“Arthur Curry 2007” by Ookla the Mok
Month: January 2011
The common cold
It was not lost on me that if today was, in fact, the coldest day in New York in six years — a factoid I heard repeated more than once leading up to the day, and then again later confirmed — then it was also the coldest day I’ve ever walked to work in Manhattan, since I started at my current place of employment in October of 2004, just a few months before that winter of 2005.
I have no trouble believing that today was the coldest day in several years, much less the coldest day so far of this year. It was bitterly cold in Manhattan, well around zero degrees all day, and made even more so thanks to the faulty heating in our office building. The heat wasn’t off, exactly, but it also wasn’t circulating much. We spent some time fondly remembering that one time, a couple of years ago, when it was the air conditioner that was busted, and the office was so hot they had to let us go home. And although I never thought I would be, I found myself strangely nostalgic for our old photocopiers. They weren’t very good, breaking down more often even than now our frequently-in-need-of-service current models, but they sure could pump out some heat. I think this, the last few hours that I’ve been home, is the first time I’ve been genuinely warm all day.
Though it could be worse, I suppose. Apparently I got out of Manhattan this evening shortly before a train stalled in one of the tunnels, causing all sorts of delays. I may have escaped the city mere minutes before the trouble started. My father, who usually works later than me, wasn’t so lucky — and he lost his scarf somewhere in the shuffle. And believe me, this is definitely scarf kind of weather.
It’s supposed to be considerably warmer tomorrow, but I think only because they’re predicting more snow.
Song of the day
“Signal in the Sky” by the Apples in Stereo
Monday various
- Man admits mailing hundreds of tarantulas. Why do I feel like this is just a weird viral marketing campaign for the new Spider-Man musical? [via]
- Gail Collins in the New York Times on why we won’t miss having Joe Lieberman to kick around anymore:
He will leave behind a long list of achievements, from helping to consolidate the nation’s intelligence gathering services in a way that appears to make it more difficult to gather intelligence, to threatening to filibuster the health care reform act until it had been watered down to suit his own high principles.
- Well this is slightly disturbing to learn about Manhattan’s restaurants:
“The data suggests that when you visit an A-rated restaurant, the odds are that it barely made the grade,” he writes.
Related: state-by-state report cards on health department response to foodborne illness.
- Al Franken makes an unlikely friend in the new Senate. This is that “strange bedfellows” business I keep hearing about, right?
- And finally, Stephen Colbert on Sarah Palin:
The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Mika Brzezinski Experiences Palin Fatigue Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive
Meanwhile, it is very cold outside…
Another pretty decent day, although I either pulled or slept poorly on my neck last night, and it’s been aching all day.
Looking back over that day, I don’t think I did a whole lot. I read, I worked on a surprisingly very easy Sunday crossword, and I went to my weekly writing group — where a forty-minute free-writing exercise of three random words produced this:
He was drunk off what was left of the wine — not a remarkable vintage, but a serviceable enough off-the-rack Merlot that complimented his serviceable, off-the-rack mood. Stacy had called it a Zenato ’96, but she had clearly misremembered, or else been duped into buying a bottle of this knock-off brand and never realized in the several years she had owned it. Brad knew even less about wine than she did, so he could only suppose it was an easy mistake. He could tell white wines from red, sweet fragrance from vinegar, but his prowess extended no further. Why should wine be any different than his life? He’d eyed the bottle Stacy’s note had offered — “there’s also beer in the fridge, some leftover Chinese” — as simply a means to an end. And though it was no great joy on the palette, and left him feeling like a bit of a lightweight, in that one respect it had not disappointed. He was well and truly drunk.
Though maybe “well and truly” was stretching things a bit. He was buzzed, and feeling pleasantly reckless, but not reckless enough to reach for the phone and get the whole sorry thing over with. There were limits even to supermarket red wine. Stacy probably wouldn’t even be in, now that he thought about it, or if she was, she’d be worried and want to know why he was calling. Had something happened to the apartment? Was Grace, her cat, okay? The very fact that he was thinking about this, and worrying himself that he’d be unable to explain why he’d picked up the phone at 5 a.m. her time and drunk-dialed, led him to suspect that he still wasn’t drunk enough to risk professing the truth. Nor did he have the necessary nerve to get that drunk.
He was looking after her apartment while she was away, assigned to work some sales conference in the United Kingdom, and staying here while his own place was being…well, he’d told her it was being repainted, but Brad knew that was only the first step before it was rented out to someone else. He and his landlord had spoken. The writing was on the soon to be repainted walls. It wasn’t so bad, though; Grace liked him, Stacy’s apartment was actually closer to the library where he worked, and how could you beat free wine and cold moo goo gai pan?
I really shouldn’t drink, he thought. It just makes me sad and even more than characteristically stupid.
More a character sketch than a story, but I had fun writing it, which is maybe the important thing.