My date picked me up (in a car, wild) at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. He showed up wearing the same mushroom shirt that I wore to bed almost every night while I was traveling last year. Great minds.
On the way there, we tried some Florist Farms Strawberry Social Gummies. When we finally got to the aquarium—about an hour away from my place—I asked if he was “trained in the art of taking photos.” I’ve never asked if someone could take a photo of me this way, but it is an art and this is for a magazine so… as the Creative Director of this magazine, of course I wanted to get the photos right. I was obsessed with this fish that wasn’t on any of the plaques, so I took a picture with it. It reminded me of Glove from The Yellow Submarine, my favorite movie since I was little. I am now learning it is called the Bluespine Unicornfish (of course). Another outstanding name was the Spotted Wobbegong.
We spent a lot of time with the fish, reading their titles, amused by their oddly shaped, though sleek bodies.
Before we went into the Spineless exhibit, we shared a Scandalous Cannabis Dark Chocolate with quinoa crunch. I saw a picture of a nudibranch on the wall and almost—excuse my French—lost my shit. Nudibranchs are beautiful, unique, highly vibrant, tiny, colorful sea slugs. They have been my favorite animal since I was 10 years old, and I have never seen one in real life. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any.
All of a sudden, while we were mesmerized by little white jellyfish, they announced they were closing in 10 minutes. We didn’t get to finish all the exhibits, well… because we got high. No, it was really because we got there an hour before it closed. Note to self: plan better.
So we left and spent a little bit of time at the beach, because why go all the way to the beach in New York City and not step foot on the beach?
Have you ever coughed while you were laughing? Now put the hiccups on top of it. This trifecta happened to me while we were trying to sing Bohemian Rhapsody at the beach while he was learning the chords on the guitar right then and there. It was hilarious. I laughed, I coughed, I got the hiccups. And I couldn’t stop! Just a mix of all three for a few minutes.
