12:51:16 AM
I wanted to make a joke this morning about enemies lists, Nixon, and XSLT, but ultimately, it just wasn't that funny. I don't feel like being funny. And things that should make me laugh produce some sort of a hollow laugh that is - aside from being really disconcerting - freaking my cat out.
3:24:29 AM
More stories of escape found their way to my mailbox this weekend; there's a photo of residents wanting admittance to Battery Park City - each is holding up a piece of paper with their addresses scrawled on them. In the middle of the cluster, written on a bill, is my old address: 2 South End.
"You must read this." a friend sent me to a site that recounted a story that could have been mine if I hadn't left E&Y. If I hadn't overslept. If I had gone against type and just headed north. If I hadn't gotten a room at the Financial Center Marriott and settled for the one of the WTC hotels three blocks away.
If. If. If. For something so certain and horrible, I am beset with ifs. IF we bomb them, the ever-evil "them," will we be successful? Will we avenge our losses, or start a world war? IF Pakistan has the bomb and they're buddy-buddy to the Taliban and other Islamic radicals, couldn't "they" have the bomb? IF we cut off the head of the snake, will a new one grow? IF we curtail our civil liberties, are we truly defending America? If If If.
2:31:35 AM
The NY Times generally has superior infographics, but someone needs to tell them that Washington/Dulles Airport is not in Maryland - it is West, not north of the Pentagon, in Virginia. (Their feedback form on the website isn't working).
6:10:30 AM
I can see the flag waving in the reflection of my monitor; it hugs the pole sometimes, wrapping itself in itself, mourning, and it curls out and flies out boldly against the green of the trees and the blue of the sky.
1:22:40 PM
I just saw the apartment building I used to live in in Battery Park City. The cars in front of the building were covered with ash and debris and bits of things. A police officer was saying "It's just not safe to be here" and was sending away residents.
12:55:01 PM
I am not someone who wears my heart on my sleeve. I'm low key. I don't typically wear emblems, or drape myself in symbols. I prefer instead to simply live my life under the aegis of my beliefs.
But today... Today, I went to buy a flag to hang in my window. Each store I visited had sold out of flags big and small. So I came home and painted my own flag on canvas, and hung it in my window. Each star is unique, individual, vibrant, but the collection of stars are a unified whole. As I sat there, painting our national stars and stripes, I felt infused by something intangible, something deeper than every-day patriotism.
3:20:43 AM
When I walked back into my office, I saw the flag flying at half-mast through the vertical blinds.
My e-mail is full of offers from friends, former coworkers, and acquaintences to everyone they know of a place to stay, sleep, shower, eat, call home if anyone in NY needs it.
Instant Messenger brings rumors, news, hyperlinks, fears, hopes, gossip, and comfort.
News is the new currency.
12:27:01 AM
When I lived in Battery Park City, I'd make the late night trek home by walking up Broad Street to Wall and then Broadway, skimming past the World Trade Center to the highway overpass, descend through One Financial Center's atrium and emerge into Battery Park.
That atrium is filled with rubble. The streets of Battery Park are filled with smoke. A fire is raging. People have been evacuated.
When my former employers weren't paying for an apartment for me, I split my time between the Financial Center Marriott, the World Trade Center Marriott, and occasionally, the Millenium Hilton. The Millenium is - was - across the street from the World Trade Center, compact, shipshape. The World Trade Center Marriott was 35 feet away from the twin towers, on another side of the plaza. In the mornings, I'd emerge from the second floor, thread my way through the tourists and towers, and meet up with one of my local coworkers as they emerged from the PATH and the subways, and head off to work. The Financial Center Marriott - nestled next to the old Bell building - involved a circuitous wending of my way through the streets of the Financial District. My favorite path is under dust, paper, and debris, more desolate than a thick blanket of snow.
One is completely gone. One can't be saved. One has been evacuated.
2:43:31 PM
I wish there was a way to get my news without having to listen to these talking heads, or see the icky CNN renovation. I think Tom, Dan, Peter, and especially the CNN-fluff-fest do a great disserve to the news, and they are lousy newsmen.
2:39:58 PM
You have to hold onto the moments of hope. Long lines of people waiting to give blood. Volunteers who rushed down to the World Trade Center to offer up a strong back, their knowledge of steel, plumbing, whatever. Our Congress breaking into God Bless America. The men and women who helped pull people from Pentagon Offices ringed with burning jet fuel. The people on the planes who found a cell phone and called 911 to report it, to describe the events, to call home and say "I love you." and to ask for help. The experts who avoided the best efforts of the news media to definitely blame the terrorism on one culture or assign blame at all with no information to back it up.
3:33:21 PM
Also, I wish I lived in Television City.
3:32:50 PM
Maybe I'll redesign the Alphabet Julen using a Whammy-inspired theme.
3:16:08 PM
I can't sleep, and so I'm watching the Game Show Network. Match Game PM, people, oh so seventies, and oh so much swinging fun! Charles Nelson Reilly is smoking a pipe, Brett Sommers is professionally Brett Sommers, Patty Duke is still married to John Astin, Richard Dawson is Richard Dawson, and there's some random actress chick, oh, and people, Horshack is on the show. Ron "Horshack" Palillo. The alter ego of one of my heroes is on the show, and quite frankly, he needs a bit of that Horshack mojo.
There's nothing like 1970s winky-winky-nudge-nudge-double-entendres.... and those are just the questions. I will say this for the 1970s audience: they're booing the crappy answers. It's refreshing! These are people who don't applaud for celebrity and give a standing O for showing up! More audiences need to boo!
Charles Nelson Reilly is also wearing a burgendy velvet cap and shirt. And a denim jacket. America needs a 21st Century CNR. I'm not talking a Jm J Bullock. I'm talking about a true-blue Charles Nelson Reilly for our times! I'm accepting applications for this role.
3:01:48 PM
Bravo: I spent my evening eating edamame, watching Persuasion, the best filmed version of an Austen book, and trying to remember if Bravo showed commercials during movies when I was a child (the last time I had the channel). I'm pretty sure I saw the original Diabolique on Bravo, without commercials on a bleak fall day lo those many years ago because my freaking out had no interruption. Persuasion!, People, they were showing Persuasion!!
CMT: On my way to the Daily Show, I stopped off at Country Music Television, currently undergoing a bizarre quasi-MTVization of the network (guess who owns CMT?), which is most notable in the form of an awful new show: MWL (Most Wanted Live). It's not even a pale echo of the insipid and insidious TRL: We're talking far more fundamental cringing here. Awkwardities abound! Faux-hipness was never so shallow and transparent. I can only stand 3 minutes of TRL, but managed 5 of MWL, mostly because I dropped the remote under the desk, and had some trouble finding it. CMT still shows videos, so they have a ten point advantage over MTV right now. The level of crappy music shown on both networks is pretty even, however.
Game Show Network: No Whammy! No Whammy! No Whammy! Also, I have a great fondness for those 1950s-era What's My Line type shows. My favorite one ever was a To Tell The Truth episode that featured John Scopes. The two guys who were attempting to baffle the panel's names were Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryant (no relation, actually).
2:48:54 PM
So I've gotten digital cable, and spent the weekend in a orgiastic combination of watching TV, cleaning the domicile, and plotting art. Now that I have a wide array of fascinating television channels full of muck to occupy my time, I have some thoughts about the various channels and their assorted messages. Stand by as I trot these out like so many performing dogs...
12:04:22 AM
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4:55:04 AM
I am incapable of climing stairs like a normal person. At approximately one or three quarters up the journey, my body attempts to skip a stair, breaking the climbing rhythm, throwing me completely off, and making me look like a big dork. I am powerless to prevent this. Powerless!
4:26:15 AM
--blip--
11:38:34 PM
There was a woman on Nightline last night who was wearing one of those repro Titanic necklaces around her neck. In addition to being highly distracting (I couldn't listen to her and look at her without my gaze being caught in the tractor beam of such gaudy hugeness), it struck me as being a curious choice to make when going on Dateline.
In other news... I've gotta stop driving to work. Otherwise, my head will, well, explode, and go ker-plooey. I'm still well on this side of the line, road rage-wise, but damn it, some mornings try my patience.
Dear Big Blue Trucks of Virginia: When making a right turn on green from the outside of two turn lanes, do not cross three lanes of traffic to get in the inner of two right turn lanes. You are damned lucky I inheirited my father's quick responses, and was taught to drive by someone with great defensive skills; Even by slamming on my brakes in what some might have termed a paranoiac fear (before seeing the outcome) and coming to a full stop, you missed me by 3 inches. THREE INCHES. Did you even notice? Did you? No. You did not.
All I could think was: the damn insurance company insured the wrong damn car (when my brand new honda was totalled 3 months after purchase, I bought the same exact model of car. Somehow this information was never conveyed to insurance company: they've been insuring the wrong VIN for almost 5 years), and I would have gotten screwed!
This is not the optimal way to start the day.
So, therefore, I've decided I have to stop driving to work. Either I win the lottery, someone pays me to be me, or I go all Howard Hughes on you.
3:24:47 AM
Ugh. I am the octopus queen, each of my eight hands in some different work pot: stirring, seasoning, dropping in crushed onions...
6:51:34 AM
Ya gotta love the shuffle: The last six things I've heard (with the most recent listed first):
- Tanita Tikaram, World Outside Your Window
- Jimmie Rodgers, Frankie and Johnny
- Lucy Kaplansky, Guinevere
- The Hooters, And We Danced
- Animal, MahNaMahNa (thanks, Ed!)
- Eve (with Gwen Stefani), Let Me Blow Ya Mind
6:11:26 AM
Things I've learned in the past 25 minutes:
- The fire alarms are really faint in our space.
- You can always spot the geeks in the building by who goes over to check out the exposed dials, meters, and valves on the side of the truck.
- It takes approximately 12 minutes (we're a restrained lot) before our conspiracy theories over the cause of the alarm du jour turn to blaming one of our own colleagues.
- If you take your purse outside with you, there's no chance you'll get to go home early.
11:03:36 PM
Ugh. As unposessing a Monday morning as you could ask for: after too many afternoon and early evening naps, my rebellious body simply would not drift off to sleep until 4 am. In some remarkable extended bout with lunacy, I set my alarm clock time an hour ahead, knowing I'd struggle with the concept in my semi-somnolent state at the appointed hour. When it buzzed, I turned the alarm off and decided to self-snooze myself awake, a task I miraculously accomplished. I dragged myself from bed five seven-minute-increments later, and stared bleary eyed at the wall of my shower.
For kicks, the traffic-driving-public decided to drive as if the roads were littered with accidents; slow and steady may win the race, by slow and erratic will tick me off.
I got to work, and set to printing out the charts. I checked my mail. I made some tea. I grabbed what I affectionately like to call breakfast. I checked the printouts, and yelled out "Print, damn you, print!" I chatted. I bantered. I hollered at the printer again.
8:37:25 AM
Rants Ahoy!
8:36:24 AM
Even though I steadfastly refuse to buy anything from Amazon (Hey, they think I'm an idiot, and customer service was really clear on that point - and would not cede ground.), I do use it for reference on occasion. Today, for instance, I was looking at a friend's wishlist.
Amazon thinks I should start a wish list. And they have some suggestions for me:
- David McCullough's John Adams
- David McCullough's John Adams
- David McCullough's John Adams
- David McCullough's John Adams
- David McCullough's John Adams
- David McCullough's John Adams
- David McCullough's John Adams
When I called them, and they read off my order from the database, it was a different list than that on the website. It wasn't an accurate list of things I ordered, but hey, it was different. That woman forwarded my issues to the help desk/customer service, who mailed me and told me that that was my fault and to uninstall my cookie cutters. I responded and said it wasn't my fault, that I knew what programs were on my machine, there were no cookie cutters on my machine, and that as a web developer who used her machine to develop applications using cookies that I was positive about that. I reiterated the situation, and suggested there was a problem on the back-end.
Amazon wrote me back and told me I was wrong. There had to be a cookie cutter on my system, and maybe I should have someone who knew what they looked like to remove them. I pointed out that there were no cookie cutters on my system, that it still looked like a database problem, and reiterated the situation. They wrote back and told me that - using small words - something on my machine was mangling cookies, and I needed to find someone who could find that and remove it.
I gave up.
Sadly, I'm still peeved about the whole situation. They could have at least patronised me, and tossed the report in the bin, and then fulfilled my order as repeated on the phone. But no. They had to keep telling me I didn't know what I was talking about, and that the problems were my fault. It was remarkably bad customer service.