA event, a walking tour of gargoyles in Gramercy/Flatiron. It was actually really informative; around 1900 the Statue of Liberty's hand was displayed in the middle of Madison Square Park. It was almost the coldest I've ever been, but that honor actually went to the 1.5 hours I spent in line for Gypsy student rush. My toes froze off, but for a good reason: front row center that night.

After our dinner next to a waterfall (true story), Connie and Alex giddily ran into Equus and I dashed across the street to the St. James. I'm handed a piece of paper - Ms. LuPone is indisposed - and greeted with a lengthy box office line. But they tell me I can get a refund at a later time, so at 7:55, I run down the street, wondering what I could possibly get tickets to. Three blocks away, I see Speed-the-Plow with an enormous line outside. It's 8:01, but they're holding the curtain. Finally my turn; I ask if they possibly have rush left. Success! But wait! I only have $10 in cash, and you cannot pay with credit card. With the clock ticking, I race across the street to a hotel, collide into the ATM, and (after waiting for the newest herd of latecomers) acquire my rush ticket. Up the stairs two at a time, into my seat (thankfully on the aisle), and the show begins at 8:15.

Afterwards, I got to donate money to Raul Esparza (well, really to Broadway Cares, but he was holding the basket) and then stagedoored Daniel Radcliffe, who is very short and wore a baseball cap so that nobody could see his face. Thankfully, he appeared within 20 minutes, cause it was, you know, really cold. My lips are now chapped (very rare for me), and I think my forehead got hat burn. You know what rocks, though? The New York subway. Even though all express trains were shut down this weekend, it still took me eight minutes to get from 96th to 42nd. Take that, Boston.