Here, I Come, NYC!

[entelein]

I spend more time before a trip cleaning the house, rather than packing my clothes and making sure I have enough pairs of socks, and clean bras to wear for however many days I will be gone.

I gave the kitchen a good swipe or two, using two buckets of Lysol lime-scented water (hot hot hot water), and then a bucket or two of Murphy's Oil Soap water, for the hardwood floors throughout the rest of the apartment. The ornaments were squashed into the now too-small box, and the large oak table was scrubbed clean of grime and dust and glitter that came off of the ornaments.

TV screen Windexed, clothes picked up, bathroom floor, toilet, and sink, scrubbed to a shine. Dishes washed, put away. Sink polished and scrubbed til gleaming. Counters wiped down, old food thrown out, plants watered.

This will be good to come back to, to embrace in its Ukrainian Village splendor once I return from the Guggenheim and Ground Zero.

My mother actually asked me to go to Ground Zero and take some pictures. She told me this on the phone tonight, and I was mildly (very mildly) horrified. I wasn't really planning on making a point of it, you know? I mean, I could handle (as far as anyone could handle) the rubble itself, but I think what might send me into a collapsible rage would be the circus surrounding the site. I can't imagine that it's all quiet and dignified there, no vendors selling patriotically colored things for ten dollah. I just can't imagine that it's not going to be a madhouse, especially on a weekend day.

I don't know. I suppose I will see how I feel when I get there. It's one of those things I wish I never had the opportunity of seeing, and I am ashamed of the small part of me that acknowledges how dumb I'd feel if I went to New York City and somehow avoided one of the most horrifying things that has occurred in my short lifetime.

If I go, I will pay homage. I will try not to be angry at the present moment. I will try.

Mostly, I just want to spend time with my man, maybe go to a really good diner in New Jersey.

Dinner tonight was basmati rice cooked well and fluffy, with a can of tuna dumped over it, drizzled with soy sauce. Don't knock it; it's good poor food, and it's tasty in a really basic way.

OK. Must pack.

Comments

The Rubble

[(Anonymous)]

Calling it 'Ground Zero' seems silly although everyone does. I spent the first week in January in NYC with two of my friends. We decided that we should go near it anyway. The concierge at the hotel said there were long lines for the viewing platform, wherever it is. That seemed too Disneyland. They told us to take 1 or 2 to the end of the line at Chambers Street. One used to end at the WTC station, I think. We walked straight toward the forbidden zone. There were bits of memorials on the fence and a Christmas tree with memorial stuff. And yes, someone with a table of patriotic stuff. The air was harsh and irritated the cold I was fighting. We noted the enormous gap in front of us, the street signs for Greenwich Street and Park Place pushed back in the direction of uptown. We noticed the building on the edge that was intact on this side of the fence, blown away on the other. We noticed that the streets outside the zone had many, many metal plates where they'd had to dig in and repair infrastructure. We turned away and I said that we would eat something in the first place we found open. Some businesses were still closed and you could see inside some and things were covered with that white coating of concrete dust. A tiny place with an Asian man at the register and a Latino man cooking had three or four stools. We bought egg sandwiches and coffee. We sat on the stools, watching workman go in and out of what might have been a bar across the street. It looked like they were fixing it up. The Asian guy let my friends use the restroom even though it was down some steep stairs and he was afraid my gray-headed friend was old and would fall and sue him. We assured him she wouldn't sue.

Re: The Rubble

[entelein.livejournal.com]

Hee, who are you?

Your description of the site was very much like what I saw -- the weird ghost town of the financial district, the quietness of memorials clashing with the occasional tables full of "patriotic" crap. And some of it was truly crap: Scott told me about the man near one street corner who had dozens of pictures of the towers exploding and then imploding. Many were close-ups of the jumpers.

What the hell, you know?

Anyway, it was somber and weird, and the day we went there, they found another body. I noticed that NY/NJ news is very much centered on the excavation of the rubble. It's not nearly so much that way in Chicago, which really hammered home the proximity thing for me.

The effect of this is *really* felt on the East coast, in that area. It's a veil.