new york is like a love affair:  getting out is so much harder than getting in–and leaving new york at three o’clock on a friday afternoon, with an e-ticket for a flight at laguardia, you should be prepared for an experience that will not compare favorably with the ex-boyfriend who slashed your tires and dumped a box of your thong panties, that sex toy, and the edible body lotion from victoria’s secret on your mother’s with the words, “i think these are for her.”

but i got out of new york after my visit with facebook friends azusa watanabe from tokyo and carolyn quinn and michele persiak from new york even with a cab driver who got lost, a terminal change, long lines, surly t.s.a. agents who claim they want to touch my junk because i’m “random”, gate changes, delays, cancellations, etc.

i had paid an extra thirty dollars for a “premium” seat 7a. unfortunately, united sold that same seat to someone else. the airline implemented its new “customer empowerment” policy and i lost. i was seated in a middle seat between two oversized bins (i mean men). note to united: can i have my thirty dollars back?

several times over the last year, facebook friend david janis and i have tried to set up meeting with each other.  while i was in new york, we talked on the phone and i resolved that i would really do it!  i made reservations at a hotel and plotted the course.  a few days before my arrival, david messaged me that he was having anticipatory anxiety attacks which was particularly difficult because of some other health problems he battles.  i decided that since the hotel was prepaid, i would go anyway.

david is an agoraphobic who embraces himself and his way of life.  he doesn’t shy from it.  and he helps others who may want to change and others who may not want to–as well as those who think they have no options.   he has a lot of interesting wisdom.  i wanted to hear it!  i told him how long i would be in st. louis and if the anticipatory anxiety fell away i would be happy to see him.

yesterday, i went to the jefferson memorial park and i would have ordiniarily confined myself to going to the westward expansion museum.  but then i thought why do i place a limit on myself or on what i believe is possible for me?

brave before you have your ticket to the arch tram is one thing.  brave after you have put your money down . . . well, in my case, courage evaporated.  and i think part of the mood change, the anticipatory anxiety if you will, is the same as in airports.  the park rangers are now equiped with a conveyor belt, metal detectors, harsh voices.  i saw one poor woman moved to tears because she had to go through the metal detector three times.  finally, she lifted her shirt, as if to say “look, i don’t have anything!”  and this is what we do just to visit a national park.

i needed an attitude change but i couldn’t get enough privacy to create it.  after a long line that slithered down into the basement of the museum, we were loaded as a group into a room about the size of a motel six bath not included.  we should have been appreciating the exhibit items devoted to the arch’s architect eero saarinen.  instead, we were crowded together so tightly contemplative thought was not possible.  we were half an hour late.  we were then herded further into the sub-basement of the museum into another area where we were shown a three and  a half minute safety and history video.

i admit it, i freaked in the eero saarinen tram car.  seats five but only if the five are freakishly small or they are quite friendly in a kentucky cousin sort of way.  getting off the tram and entering into the arch’s viewing area, i totally lost it.  i stood in the center of the eight feet by twenty feet room, with its low slung windows overlooking the city.  i waited for my legs to stop shaking.

the arch shifts a little, there are noises from the bumping tram cars, children running up and down the narrow space made me want to scream “stop it!  you’re going to make the damn arch collapse!”

i waited.  the park officials–can you really call teenagers officials?–looked bored.  a group of teens turned their backs to the windows and took pictures of each other with their cell phones and then texted.  lots of texting.  i decided that yes i was scared.  but hardly anybody was aware of it.  except for that poor couple who had driven up with me on the tram.  they were from indianapolis and i think they were glad to get out of the tram and even more relieved that i was going back down without waiting for them.

we take our victories whenever and however we can find them!  and now i hope that i meet david, but if not, i still have other facebook friends to visit in the gateway to the west!

of course, my facebook friend william clark goes with me for every adventure! he is right there in front of the blue trunk! the real william clark explored the western half of the united states from 1803 to 1806 in what is commonly called the lewis and clark expedition. you can read all about it in William Clark and the Shaping of the West by Landon Y. Jones!