Something...
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Today marks the first year since the awful events of six years ago that I haven’t taken the day off from work /school (usually we had the day off) on September 11th.
And truth be told, I wanted to. It just wasn’t practical. That with missing a ton of work due to my grandfather’s death and the US open. I can’t really afford to take days off unless it’s an emergency (like going to Spain or Italy). Or a beautiful woman tells me she’s reserved a suite at the Mercer and wants to spend the day making crazy love to me as we lick champagne off of each other.
But seriously. I spent September 11th 2002—2007 with Friends and Family. We would always have breakfast early. Like, at 7:00 a.m. And in 2006, I went to the memorial ceremony, but it was just such a circus. There was some kind of fringe religious group walking through the crowds trying to get people to go to one of their services, and a ton of tourists milling around aimlessly. It was too much for us. And so, every year after that, my friends or Family and I would spend the day walking around lower Manhattan/or stay home and watch the ceremony on Television, reflecting on life and how lucky we were to be able to get together in this greatest of all cities, and how we would never leave. I even swore that, once new buildings were put up, I’d move my office there. And I joked that I’d keep a parachute under my desk, but no one ever doubted that my intentions were sincere. Because they all know that they were. And still are.
Things change, though. Last year, Boarding School Pal and I met for breakfast at a café near his apartment on the corner of Charles and Hudson. Where he had lived since 2000. And we wandered around for a while, until we finally had lunch at Bubby’s. But, as I’ve posted before, BSP has his own firm now and so after we ate he had to go to work. And I bid him goodbye and stayed in the East Village with L.
I had decided that I was going to take a nap for the afternoon. I was pretty tired from having gotten up so early and, honestly, the night before had been one of the first times I’d ever hooked up with L. And we’d stayed up pretty late.It was a beautiful day and, as I opened the window to let fresh air into her apartment, I heard the most glorious bagpipes. And they were coming from someplace nearby. They were playing a sad, mournful tune that went on without break for at least two hours. Possibly longer. And sitting there in her living room in this greatest of all cities, I wished I could’ve found whomever was playing. Because I wanted to either give this person a hug or buy them a drink.
And then I remembered that there’s a fire station nearby, on either 2nd or 3rd Streets between Avenues B and C. And shortly after that, the anonymous bagpiper hit one extremely sour note that seemed to float in the air for several minutes, before he or she just stopped playing entirely. And by then I didn’t feel like sleeping anymore.This year, for the first time since that awful day six years ago, I won’t be spending any time with BSP and his wife on 9/11. They live somewhere in CT now, after his former landlords bought him out of his lease so they could re-rent his stabilized apartment at an exorbitant, illegally high rent. I emailed him to see if he wanted to grab a coffee or a drink after work, but the only thing I heard back from him was something concerning a piece of business that we have together.
So, I’ll be at work today. Not the end of the world, but admittedly not how I really wanted to commemorate this significant event. But maybe I’ll stop in someplace local in the late afternoon for one quick drink.
Because I’m lucky. I lost nobody on that day back in 2001.
So whatever happens today, I’m going to be very conscious of the fact that it’s 9/11. A day that anybody who was in New York City at the time will always think of very differently from all other days. And which all Americans and citizens of the world know as a day that changed history in a lot of complicated ways.
But I’m also going to accept that this year won’t be like years past. Which is OK. This is what’s supposed to happen. Someday I’ll have my own partner and children, and I’ll be too concerned with work and getting the kids to school and the other mundane aspects of life to take a day to myself and just reflect.
But I’ll do that today.
While I still can.
And truth be told, I wanted to. It just wasn’t practical. That with missing a ton of work due to my grandfather’s death and the US open. I can’t really afford to take days off unless it’s an emergency (like going to Spain or Italy). Or a beautiful woman tells me she’s reserved a suite at the Mercer and wants to spend the day making crazy love to me as we lick champagne off of each other.
But seriously. I spent September 11th 2002—2007 with Friends and Family. We would always have breakfast early. Like, at 7:00 a.m. And in 2006, I went to the memorial ceremony, but it was just such a circus. There was some kind of fringe religious group walking through the crowds trying to get people to go to one of their services, and a ton of tourists milling around aimlessly. It was too much for us. And so, every year after that, my friends or Family and I would spend the day walking around lower Manhattan/or stay home and watch the ceremony on Television, reflecting on life and how lucky we were to be able to get together in this greatest of all cities, and how we would never leave. I even swore that, once new buildings were put up, I’d move my office there. And I joked that I’d keep a parachute under my desk, but no one ever doubted that my intentions were sincere. Because they all know that they were. And still are.
Things change, though. Last year, Boarding School Pal and I met for breakfast at a café near his apartment on the corner of Charles and Hudson. Where he had lived since 2000. And we wandered around for a while, until we finally had lunch at Bubby’s. But, as I’ve posted before, BSP has his own firm now and so after we ate he had to go to work. And I bid him goodbye and stayed in the East Village with L.
I had decided that I was going to take a nap for the afternoon. I was pretty tired from having gotten up so early and, honestly, the night before had been one of the first times I’d ever hooked up with L. And we’d stayed up pretty late.It was a beautiful day and, as I opened the window to let fresh air into her apartment, I heard the most glorious bagpipes. And they were coming from someplace nearby. They were playing a sad, mournful tune that went on without break for at least two hours. Possibly longer. And sitting there in her living room in this greatest of all cities, I wished I could’ve found whomever was playing. Because I wanted to either give this person a hug or buy them a drink.
And then I remembered that there’s a fire station nearby, on either 2nd or 3rd Streets between Avenues B and C. And shortly after that, the anonymous bagpiper hit one extremely sour note that seemed to float in the air for several minutes, before he or she just stopped playing entirely. And by then I didn’t feel like sleeping anymore.This year, for the first time since that awful day six years ago, I won’t be spending any time with BSP and his wife on 9/11. They live somewhere in CT now, after his former landlords bought him out of his lease so they could re-rent his stabilized apartment at an exorbitant, illegally high rent. I emailed him to see if he wanted to grab a coffee or a drink after work, but the only thing I heard back from him was something concerning a piece of business that we have together.
So, I’ll be at work today. Not the end of the world, but admittedly not how I really wanted to commemorate this significant event. But maybe I’ll stop in someplace local in the late afternoon for one quick drink.
Because I’m lucky. I lost nobody on that day back in 2001.
So whatever happens today, I’m going to be very conscious of the fact that it’s 9/11. A day that anybody who was in New York City at the time will always think of very differently from all other days. And which all Americans and citizens of the world know as a day that changed history in a lot of complicated ways.
But I’m also going to accept that this year won’t be like years past. Which is OK. This is what’s supposed to happen. Someday I’ll have my own partner and children, and I’ll be too concerned with work and getting the kids to school and the other mundane aspects of life to take a day to myself and just reflect.
But I’ll do that today.
While I still can.
