I guess it would be cliched to say: Slowly, things are getting back to normal. But I suppose there should be little concern over what's cliché or cheesy. I'm of the opinion that nothing can be cliché or cheesy right now. There's no such thing as overreacting. You can't say so-and-so is overreacting to the situation. It's still too early. Even if you didn't personally know anyone hurt in the attacks, that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't be upset. But I'm feeling a little better. Not that i was really feeling bad i guess. I guess I was just in shock, and feeling sort of numb and in a state of disbelief. But now that I've been to Manhattan and seen the new skyline, and seen the jets flying overhead and seen the people walking around carrying candles, it's all very real. There are American flags everwhere, and it's sort of nice to see. I'm having surprising reactions to all of this. I've always felt detached from most of what was going on around me, and i never really wanted to identify with the population at large. But lately the feeling of community and unity is really doing a lot for me. It's not like everyone's going around hugging each other or anything. but there's defintely been a subtle change in the general mood of everyone. And at times it gives me chills. The good kind. And lately, the things I'm feeling detached from the most are things like cynicism and sarcasm and irony. Deep down, anyway. And maybe it's about time. It's just gotten to the point where those things just make me angry and sad and disappointed.Anyway, on Friday afternoon I decided to try and return to routine and went to the gym in Carroll Gardens. the first time I'd gotten on the subway since Monday. And the first time I saw the new downtown skyline. I don't even remember where the towers would be. Anyway, as soon as I stepped out of the train, I saw posted on one of the exits a sign someone had posted, with a picture of a person missing from the WTC attack. it was the first one of those I saw, and it sent a chill down my spine. That was really the first confirmation I had that the whole thing was really real. Anyway, after the gym, I met Caryn for coffee in the East Village. After that we walked around a bit, shopping for records in St. Marks, wandering into various shoe stores and other places for an hour or so. Every few minutes two F-16 fighters would fly overhead. There's something I like about living in a city that's patrolled by fighter jets. It does provide a certain feeling a increased security. While we were around Cooper Square, there seemed to be an awful lot of police cars speeding north toward Union Square. We were meeting my brother Geoff for dinner in a bit, so to kill time we decided to go see what all the hubbub was about. When were got to 14th Street, there were cops everywhere, directing traffic and people through the street. Throughout the week, there had been an amassing of makeshift memorials throughout Union Square, and on Friday, as was the case throughout the city, there was a candelight vigil in the Square. I felt sort of weird not having a candle or anything. But I was content to just observe. We waded through the crowd for a while, then cross the street into the south lawn of the Square. There were people playing the guitar and singing songs and occasionally the national anthem would break out. I thought there was something very European about it. Maybe because these sorts of distasters always seem so exotic. it's never happened here. We always see people on tv, far away, singing their national anthem and holding candles and building memorials. Anyway, 99.9% of the time, when I'm walking around and here people seeing "give peace a change," i'll be snickering at them. But it would have been impossible, not to mention obscenely callous, to do any of that on Friday. It's too soon to be making any jokes. Not that it'll ever be ok to laugh about it, but of course it'll happen. But it's still too early for even the most unsympathetic asshole to get away with it. I was really interested to see how the Onion would handle it. They've pushed the limits in the past, but never really tastelessly. It's always intelligent. I was pleased with how they handled the Columbine mess. Anyway, all around the square hung posters that people had posted about their missing dads or moms or girlfriends or aunts or friends. It was all unspeakably sad. The entire square was packed with people. There's been a lot of construction around Union Square, and a lot of the people were standing on top of the bulldozers and giant pipes. Nobody was told to get down or anything by the cops. Although I didn't think it was a good idea by some parents to let their kids stand on top of all the construction material. Though it did provide a good view of the affair. Feeling a need to document things as I do, i took some pictures.
I need a new camera.
A dumpster lined with candles, and signs reading "Hate Free Zone." That was a little much.
The giant banner reading "NYC WANTS JUSTICE, NOT REVENGE"
I was a little disturbed by this sign that read "God Bless America." Because of the picture of the towers. They're drawn in blue, with smoke around them, and if you can see at the bottom, there are cars zipping away and little stick people running for their lives. It sincerely hope this was done by third graders who didn't know any better.
As much as you see people crying for blood and retaliation on the news, the prevailing sentiment in the city seems to be a call for peace and understanding, to not make the attack an issue of race or religion, and to separate the attackers from the rest of their culture. I was watching tv the other night, and a lot of congressmen were talking about what we needed to do next. Most talked about increased security and standing as a nation united without party bickering. One little tirade stood out, that of the esteemed gentleman from Georgia, who said "We need to bomb the hell out of Afghanistan right now! If there's collateral damage, so be it! I can live with that, because they sure as hell didn't seem to care too much about our citizens!" I'm hoping that when the dust settles a bit, this little speech will spell the end of this guy's politcal career. There's just no place for these kid of hawks anymore. Sure, I'm glad the Republicans are in charge at a time like this, particularly the mayor. But this guy is just absurd. It's really appalling that he'd be calling for the killing of more innocent people, simply because they happened to live in Afgahnistan. But I guess you knew that.
Anyway, we met up with Geoff and walked north through the square to try to find a place to eat. What bothered Geoff the most about the whole gathering in the square was that he perceived most people of having the mentality of "Hey, let's go down and light a candle and then go get some beers." Like a little remembrance was just another part of a Friday night out. I suppose I saw his point, and we seemed just as guilty. Especially when we couldn't find anywhere to eat that didn't have an absurdly long wait. Eventually, dinner was had a L'Express, a french restaurant around 20th Street and Park. And it was damn tasty. The highlight of the meal was the string beans.
So after that, I came home, sat around for a while, then went to Great Lakes with Matt. He was telling me his desire to start up a coop of about 15 people to buy supplies in bulk. Stuff like toilet paper and basic foodstuffs, as well as gas masks. I was having a little trouble following him, but it sounded ok in principle.
Saturday afternoon, I met up with Caryn and her friend Nate at another East Village coffee shop. Then walked over to a garden in Alphabet City where Nate had a little plot of vegetables growing. Hey, here's some pictures of that:
Caryn in the Garden of Nate
A small half Japanese child who'd just fallen down. Is it just me, or are half Asian kids always really cute?
So after that, back to home, and ate the caviar cream cheese I bought at a fish store on Houston Street. Delicious. And curiously, the cream cheese was the exact grey-blue color I want to paint my room.
In the evening, all residents of the apartment walked down to Matt's place on 6th avenue. The plan was to do some drinking, then go out to a bar. My friend Jen K, whom I knew from the Parks Department, called shortly before we left and said she was just sitting in her apartment listening to Stevie Wonder and drinking vodka and had nothing to do, so I told her to come on over. She's one of the more quality people I've met in the last year. At a mere 20 years old, she seems really together. I'm guessing eventually life will give her the beat down it gives everyone else and send her into the customary mid-20's turmoil, but for now she seems pretty good. She has more of a plan than me, anyway. So she came over with her roommate Angela and her friend Beth, who had lived in the Water St. NYU dorms and so had no place to live, since the dorms are in the downtown area that's been sealed off. So we hung out there for a while and went down to Long Tan on 5th ave. Jen's presence made the evening a lot more interesting than it probably would've been otherwise. Her roommate seemed quite taken with Matt. I mostly talked with the roomates and with Jen. She just got one of those little Nokia cell phones, and since she had no pockets she was keeping it in her bra. It was set on vibrate, so I felt obligated- after 5 or 6 drinks- to repeatedly call her cell phone. Sometimes I really wonder about me. Anyway, i also talked sporadically with Beth. She's a black girl from Connecticut, and she was apparently the only black girl in her highschool class. She says she doesn't feel obligated to hang out with other black people, and has actually been made to feel bad about this by others. She thinks it's ridiculous how PC some people try to be. The other day, she stopped by her friend's office to say hello, but her friend wasn't there. So she just told someone there to tell her that she stopped by. So when this person delivered the message, she wouldn't say "she was black." According to Beth, she actually went so far as to say "She was really...tan." Anyway, she seemed pretty cool. For some time now, Matt's had the feeling that we needed to add someone new to our group of friends, to round out the group. He's long thought that a dreadlocked black girl would be the ideal candidate. So he was somewhat excited by beth's presence. And I must admit, she did seem to fit the bill. I mean, honestly, no black person would really have that much in common with us that she'd be a real core member of our little group. But Beth's about as black as I am Chinese, or as Matt is Puerto Rican. It's almost just by happenstance, really. Yeah, she's black, but she doesn't really seem to indentify that much with that or care about what that implies. Of course I'm not saying black is bad. I'm just saying that we seem to have a nice little theme of diluted ethnicity going. Like, sure, James is Greek, but that's not a dominating factor in his everyday life. It just adds a little diversity and spice to our group picture. We all just bring a little bit of our parent's culture to the group, but in a sort of bastardized form. And beth would fit in nicely. Of course, a major point here is that it just happened that our group makeup is what it is. It's not like we went out looking, as would be the case now. Anyway, I'm sure this sounds really absurd, and maybe a bit offensive. Is this something I should even be discussing?
Anyway, after a few drinks at Long Tan, we headed down the Street to Great Lakes. Somewhere along the way, we lost Jed. He just left. Apparently, we found out later, he had some sort of freak out and "just couldn't do it" and decided to go home, without a word to anybody. That was a bit bizarre. So we sat around the Lakes for a few hours. Here's an out of context quote that matt said that I promised he'd see in print: "That's so Jenny Garth!" At this point, I can't really even remember what we were talking about that Matt would use his inflected gay voice and say such a thing. I'm just glad I remembered he said it.
So today, after getting up again around 2 in the afternoon, Caryn and Katey came over for an outing in Prospect Park. Katey had with her a copy of the lates Village Voice. I've never had much respect for that paper. I think it's pretty awful and the writing is generally pretty bad. But it's actually managed to drop lower in my esteem. The cover this week was a closeup of the Towers after the second plane hit. The headline said "THE BASTARDS!" This was one of the worst things i've seen. It seemed more a like a fake Onion headline. It's obviously a bit tongue in cheek, which at this time seems to me to be absolutely tasteless. I think, 20 years from now, when people look back at the headlines after this attack, the Voice will be really embarrassed that they ran that. Of course, they should be really embarrassed right now. Anyway, so we went up to the Park and had a fairly relaxing afternoon of throwing the frisbee. The weather the last two days has been just perfect. I met Geoff in Manhattan, walked around Soho for a while, had dinner on St. Marks, and then sat around a coffee shop for a while by myself. I just sat there for a long while, drinking coffee and looking out the window. Caryn came a little later. Then I went home. And tomorrow, I start painting. And so things are getting back to normal. Like this long-winded account of my weekend. Congratulations if you made it this far. Obviously, your job hasn't been affected by the crisis, and you're sitting around with nothing to do. Jerk.