Monday, May 23, 2005
Way too much of a might-have-been-good thing
Let's see… Saturday was lively enough. After a decent night's sleep and a quick run, mea & Pea (cute aside: my grandma, upon reading the blog printouts she gets from my mom, had in her mind that *Pea,* when used in reference to David, was meant to be pronounced pee-uh) headed to Soho where we met my friend from the UWMC days, Tui, for lunch. Meet Tui:
While w/ Tui, a fine miss in town for the NY Hawaiian Film Festival, I polished off a half-pound of rare beef in the form of a very large cheeseburger (onions and mushrooms, hold the pickle please), and I dare say my stomach continues to fight me over it a full two days later. Of course, there's a chance that the tube of cookie dough Pea & I pursued doggedly over the course of the weekend is in itself a force to be reckoned with, but why fret.
In an effort to relieve myself of troublesome beef pains, we set out on foot, southward toward Battery Park and the Staten Island Ferry. I'd had my sights set on Coney Island, as I still have yet to experience the setting of one of my all-time favorite movies, Big. But the bf wasn't so, ur, big on the idea, so SI (for the return-view only) was our compromise. It was sunny and blue overhead, which made for a nice mosey. We started on Broadway, where we lasted for all of ten minutes before foaming, stumbling tourists pushed us over to Lafayette. A bit of window shopping and some bubble tea later, we found ourselves in the financial district, again in the path of the WTC site. Seen it a few times since being here, and every time I've had to stop to suck in a breath. It's like, I can't believe that happened in my country. Sometimes I'll be walking around wherever, conscious of how infrequently I've heard the event referenced since my arrival. The enormity of it presupposes, for me anyway, that people will be talking about it—still—a good amount of the time. But of course, that's illogical and I know it. It's been almost four years, the tragedy has been analyzed again and again and again from every possible perspective, most New Yorkers have presumably dealt w/ the thickest part of it, and what do I expect to overhear on the sidewalk anyway? Yet since I wasn't present, I feel the need to engage in my own inner processing of what happened in the city in which I now live, even if way-retrospectively. I did what I could from across the country, but that didn't feel the same.
Staten Island itself was saved for another day, considering once we reached its soil, we aboutfaced and headed right straight back to The Real Thing. The 20-minute ferry ride north was quite great, though—again, it was the fantastic view. The heart of the city looked surprisingly *clumpy* from a distance—like all the height was saved up for the center, which I know is a trademark of many large cities; it's just that when you're walking around in this one, no matter where you are, every structure seems to have equally large magnitude. Maybe it's just me. Anyway, the late afternoon sun reflecting off all that metal up ahead was stunning—like abalone shells.
Later that night we went to a Williamsburg bar w/ our friends Aaron, Athena, Darrell et al. It was fun. Same held true for yesterday (fun). We met up w/ dear friend Kristin Proctor, of Seattle blood, for an early dinner, and it felt like a warm, needed touch of home.
Posted by princess kanomanom @
9:14 PM
Read or Post a Comment
I was in Seattle on 9/11 and I remember an overwhelming feeling that I needed to go home to NY to try and do something--or, I guess, just be there with everyone else to suffer. I was from upstate but still felt they hit my home. It was frustrating to be 3,000 miles away.
hey everyone check out this site it is legit and really works!!
http://www.freephotoiPods.com/?r=15671350
"Anyway, the late afternoon sun reflecting off all that metal up ahead was stunning—like abalone shells."
nice
i fight my survivor guilt by doing everything i can to move people into downtown. while every other real estate agent i know sticks to "the grid" i am doggedly showing tribeca and the financial district, because the only way to reclaim that part of town is if people LIVE there.]
dammit yer rss feed doesn't work, k.
You have an outstanding good and well structured site. I enjoyed browsing through it » » »