What Happened Before the Frolic (First Newsletter)
Dear Friends and Foes,
🥳😈🥰😋
Welcome to the frolic! Thank you for your vote of confidence in the written word. I see you, I hear you, I appreciate you, I wonder where you are. Hi.
This morning, we left behind the cold-cobbled Providence corners and the gray nippy wind to head for NEW YORK CITY. (My keyboard has a mystifying glitch where I can only type it in all caps, go figure.) We trained through rural, industrial, and suburban America before determining that NEW YORK CITY is, by all accounts, most likely the greatest city in the world. Upon our arrival, the train conductor announced: “This is it, people!” to all of the minions onboard accordingly. We took our first shaky steps into tiled Penn Station, suitcases and hopes in tow — and were immediately asked to sign a petition to take down a major world power. Brilliant!
While briefly in NEW YORK CITY, Owen and I rendezvoused with his mustachioed study abroad friend Mitchell, in the dark corner of a narrow, tall, and ostensibly Australian cafe. Australia is apparently an open-concept dreamland of exposed beams and broken credit card machines, where the cold brew floats and breakfast burritos roam free. Australia contains good vibes. Australia may also contain couples who lease apartments together and then break up and have platonic sleepovers; they live quite freely over there in the Southern Hemisphere.
We were headed, however, not to Australia but to The Continent. So we skipped onto the A train to meet up with Owen’s mother, patron saint of NEW YORK CITY and friend of the newsletter. Ms. Ragland bravely navigated us through a fleet of trucks, what seemed like New Jersey, and the voice-acted script of True Grit to get to the airport, where our journey to the other side of the world would begin. Many thanks to her!
As some or all of you may know, having booked our flights on a murky, dark-web, nameless third-party travel site, we were completely sure and not at all worried about the status of our tickets when we entered the John F. Kennedy International Airport. Sure enough, Owen transported all of his illicit pamphlets and metals through the security checkpoint, bought out an entire shop of Duty Free cologne, and was miraculously assigned a seat in the same row as yours truly. And even though we now know that the fatal flaws of NEW YORK CITY are overpriced bottled tea and Staten Island, we left the city that never sleeps feeling fond, and never having slept there.
When this email arrives to you, we will be in what Owen likes to call the homeland, scrambling for our paper train tickets and wondering what kind of liquid substances are appropriate to consume at 6:30 in the morning. (What kind of coffee — please advise!) We write again soon, with news of a more international variety.
Write us back with any feedback, hate mail, love letters, or news of your own.
Bonsoir to all on the East Coast. (I’m practicing my French; Owen is already fluent).
With hopefully not too much jet lag,
Frog and Iggy (Laura and Owen)
March 22-23, 2024