The kids are fried and I can respect that. The past two days were intense. New York is hard for us. We are overwhelmed by the noise, by the number of people trying to sell us things, by the size of the buildings… everything. This is overwhelming on steroids.

We are having a hard time partially because our friendly/outgoing approach to life doesn’t work well here. NYers are so desensitized to people yelling at them that they are not very open to random conversations. Eldest Child was kind of shell shocked by the number of people who asked her to buy something in a ten minute period. If even she gets kind of numb… that’s a big deal.

My kids are feeling rejected and sad because in restaurants people don’t want to talk to us. I’m not as upset by it because I’ve experienced it before.

I think it is kind of interesting that the kids keep saying, “Let’s go back to Duluth.” I guess cities with about 86,000 people are just… more approachable.

Looks like we aren’t going to be able to meet up with anyone I know who lives in NYC. Why am I not surprised? They are busy. Shocking. But when you fly to California I am supposed to drop everything and drive 90+ miles round trip to enjoy an hour of your company. Right.

Realistically… I’m ok I don’t have to be on my best behavior right now. My best is kind of long-gone.

We went to tea party restaurants. It is going to be fun to go home to Fremont and go visit our local tea shop and say, “We have been to some of the fanciest, most posh tea houses in the country… we like you more.” Traveling makes me love my home so much. My tea shop is perfect for me and every other one is kind of meh.

AND most of these tea shops that are twice or three times as expensive. I wanna go home!

Not yet. 77 days in. 89 days to go.

I’m really looking forward to staying in one place for longer in Florida. I’m so tired.

I talk to my shrink in half an hour. That’s a good thing.

Maybe, if we rest today I might actually get around to writing some postcards. We didn’t get any in NYC. Whoops.

I am so tired.

Reaching out to people is hard. I want to pay attention to people and I also want to climb into the closet and not do anything for a very long time.