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In my entire life, there have been a few nights that have reached a deep level of amazing cosmic connection and sheer happiness, and one of those was the one I spent on a concrete slab of New York sidewalk: 25º outside, bundled in a cardboard-visquene-sleeping bag huddle with strangers-turned-soulmates, singing obscure showtunes, telling life stories, writing incoherent journal entries, quoting Monty Python, tutoring some frantic guys trying to write a paper for Chaucer class about the nymphomania of the Wife of Bath, waving kindly to perplexed passers-by … After 21 hours of frostbitten revelry, I saw RENT. My whole life I’ve had this weird thing for musicals. Why ask why. But this wasn’t -- isn’t -- just another show for me. I had waited so long to see it. I’ve kept in touch with the people I froze with in that line, and I think each of us will be forever changed, if just in small ways, after making that journey together, and having so much time just to sit, and hear ourselves talk to each other for so many sleepless hours on end, and laugh, and sing.
 There were a few "regulars" there, but the majority of us were travellers from the far ends of the country who had made a special trip to New York solely for this purpose, and knowing that this was our first and probably last time, we clung to every moment, every laugh, and every memory as it was being made. Aside from everything I will always carry with me from the story and the music of the show itself, in terms of its brilliance and wisdom about life and love and the world and performances that took my breath away, this night will never leave me. Maybe I am getting emotional because I can’t believe so much time and space are between me and this night, and it makes me damn nostalgic.
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