Coma, CA has Serra Bowl!--twenty-four-hour bowling.
3:59 p.m.
9.14.01
People magazine's Best and Worst Dressed issue has some fantastic stuff going on. First there's the tasteless headline accompanying the story on Anne Heche's wedding:
"CRAZY... in love."
Then People's West Coast Style Editor, Steven Cojocaru, gives us his insight on how Nicole Kidman is coping with the end of her marriage:
"Her heart was broken on the inside, but she's healing through fashion."
10:56 a.m.
9.13.01
Me: I still haven't gotten a ticket from that time I accidentally drove through the Fast Track toll lane in Indiana.
Him: You will.
Me: You think? It's been awhile.
Him: Yep. They'll contact the rental car company to figure out it was you, and then send it to you.
Me: That pisses me off, the signs weren't lit at all. I had no idea I was in the wrong lane until I was right up on it; it's not like I could turn around. Maybe I could write an "I'm from out of state" letter.
Him: Right. "I'm from California and I was STOH-ONED. Maybe if you light the signs and make them flash, then maybe I'll notice them."
Me: Shut up.
Me: Whoa! Check that out.
Him: Somebody needs to give that girl a sandwich.
Me: What's up, Halter Top? She's definitely wearing last night's clothes. Walk of shame, baby.
Him: That's a total walk of shame. She's even walking sore.
Me: I think her clogs are bugging her.
Him: Or she just stopped having sex twenty minutes ago. Now she has to go to work wearing that. She's looking for a company T-shirt anywhere she can find one.
10:21 a.m.
9.12.01
I'd like to say something that would help, but this has left so many of us speechless. No
one person is eloquent enough to wrap words around it, you only sense the enormity
when you listen to everyone at once:
"New York is crying," police Officer Tyrone Dux said, unable to contain his own tears
after surveying the smoldering rubble that was once the World Trade Center.
"I don't know what to do," a weeping Alan Rivera said as he stood behind
barricades, hoping for word about his niece, who worked in the Trade Center. "I
can't get through to her on the phone. ... No one can tell me anything."
"We want to tell the American children that Afghanistan feels your pain. We hope
the courts find justice," ambassador Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef said in a
statement in Pakistan after America was hit by a series of attacks that have been
called the worst since Pearl Harbor.
3:55 p.m. People were pinballing down the halls of my office. Who's here, who's
missing? Gabe was there, his train came in there, but he called, he's okay. And then
there were people screaming from the TV-equipped conference room that the first of the
buildings had collapsed and everyone not already at the conference room end of
the hall went running into the crowd of red eyes and loose jaws and then we all watched
the second one just... go.
I stopped in a Times Square store to pick up a few things and the checkout girl
couldn't say anything as she rang me up -- opened her mouth a few times, but
nothing came out. She put my change back down on the counter and left her hand
lying there. I felt almost like I ought to squeeze it.
4:37 p.m. one of my coworker's husband was at the base of the WTC when the first blast
happened. he said there were burning bodies flying out of the sky.
10:46 p.m. my friends and i were eating pasta glued to the t.v. set at their
apartment in times square, one of whom was my friend cherie who was in the
WTC at the time of the blasts. she still had concrete bits in her hair, which she
was picking out one by one.
James McGowan, who recently started his job at the NYSE, was outside getting coffee
when the second plane it. "When the first one hit," he said, "we all thought, 'Oh so the
building'll be on fire.' It was sad, but you know what they say about New Yorkers working
through anything. When the second one hit, I thought, 'Shit, this is serious.' I realized I
had some paperwork in my hand, so I went back to the office and thought, 'I'm putting
this down and getting the hell out of here.' I left the building, not paying attention to what
any of my co-workers were doing, and started walking. A few minutes later, I heard
something (the first building collapsing). I turned around, and 3 blocks back was a tidal
wave of smoke coming right at me. Everyone on the street started running. I saw women
fall down, screaming, and people were going around them. People running beside me
had their faces cut to ribbons. It was like a fucking movie."
10:48 a.m. I walked all the way back from downtown. I don't know how I can
type this. it was absolutely indescribable. I was watching, we were watching the
first WTC building, watching the people fall and the flames burn when I saw a
plane, a passenger size plane, come out of the sky, arc around and crash
DIRECTLY into the other tower!! It left a huge hole and smoke and flames.
People in the office were shouting and crying. Someone yelled GET OUT and we
all walked the stairs down to the ground. The streets were crazy. People
wandering around, dazed, crying, freaked out.
We gathered on Park Row on the East side of City Hall to watch the towers.
People were in shock. After a while of speculating and staring, we saw one of the
towers collapse heard the boom and a HUGE HUGE HUGE ball of smoke
billowed out. People started running away. People were almost trampled as the
police tried to wrangle people out of the area. I walked and walked and everybody
just kept walking. the streets are filled with dazed people. It's insane. Horrible.
Unthinkable. Then as I was walking, finally I stopped and turned around on
Mercer near the Angelika and we saw the other Tower go.
I don't know what to say. I really don't. this is beyond description. beyond words.
3:42 p.m. So, its later this afternoon. We've been watching the coverage all morning and
afternoon. Phone calling friends. Touching base. Trying to make sure everyone's okay,
letting everyone know that I'm okay. Its been an exhausting, emotional day.
I think I'm still in shock.
I can't get the pictures out of my mind: watching people leap to their deaths, choosing
between being immolated alive or crushed by falling. I saw one woman, and I know it's
impossible, but I could have sworn I heard her scream. Its something you can't imagine. I
never thought I could imagine.
Everytime I see that footage of that plane hitting the second tower, I twitch.
The thing is that as we looked out the windows of the office, trying to comprehend how a
plane could possibly run into the World Trade Center, we just thought it was a horrible,
horrible accident. But watching that other plane come in defied belief. And then it just
crashed right in.
9:48 a.m. I heard some guy on the street telling a cop that he just saw a plane hit the
World Trade Center. He didn't look like a crank, but the cops seemed as dumbfounded as
I was confused about why they were listening to him. Until I looked up and saw the cloud
of smoke in the sky. I went up to my office on the 20th floor of a midtown office
building, where I could see the smoking top of the WTC through the window, while a TV
showed a replay of the second plane colliding with one of the towers. They've shut down
all the airport, bridges, tunnels, and downtown subways while they wait to see if the
damage is done for now, or if the city is actually under attack by terrorists.
But I'm OK, in case you're worrying, Mom.
11:40 a.m. Pearl Harbor, Kennedy's assassination, the Challenger explosion, and now
this. Another generation is going to have their first memory of exactly where they were
and what they were doing when the shit hit the fan.
3:15 p.m. The site of the Towers from the street and from work was fiction, surrealism,
completely impossible to really accept. If you've ever been to New York, you know that
you can see the Towers from all over the place. They're like a pair of compass needles for
the whole city. My whole trip back to Brooklyn was punctuated by hundreds of views of
the smoke rising from the rubble where I'd otherwise be seeing the Towers themselves.
Midtown was completely insane. From the office, I could see people swarming all over
the streets, and people standing on the roofs of every building around, staring fixedly at
the plume. Down on the street, it was mayhem. People were rushing everywhere,
generally north. Tempers were flaring in the panic — especially in the fights over cabs.
Paranoia was out of control. I passed an SUV on 3rd Avenue whose engine caught fire,
and people were just flipping out when they saw the smoke. Every time an F16 flew
overhead, every head around looked up — everyone is afraid of planes today. I joined a
throng of people heading to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel after seeing cardboard signs go
up saying the tunnel was open and every car around was taking people out of Manhattan.
It really was an effective evacuation of the area. I caught a cab with a few other people,
then walked home from Long Island City — a long, hot, weird journey filled with other
refugees from a day that started out like any other.
I can't turn away from the news. The jingoism is driving me crazy. This is an attack
against US, for God's sake, not democracy itself. Can the rhetoric, because no one's good
enough to get it right. I actually prefer watching Adolph Guiliani and Governor Pataki
talk about it, because they're shying away from the "threat to American ideals" bit (for the
most part) and concentrating on the massive, massive rescue effort that is underway to
control the chaos and the disaster in lower Manhattan.
When the dust settles (literally), I just know that Shrub is gonna do something stupid.
Yes, we're going to have to do something, but he's not the person I want to call the shots
right now. Even worse, he might come out of this as some kind of hero, just because he's
in office right now. Whatever peope are able to do to handle the situation, he'll be able to
claim credit for his leadership. Man, I bet they couldn't get Colin Powell on the phone
fast enough this morning.
Clemant Lewin, a banker who works across street from the World Trade Center towers,
said that after the initial explosion, he looked out the window and saw people jumping
from the building from as high as the 80th floor, including a man and a woman holding
hands as they fell.
Robert James, 43, manager of a Modell's sports store near the Trade Center, was in the
basement when he heard the explosion, then emerged to see at least five bodies fall from
the skyscraper. He was nearby for the 1993 Trade Center bombing, James said, adding, "I
don't think I'll work down here anymore."
12:01 p.m. I just went out to vote. Today is the mayoral primary in New York City and,
despite all that's happened this morning -- maybe even because of all that's happened -- I
wanted to try and vote.
9:39 a.m. Oh this is awful. The air smells like burnt flesh. There is shit flying and a layer
of debris on the ground. You can hear the jets flying over the city. Just incredible.
App one of the towers collapsed, there is so much smoke and debris is falling like snow.
There are papers on the roof. Pages from a Japanese book of some sort. Only one
television station is coming in at all. It's insane.
Last night, I spoke to a friend who lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She noted
how when she looks around her neighborhood, there were so many apartments with no
lights on. She wondered if the people who lived there would ever come home.
Lynn and my Niece Liz's husband, Jeremy Glick was on United flight 93 this morning.
When the Hijackers took control of flight 93. Jeremy called my niece who in-turn
conferenced him to 911. Jeremy relayed to the police what was happening as the
hijacking unfolded. As our niece Liz listened, Jeremy told the police there were three
Arab terrorists with knives and a large red box that they claimed contained a bomb.
Jeremy tracked the second by second details and relayed them to the police by phone.
After several minutes of describing the scene, Jeremy and several other passengers
decided there was nothing to lose by rushing the hijackers. Although United Flight 93
crashed outside of Pittsburgh, with the loss of all souls. Jeremy and the other patriotic
heroes saved the lives of many people on the ground that would have died if the Arab
terrorists had been able to complete their heinous mission.
after the second plane ran into the building (excuse me, could someone rewind that?) and
the building burned for a while, i went back downstairs for a cup of coffee. people were
loudly sobbing on my roof. everyone screamed when it happened. you could hear 11
stories of screams and OH MY GODS from the roof and the stairwells...
i feel nothing, except fear and gratitude that none of my family live here. i am sort of
numb to the rest of it, isolated in brooklyn, and trained by american action films to take
things like planes flying into buildings, mass explosions, and the destruction of major
buildings for granted.
11:31 p.m. Reports are coming in that survivors trapped in the rubble are using their cell
phones to call for help... How anyone could have survived that is beyond me. Are New
Yorkers tough or what?
I was doing better today, until a short while ago when I was at a cafe for breakfast. As I
stood in line, someone (very loudly and in a very accusing tone) asked: "Are you from
Afghanistan??" All eyes turned upon me, burning, each one accompanied with
accusatory frowns. Needless to say, I very sheepishly said: "I am not from
Afghanistan.", then I quietly left ... with an empty stomach and almost crying.
I felt so small and I now feel so unsafe and uncomfortable.
11:13 a.m. It's fascinating to get first-hand accounts of how people abroad are reacting.
Mark has been either shell shocked or weepy over in Italy, and people there have been
coming up and just giving him hugs when they realize he's American.
This is a city where people generally go out of their way to avoid contact with other
people. Not today. People in the elevator asked if all of my friends had been accounted
for, told me their friends' narrow escapes. Walking Dex this morning, I passed people I
pass almost every morning, plus a few strangers. We met each other's eyes as we passed
and exchanged a terse, but kind, smile. Those of us that knew each other on sight but
had maybe never spoken much or at all asked how the other was doing. "Do you need
anything?" I thought I'd stop crying today, but I haven't.
11:47 a.m. ...Some restaurants are open, some are closed with hastily made signs. One that I passed said
"Eatery is closed today. God Bless America."...
5:59 p.m.
9.5.01
A few nights ago, I got a little misty when a cab driver waited for me to get inside safely before driving away. This morning, I felt an inexplicable sense of relief at having an elevator entirely to myself. I think it's time to spend a weekend somewhere that has trees.
11:27 a.m.
9.4.01
'NSync bedding, the shortest distance between you and a nightmare.
Also, I'll be at the Web 2001 show all week. That's me to your right. Come say hi.
11:43 a.m.
8.31.01
My favorite parts of Stephen King's On Writing:
On writing seminars:
"It seems to occur to few of the attendees that if you have a feeling you just can't describe, you might just be, I don't know, kind of like, my sense of it is, maybe in the wrong fucking class."
On becoming a cub sports reporter:
"I told Mr. Gould that I didn't know much about sports. Gould said, 'These are games people understand when they're watching them drunk in bars. You'll learn if you try.'"
10:01 a.m.
8.30.01
Ladies night excerpts:
Lady 1: So he said he wasn't gonna date her anymore because she wasn't a good lay. So I said, "I'm curious, what's a bad lay from a guy's viewpoint?" And he goes (spreads legs, adopts blank look).
Lady 2: So it's not that she wasn't a good lay, it's just that "lay" was her only trick.
Lady 3: The Dissected Frog.
Lady 1: Did you guys hear that Mr. Rogers isn't doing shows anymore?
Lady 2: Yeah. That sucks.
Lady 3: I have a signed picture of Mr. Rogers.
Lady 1: No way.
Lady 3: Mmm hmm. My dad met him once.
Lady 4: Wouldn't it be rad to get Mr. Rogers to sign your panties or something?
Lady 5: I wonder if he'd do it.
(Pensive silence.)
Lady 1: He's kind of boastful. We're going around introducing ourselves, and he's saying the exact same thing to every person. I heard it like 30 times. That's OK if you've known someone a couple years, you expect to hear their stories again. But I barely know him. When you've known a person a few years you know all their stories, and when they meet someone new you can kind of settle into doing your own thing while they talk. But this guy I just met, and I'm hearing the same thing over and over and over. Then, I started getting sarcastic about it, like filling in responses for him, and he didn't get it.
All: Ohhh nooooo.
11 a.m.
8.30.01
Last Friday was Julie's birthday. She wanted to go see "The Vagina Monologues," so we got tickets. For a few hours we listened appreciatively as three women reenacted interviews with hundreds of women talking about their vaginas. When the lights came up, I was entirely too aware that everyone around me had genitalia. Then we went home.
12:05 a.m.
8.28.01
Overheard: Somebody done somebody wrong.
Characters: Two teenage girls on the bus.
Girl 1: You got to call her.
Girl 2: Well, she say she saw her leave with some man.
Girl 1: Call her.
Girl 2: If she didn't see up close, how she know it was Amid?
Girl 1: Uh-uh! You got to call her.
3:16 p.m.
8.27.01
The guys over at The Morning News just published a very brief interview with me (bottom right corner, second column).
11:01 a.m.
Went backpacking this weekend, and cursed my lack of penis.
Me: Are you peeing again?
Him: Yep, and I don't even need to.
Me: Damn you.
Him: I'm just doing it because the convenience overwhelms me.
Me: Bastard.
10:49 a.m.
8.24.01
This guy wants to be a cat. He's filed his teeth down, his nails are clawlike, and he has stripe tattoos all over his body. Now he wants fur. Rowrrr! Hey there, Tiger.
Ugly Fat Kid summarizes the average American political sentiment in under ten seconds: "I say we should pass a law about all these problems. There. That covers it. Now on to sports..."
3:57 p.m.
Three confessions:
I type my grocery list.
I had Fritos for breakfast.
Last night, I watched the entire Miss Teen USA pageant, even the part where Mandy Moore sang barefoot.
11:09 a.m.
8.22.01
Tuesday night at Naps is Karaoke night. The hot dogs on the back table may be gray, but they're free. There's also a wholesale-sized tub of relish if that's your gig. When we got there, about five regulars lined the bar, and a fellow named Brian was singing a drunken-scat version of "If You Think I'm Sexy."
"If you beh-dee SEXY
ahn you me-dee BODY
Wee-bby beeh-doo body KNOW."
Meanwhile, frustrated barflies screamed the actual lyrics and made instructive gestures at Brian, who smiled vaguely, raised his arms above his head, and gyrated. Did I mention free hot dogs? Awesome.
11:18 a.m.
8.21.01
Overheard: My neighborhood (Noe Valley) in a nutshell.
Characters: Three thirty-somethings shift indecisively in the street.
Woman 1: That doesn't make sense, we'll have to double back.
Man: Well, what do you want to do?
Woman 3: Let's go get the dog, then go to Starbucks.
3:55 p.m.
p.s. Go see The Others. Great, great movie. Karma gods were paying me back for Original Sin.
3:57 p.m.
It's a letter from a stranger. Someone I don't know.
You're in the skin trade, baby, the skin trade.
(Angelina Jolie to a priest:) Do you believe in forgiveness? Redemption for the human soul?
1:55 p.m.
8.17.01
More people I wish I knew:
The guy in the boyscout ski cap wearing a T-shirt that reads, "Smoke crack, worship Satan."
The beautiful girl in the pale pink sweater running back to her construction site with hardhat in hand.
12:42 p.m.
8.16.01
Just read about a Japanese arcade game called
Boong Ga Boong Ga. A description from the linked site: "You, the player, try to cram a plastic finger up a virtual woman's ass. The harder you shove, the more reaction you get from the computerized face on the screen." The world is an odd, odd place.
[P.S. Luke wrote in to point out that the game is actually Korean, and it has eight characters: ex-girlfriend, ex-boyfriend, gangster, mother-in-law, gold digger, prostitute, child molester, and con artist. Quentin says that, "The mission isn't to 'cram a virtual finger up a virtual woman's ass.' The idea is just to poke their butt really hard in a kind of spanking-esque way." Good clarifications. And my new mission is to work "spanking-esque" into polite conversation.]
2:02 p.m.
8.15.01
I just joined the Top Ten Blog. Stop by, won't you?
3:53 p.m.
Yesterday, I had stir fry for lunch. Last night, there was rice in my bra.
(That could totally be a haiku.)
3:53 p.m.
8.14.01
"Dictionaryaoke: audio clips from online dictionaries sing the hits of yesterday and today." I favor "Girl From Ipanema" and "Highway to Hell."
The actual headline of a press release I received a few days ago:
Collaboration and Web-Based Self-Service Access to Brand Assets and
Marketing Collateral Enable Tighter Brand Control for Enterprises and
their Partners
11:30 a.m.
8.10.01
Fun trip. My cousin married a Boy Scout troop leader; I fell down a flight of basement stairs in Toledo without breaking any bones; then I drove to Chicago where I met most of the 37 Signals crew--all of whom are as smart and fun in person as they are on screen.
The highlight of the trip was my drive from Cincinnati to Chicago. Indiana radio... how can I say this tactfully?... bites monkey butt. If I hear "I Hope You Dance" one more time, I'm going to find Lee Ann Womac and exchange a few of my own affirmational phrases with her. And who can forget Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam's "Head to Toe"? Apparently not the Indiana DJs, because I haven't heard that gem as much since 1987.
But there were a few things I'll always cherish about the Midwest:
Restaurants called Beef and Brandy.
Lewd camera poses with Bob's Big Boy statues.
The woman in a denim top with a matching bunny-print denim bag.
Seven Bucks for a steak, and Krispy Kreme Lemon-filled donuts.
The way natives say "Chicahgoh."
I'm home now, which means that I'd have to search long and hard for a country music station on the radio, and I can talk smack about American cars in crowded restaurants without getting the crap kicked out of me.
12:03 p.m.
8.6.01
Someone once said that Toledo sounds like something winged monkeys would sing. And it does, "Toh-lee-DOH, weeeoh-WHUM." Every corner that doesn't have an Applebees or a Perkins has a funeral parlor. Two brief Ohio related conversations I had with Fred, who is a certifiable Toledo resident:
Me: Rudy's Hot Dogs. Oh, my God. That place only serves hot dogs?
Fred: No, they also have omlettes.
Fred: So I've already taken some hassling because the new truck's an import.
Me: What? Please. [I look around the restaurant and whisper:] American cars are crap.
Fred: You know you're in the Midwest when you have to say that in hushed tones.
Now I'm in Chicago. The humidity is such that I don't need to rewet my contacts. It's like heaven, except with more toll booths.
10:30 a.m.
7.31.01
Have you ever been mesmerized by your monitor, so deep in concentration that you can't look away? And say you needed Chapstick while the monitor glowed seductively. Would you reach into your desk drawer blindly and feel around until you found it? OK, good. Now how close would you actually come to applying the glue stick to your lips?
6:24 p.m.
7.30.01
Graffito on the train: "No fear of Funk."
10:17 a.m.
7.27.01
Brief conversation with a girl whose name is a noun:
Me: Hi, I'm Maggie.
Her: I'm Jubilee.
Me: What a happy name.
Her: You think so?
Me: Yeah, like, celebration, party...
Her: Huh. I guess I never thought about it that way.
10:21 a.m.
7.26.01
I was having a pleasant afternoon, when I grabbed some Chinese food for lunch and my fortune cookie ambushed me, "You lead a double life and enjoy pretending to be something you are not." Youch. I know fortune cookies rarely tell your fortune, but when did they start telling you off?
2:45 p.m.
7.25.01
"Traditionally, the same actor plays Captain Hook and Mr. Darling."
— The Picture Book of Peter Pan (c. 1930)
Does anyone else think that's creepy?
2:30 p.m.
7.24.01
Overheard: Theological discussion at Firefly.
Scenario: Two characters from a Woody Allen movie swap neurosis at the next table.
Him: I'm just worried that I'll never taste the joyous nectar of true Dharma. Because I'm fucked up. And I know I'm fucked up! And there's nothing I can do about that.
Her: Yeah.
11:16 a.m.
7.20.01
It was like something out of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel--we fell in love when the butterflies were mating. I drove home between fields of corn, and hundreds of yellow butterflies chased one another across the road. The setting was idyllic, the relationship proved less so. He was an entrepreneur without a lot of extra time for romance, I was too young to be thinking about happily ever after. A year later, I was upset, and disappointed, and ready to call it quits. Driving home one night, I realized the butterflies were mating again. I smiled and watched two of them dance around each other. Then they hit my windshield.
10:36 a.m.
7.19.01
The only really funny five-word Webby speech was Google's: "Google gives great... search results."
11:15 p.m.
7.18.01
The New Yorker's fabulous blurb about "Riverdance" on Broadway: "Not the Lord of the Dance with his shirt off and the leather truss. The other one."
12:20 p.m.
7.17.01
One of my favorite love poems:
I wish I were close
To you as the wet skirt of
A salt girl to her body.
I think of you always.
—Akahito
12:22 p.m.
I've been doing some impromptu modeling around the office, which tends to happen when you work in a building full of trade publications. Anyway, I finally (finally!) have my very own banner ad:
It's for the WEB2001 Conference, and as you can see, I'm totally a guru. You'll also find an itty bitty me on the catalog cover:
And you can kind of see my butt on the June edition of Intelligent Enterprise.
11:14 a.m.
Also, I'll be at the Web 2001 show all week. That's me to your right. Come say hi.
It's for the WEB2001 Conference, and as you can see, I'm totally a guru. You'll also find an itty bitty me on the catalog cover:
And you can kind of see my butt on the June edition of Intelligent Enterprise.
11:14 a.m.
