i am grateful for:
1) safe friends and family.
2) having the power stay on here. it’s very odd, really. you’d never know walking around our hood that anything too bad happened. just some extra leaves. we saw those transformers blow and my thought was, “that’s some very weird lightning.”
3) the warm community feel on FB and elsewhere reaching out to those in need.
4) the thrilling-awful weirdness of seeing my beloved city taken over by water. the subways filled to the brim, the tunnels leveled with river, the east village floating. what is that–there must be a german word, right? disasterfraude? the fascination we have with things gone horribly wrong, especially when it’s nature showing us who’s really in charge. there’s a quality of helplessness that gets profound and moves into surrender. we can let go of the imaginary battle for control once we realize we really have no steering wheel, just control over the thoughts in our head and heart, and what we do with those in the world.
5) pamela’s gluten-free pancake mix made into chocolate chip cookies. mmm.
6) dinner with fun friends, as if life was normal. everyone was out in the streets, almost giddy, it seemed, to be free from the coop.
7) brian lehrer at wnyc. he is amazing. he’s been covering this storm on wnyc like nobody else. and he had ELMO on, which totally made me cry.
8) WSJ.com. i know, right? but also, fantastic storm coverage. kicking the nyt’s bootie, with lots of streaming updates, links to things i actually want to know like, when will the subways run? (answer: no clue.) but really, many other outlets seem to be limping through this.
9) working from home, she said, guiltily grateful for no subway service.
10) having b. home, she said, guiltily grateful for no subway service.
11) the eerie site of a dark manhattan view. not grateful exactly, but drawn in, creeped, fascinated.
12) mike bloomberg. he’s really doing a great freaking job. i wish him some rest soon.
