9/11 and More

I wrote this earlier this morning, but blogger was down so I didn't get a chance to post it until tonight. Now I'm home after just 5 or 6 drinks, ready to head to bed. What restraint, n'est pas? I'm proud of myself. I can still get in a good 7 hours!!! (It's currently 12:08 am on 9/13).

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9/11 is always a hard day for me. I think it serves as an excuse to step outside of myself and outside of the particular and to face some larger spiritual questions.

I don't have anyone to "personally" mourn; rather, it just makes me think about life.

Remembering what happened four years ago evokes a strange mix of feelings. I really don't have it in me to write a whole long 9/11-post, but it was a frightening time. B was teaching at a college just a few blocks from the towers and nobody could get a hold of him all day long. I was teaching that day--my second day of teaching ever! (I was teaching at a small high school in Jackson Heights, Queens). Of course, I was panicked beyond belief without being able to reach him. I wasn't sure how I was going to get home that night. They had closed all the bridges to Manhattan. I took a subway as far as the 59th street bridge and then had to do some smooth talking. I told the soldiers there that I had to pick up a daughter from day care in Manhattan. They let me walk across and a few hours later, when I got home I found B passed out asleep on the couch. (We lived on the Upper West Side back then).

A friend from college was in the second tower to be hit, but luckily she was neurotic enough to run out of the building before the tower was struck. The weeks after that were strangely dream like. I used to take the 7-train to work and in the morning, coming out of the tunnel, looking south you could see billows of smoke rising for months. The sky was haunted. Everything was haunted.

I'm sure that everyone here in the city had similar moments--the hundreds of "missing" persons signs with smiling photos posted on every corner, the bushels of flowers left in front of firehouses and memorials. I'm just not the same person I was before all of that happened.

And then there's that recurring dream that started shortly after 9/11. It's strange--I still have that dream, at least once every few months. In the dream I'm in one of the towers and it's burning. I'm hiding under a desk and am entirely alone. Papers are flying everywhere and the smell of smoke is awful. Then, suddenly, I happen to see somebody else stuck in the same situation. Down an office corridor, I see a man hunched under a table trying to avoid flying debris. I can't really see his face though. He is dressed in a white shirt and khaki pants. I call out to him and we exchange some words. It's pretty clear that the building is about to collapse and we arrange to try to crawl nearer to each other. We finally meet each other by the windows. I still can't see his face. It's blurry or something. We both acknowledge that we're going to die in that building, and decide (as many people did on that day) to jump out of the window together. Somehow, in my dream, I'm sure that it's better to die holding someone's hand, actively connecting with another human being, than to be taken down alone in fire and steel. But just as I'm about to grab his hand to jump, he turns towards me and his face comes into an awful sharp focus. He has the face of a "joker," a terrifying distorted jeering grin-- his face is horridly smeared with white makeup and his smile is blood red. His eyes are flashing yellow and evil. I'm frightened beyond belief but I take his hand anyway and we jump. That's it.

I'm not sure what the dream means, but I've had it ever since 9/11.

It's weird. Narc lives pretty close to ground zero and I've walked by there a million times since then. The place itself seems disassociated from my memories about it. It feels strangely barren to me. But my memories are still so rich. Anyway, I don't want to dwell on that stuff anymore today. I have too much to do to start getting all morose.

Saturday was a frustrating day. Anxious picked me up in the morning to go approve or veto a dress that she wanted to buy for her birthday party. (Again--not for another month!) She had a dress on hold at Betsey Johnson and wasn't sure if she should buy it or not. As it's only 15 blocks or so from me, I agreed to go. (She bought the dress).

She was going to drop me off at school, but we got stuck heading towards the West Side due to Labor Day Parade on 5th avenue. I don't get it. Why was the parade being held a week after Labor Day? Whatever...

So I took the bus and spent some time in the library before taking off for some dress shopping of my own. My cousin's party is coming up on Saturday and I have nothing formal enough to wear. Shopping was a majorly frustrating experience though. It sucked. I'm in-between sizes right now and couldn't find anything that fit right. Also, I'm so mad at myself for having put on so much weight since last fall. Everything that I bought last year doesn't fit me anymore, and I know why... alcohol calories upon alcohol calories! Ughh! Today I'm going to start exercising and trying to manage my health a little better. (Wish me luck!)

After carousing with NDN and some of his friends on Saturday night, I got a relatively good night's sleep and got up early to meet B at church on Sunday morning. I felt surprisingly refreshed. While I was getting dressed, I watched part of the memorial service on NY1. I feel like an exposed nerve lately--my emotions are so easily triggered, and the reading of all of those names made me cry.

On my way to church, I was glad to bump into my super and his wife who asked me where I was off to.

"St. Bart's," I replied.

"Really? That's where we're going too!"

"My friend B is a member there," I explained. "So, sometimes on Sunday's, I go with him."

"Can't hurt, it can't hurt!" my super said. "Sometimes a little church is good for you."

I'm glad I ran into them on my way to church--especially after what NDN told me my super had said to him earlier this week. Maybe now they won't think I'm such a "sinner."

The service was absolutely beautiful. The choir performed Faure's Requiem Mass, broken up throughout the mass, as it was originally intended. I've sang that piece before and have always loved it. The soloist on the Pie Jesu was especially brilliant. I was also really moved by some of what was said in the sermon and in a speech given by a member of the church's relief agency just back from Louisianna. All of that is still mulling around in my head though, and I haven't yet reflected on it enough to care to write it down here.

The mass closed with Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. B says that I'm vulgar, but I absolutely love the timpani, and that piece just pounds in my heart whenever I hear it. It makes my body physically vibrate with music, and it was a complete rush. I loved it! I felt disoriented upon leaving the church.

B and I usually go to the interfaith service on 9/11 as well, but this year it wasn't being held until 5:00 and he wanted to come back to my place to watch the men's finals of the US Open. So after lunch, we did just that. I had grand plans to get some reading done, but I started to feel really tired and run down.

I'm not much of a tennis person, but B narrated the game for me as it went on, and we just joked around and hung out and had a good time together. I fell asleep for a portion of the match, and when I woke up he told me that Agassi had lost momentum. Oh well... B stuck around until the match ended (at about 7:00) and then he took off for his girlfriend's. I was feeling worse and worse and was sure I just needed some sleep. I figured I could wake up really early today and do my work if I let myself get to bed early.

So that's just what I did--I was in bed last night by 10:00 and asleep by 11:00! The only problem? This morning, I just couldn't get myself up. I was so fucking tired! I totally treat myself like a machine. I routinely go on only 3-4 hours of sleep, socializing every night while I pump my body full of drugs and alcohol, causing me to spend half my life with a hangover. Then, I run all around the city teaching one class short of a full time schedule while still being enrolled as a full time student; I take voice lessons twice a week and go to choir once a week, and I expect it all to be fine. I don't think so. My body just isn't going to do it for me anymore. I feel like I need to make some important decisions and to prioritize things or else my health is going to give. (And what better time is there to do it than now, when Narc is gone? By the way... yesterday marks one week with no Narc communication. I've got to stop obsessing, though. Honestly, I am getting a little better...)

So I'm trying to organize my day right now. To make matters worse, today marks the first day of the U.N.'s General Assembly meeting just steps from where I live. I think it's something like 180 world leaders that will be moving with their security around my neighborhood. On Wednesday we get to welcome our esteemed President himself. On top of that, there's going to be protests, rallies and vigils all week long at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, again--just steps from my door. It's going to be quite a week to try to get around here.

I guess that's it for now. I'm not in a very reflective mood. I'm more stressed about getting everything done that needs to be done today, so I don't have much more to say.

Later!

-h-