From a Bad Ankle In Bloomfield, CT ...

Man, what a couple a' days it has been ...

So much has happened since Wednesday morning I barely know where to begin. And it's late, and I need to pack, because tommorow my short stay here on the East Coast comes to an abrupt end and it's back to the grind of life in the LA fastlane. But as is tradition, I wanted to do a quick blog entry from here in Bloomfield. As always, I like the idea of my blog posts having some diversity in terms of geographical origin. So here goes nothing ...

To preface, I saw two great movies this week in STARDUST - a rough-around-the-edges but well-worth-seeing fantasy fairy tale, and SUPERBAD - a hilarious teen comedy that will go down in the same cannon as The Breakfast Club and Fast Times, and which my brother and I actually just got back from a few hours ago. I'll sit on the reviews of those for now though. Check back soon for my more detailed thoughts.

But anyways ...

As I was saying, what a couple of crazy days it's been. The first thing you should know is that on Wednesday morning, right as I was about to board a plane headed from Burbank to New York City, I injured my ankle pretty badly. I mean, this was just the worst timing and it's one of those "could only happen to me" type events. I was having a pretty restless night on Tuesday. I was up late packing for my trip, anxious about my all-day set of meetings, workshops, etc that I'd be having on Thursday, and wondering if I'd have a chance to see any of my friends in NYC who I haven't seen in way too long. So at about 6:30 am on Wednesday, I'm fast asleep when all of a sudden my phone rings. In my half-asleep, brain-addled state, I leap out of bed towards the coffee table where my phone was charging. As I reach for my cell, I somehow stumble and trip, and fall hard. I hear this loud "CRACK," coming from my ankle, and suddenly I have the most intense pain ever shooting up and down my right leg. I was still so tired and foggy that I could barely comprehend what was going on. I hopped back onto my bed, trying to tell myself that it was just a bruise and I should go back to sleep and everything was fine. But man, when after a few minutes I was WIDE AWAKE at 6:30 am, I knew there was something really wrong here. My ankle has suddenlt swelled up to balloon size and it was freaking killing me. As far as I could tell, it might have been broken, fractured, something. But I was supposed to be on route to the Burbank airport in a few mere hours. I started freaking out. If I couldn't even stand upright, let alone walk, how could I even go on this trip? They had already booked my flights, my hotel ... how could I NOT go? And yet, all I could think about was the pain coming from my ankle. This was bad.

I called my parents, who were on vacation in Ogunquet (sp?), Maine. I needed some kind of advice, because I could barely think. Did I have time to go to the hospital? Should I? At my dad's urging I got out of bed and got dressed. By the time I managed to do that, I clearly didn't have time to go to the hospital without risking being late for the flight. So I decided to make my way over to CVS instead. In a daze, I drove down the street, hobbled into CVS, and basically cleaned out their medical supplies aisle. I spent way too much money on all manner of ace bandages and ankle wraps, but I couldn't risk not having some kind of item that would alleviate some of my pain and at least allow me to walk into the airport.

Luckily, the combination of my newly-purchased heated ankle sock thing and my determination not to miss my flight, got me to through those next few hours. By the time I got to the airport I could at least limp around and walk without too much pain.

I met up with my colleague Mike A and we boarded our Jet Blue flight to NYC. Luckily, it was a very easy flight. I'd never flown Jet Blue before, but I was a big fan of the leather seats and extra leg room, which helped alleviate the crappiness of being stuck in a middle seat. Plus, it was, I believe, my first ever direct flight between LA and the East Coast, so while I was used to these never-ending, nine hour epic journeys, this was an easy six hours, during which I made a nice dent in The Stand, which I hadn't read much of since my last flight back from CT. I'm now officially on Book 2 - very exciting.

So we got into JFK airport around 9 pm east coast time. We met up with my boss, Michael B, and took a company car to our hotel in Times Square. Pretty swanky, and I think this is one of the only times I've ever had a whole hotel room all to myself, ever. Not bad. But man, for me it was only 7 pm by the time we got settled, and the combination of pain in my ankle, anxiety about the next day, and excitement about being in NYC left me feeling pretty wired. I had called a bunch of my friends over the last week, but none were able to met up so late on a Wednesday night, so I somehow ended up just kind of wandering around midtown for a while, grabbing some pizza, and stumbling back to my hotel and watching Conan O'Brien while I wrapped my ankle in a special gel wrap I picked up. All well and good, I guess - the problem was that my colleagues and I were set to meet up at 7:45 am Thursday morning. SEVEN FORTY FIVE. That's 4:45 am West Coast time, which clearly I was still very much on. I fell asleep sometime around 4 am ET and rolled around in a not-so-peaceful slumber. So basically, when my cell phone alarm went off around 6:45, I wanted to die. I've had some unpleasant wake-up call times before, but this was one of the worst ever. My eyes were burning, I could barely see, my ankle hurt, my other leg was sore from overcompensating, and I was about to go into an all-day meeting with my bosses and THEIR bosses. Fun fun fun (kill me now). Often, I have gone into situations set to be difficulte with the mindset "if I can just make it through this, I'll be alright." Never have I had to repeat that to myself as many times as did early this Thursday morning.

Luckily, after a few hours passes and I got some caffiene and food into me things got better. The day was long and exhausting but it went pretty smoothly, and I got a chance to make what I think was a pretty good impression on many of the bigwigs. The first half of our day was spent on a personality-assesment workshop, interesting to say the least, even if it's basically a bunch of hokey corporate pop-psychology. On the other hand, how often is one presented with a 25 page booklet, complete with bar graphs and pie charts, that claims to pinpoint your personality type? Pretty much nonsense, but interesting. The second half of the day was basically a long summit in which each unit within our larger group gave a state of the union report. I got a pretty good chance to talk and ask questions so that was cool. And for lunch we even got some excellent New Yawk pizza (even if we were actually in Engelwood Cliffs, NJ, at the CNBC building).

Finally, we all headed over to this rooftop bar / lounge in the trendy Meatpacking district in NYC. Oddly, it was the exact same bar that my cousin Marcus had taken me to a few years back when I met up with him in NYC. Another odd coincidence: when I first arrived at the meeting that morning, I realized that one of the new hires for our East Coast branch was actually one of my old Columbia roommates from my time as an intern in the summer of 2004. Pretty random. Then, this other girl from NBC in NYC was telling me how one of her best friends is the sister of one of my good friends from elementary and high school. It is a small world after all ...

Still, the best part of Thursday came later. Me and some co-workers left our little rooftop shindig after an hour or so, and I headed back to the hotel to recharge - I was totally wiped. But I met with my brother, who had just had his last day at HIS internship at NYC, and I grabbed some food and was finally able to just chill and wind down and not talk work for a bit. We headed for one of my favorite midtown cafes from my intern days as my brother showed me the shwag he picked up on his last day and ran his latest blockbuster movie ideas by me. After that, me and Matt shared a cab down to the East Village. It turns out that one of my favorite people, Daniella G, is now working at a little restaurant right down the street from where my brother was staying in the city, so it worked out perfectly. Me and Daniella got to hang out, catch up, walk around the Village, and even had a hilarious encounter with a local Crazy - this hippie artist dude dressed in like blue pajamas who gave us many a life lesson, all the while trying to sell us his CD and informing us that there was a "party in his pants." (and yes, he said that everyone was, in fact, invited, when I asked!). One of those classic experiences that would only happen when haning out with someone like Daniella, who it was great to see after such a loooong time!

So yeah, it was a greattt feeling knowing that on Friday I had nothing in particular to make me wake up early. I slept late, and man was it good. I finally checked out of The Westin, left my bags for a bit, and made the obligatory journey a flew blocks downtown to NYC's mecca of geekdom, the sprawling Midtown Comics, definitely one of the world's best comic shops. After that I had to lug my suitcase onto the subway, so I could take the crosstown shittle to Grand Central. I got to the station, grabbed some lunch, and got a ticket for the 3:07 train to New Haven. Two hours later, I was back in CT and waiting for my dad to pick me up. An hour after that, I was back at home for a traditional Baram family Shabbat dinner, with my parents, my Grandma and Zayde, uncle Michael and his wife Laura. I had a bunch of stuff I was going to do after that, but the combination of home-cooked food and three days worth of pent-up exhaustion caught up to me. I was out like a light and done done done.

Today, I slept late and relaxed, as my dad headed up to NYC to pick up my brother and his stuff from their Village apartment. My brother is now in CT for a little over a week before he heads to LONDON for a semester abroad (or maybe a few broads ... hehehe - sorry, had to throw that in there). However, after three days of walking around on a busted ankle, I finally went to the hospital today to have it looked at. At this point, my ankle is still very swollen, and a few sections of my right foot are a deep shade of purple. But, I can kind of walk, at least. I guess all that time in NYC toughened it up. Luckily, nothing is broken or fractured, it's just a bad sprain. But it looks terrible and man, that initial bout of pain Wednesday morning was just horrible. Since then, it's been sore and swollen, but surprisingly bearable, at least.

So the family and I had some dinner tonight, discussed plans to visit Matt out in London sometime in November, and then he and I headed to Hartford for some SUPERBAD. And now here it is, late, and with a long flight ahead of me tommorow on Southwest - two stops en route to Burbank. But what a trip it's been. My first ever business trip, all with an injured ankle and little sleep. Some good times though in NYC and back in CT. Sorry to those I got in touch with but wasn't able to meet up with - as usual I was overambitious in what I thought I could fit in in one trip. A good time though, definitely a journey of record, a challenge overcome, friends and family, trains, planes, and automobiles - one for the books.

From 5 Warbler Circle, this is Danny, signing out. See you in Hollywood.