New York, New York

Hope everyone in blog reading land is doing great. A quick update and then I'll dive right in.

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I had another appointment with The Devil Saturday morning. Those of you who have done your homework will recall that The Devil is Time Warner, that my dvr was freezing and that my internet kept disconnecting. Sometime between the lovely hours of 8am and Noon on Saturday the guy was going to come over and fix everything. (I love how you have to block out half of your day just to get your cable fixed.) So at 10:30 Mr. D shows up to look at my equipment, so to speak. First he looked at my box. (Wow, who knew cable tv was riddled with sexual innuendo!) Once again, I explained the problems to him. He started by unplugging the cable box, staring intently at the back for about twenty seconds and then saying “Hmmm.” As you can imagine, that inspired great confidence in his abilities to get the kinks out of my box. (Really, I’m that good.)

Then he asked if I had Verizon Wireless. "What the..." I thought, "…he's here to fix my cable, not my cell phone." (Which by the way doesn’t work either, but that’s another story.) I told him yes, I do in fact have Verizon Wireless, and guess what? Turns out, Verizon's signal causes The Devil's signal to jam up. I find this A) hard to believe because I never had this problem in Chelsea and there were TWO of us in the apartment with Verizon and B) incredibly frustrating because although my cell phone barely gets a signal in my apartment it is apparently strong enough to freeze my cable.

So I asked the hirsute cable guy if a new box would help. (There's a joke about hairy boxes here somewhere.) He said a new box might help, but that he didn’t have one. (Too easy.) So I stared at him for twenty seconds and said “Hmmm. You came to fix my cable and didn't bring a new box?” He concurred, and said that if I wanted a new one I would have to take the old one to the Time Warner office in the city. We all know how that went last time (well, the more dedicated Shawn Stories fans do anyway) so I’m not so keen on going through all of that again, but I will trudge down there and let you know how it goes. On the bright side, my internet seems to be worki

Today I have a treat for you. A story that happened less than five months ago! I promise I’ll get to Prada, etc. soon but for now, sit back and enjoy.

It's no news that New York is a challenging place to live, but there are times when the city envelopes you in its timeless grasp and everything goes... better than right. Ask any New Yorker to tell you about how hard it is to live here, and you'll be regaled with stories of woe and despair. Rude people, smelly streets, dirty surroundings, crime, so on and so on. But I bet if you ask the same people to tell you why they stay, you'll hear a story or two that proves that what is good about the city eclipses most of the bad.

A week ago my office received notice that our building's power would be shut off from 1am to 6am on Monday morning so that they could do elevator maintenance. My boss has a tendency to be a bit over protective when it comes to our server. (I guess if I spent $10,000 on a computer I'd want to protect it too.) Anyway, he decided it, and everything else in the office, should be shut down to protect it all from the surge of the power coming back on at 6. He wanted it turned off at the last possible minute though, so that the backup would happen and so we would still receive faxes.

After listening to him whine about how he was going to have to come all the way back to the office on Sunday night to shut everything down, I told him that since I was ushering on Sunday and would be in the neighborhood anyway I could come in and shut everything down. (I know, there’s a place in heaven for people just like me.) He was wary of trusting me with something so important, but his desire to have a lazy Sunday evening was stronger than his nerves. I told him not to worry, I would take care of everything.

At 11:30 on Sunday night, as I was settling into a post-Housewives stupor, an A-bomb went off in my tummy when I realized I had completely forgotten to go to the office. All the computers were still on AND I couldn't remember what time the power was being cut off. I was convinced it was midnight, which gave me a half hour to get to the office. On a good day, it's a minimum of 35 minutes to the office by subway. A $23 cab ride to the office may take a little less time, but I prefer to take the trains rather than put my faith in the traffic gods. (Yes, there is traffic going into the city at 11:30 on a Sunday night.)

I threw on my shoes and ran to the train. That makes me sound somewhat calm; to the contrary, I was torn between blubbering like a baby and vomiting. Not only would the server inevitably die when the power came back on, but my boss would never put faith in me again. This is when New York kicks in, for those of you keeping track.

The N train miraculously pulled in about a minute after I got to the station. It was an angst ridden minute, but only a minute nonetheless. I scooted nervously onto the train just as the conductor slammed the door. This was good; he was one of those conductors that gave you a split second to get on board before he told the driver to go. That could shave precious seconds off my commute. During the trip I am literally crawling out of my skin, begging the train to go faster. Every stop brings with it the relief of being that much closer, and the dread of actually arriving there and finding I was too late.

And then inexplicably I started tearing up. I didn't feel THAT upset I thought, but looking back, it had been a really hard week and I guess this kind of put me over. New Yorkers are great at ignoring people freaking out on the subway; it's practically an art to notice but to PRETEND not to notice. I wasn’t really concerned about making a scene, but as my friend Anthony says I didn’t want to be one of those people walking through Times Square crying. So as I'm trying to calm down and just breathe, the doors open and this Rastafarian guy with a guitar gets on board. "Great," I thought, "now I have to hear some shitty singer ply his trade and ask for money."

His dreads and beads jangle as he aimlessly shuffles down the length of the train, and as he comes to about a foot away from me, stops. I guess I looked like hell, because after a pause, he says in his best Rasta-man voice "It look like dis guy here need a song tonight." "Of course" I thought, "so much for being inconspicuous." He begins strumming on his guitar, and starts singing that damn song "Baby don’t worry… bout a thing…." Of all the songs he could play, he chooses the most predictable. And yet, the sub-par singing voice aside, his gesture really struck me. He could have been a dick, or he could have ignored me like everyone else, but in the best way he knew how, he was offering a helping hand.

Well that was all it took; the damn tears were really flowing now. But I wasn't sad so much as relieved. Relieved because for some stupid reason, which I can laugh about now, I really believed him. So much so that I gave him a dollar, which I think might be the first time in ten years that I’ve given someone on the subway money. I am a stingy bastard after all.

The subway entrance by my office is literally in the heart of Times Square. I was going to put a very dramatic picture of Times Square here, but once again this stupid blogger service won't load pictures. I may soon have a new blog address if this continues.

Anywa, it was 11:55. The lights were still on! Being that this is Times Square, there were tons of people everywhere and it was pretty much impossible to run, but I definitely did the “pants-on-fire-walk-run-thing.” When I got to the building and read the sign saying that the power was being shut off at 1am it felt like the bones in my body melted with relaxation. I got to the office and shut everything down without a problem, although our internet has been strangely slow ever since. I think I exude some bio-rays that fry modems. The best part is that as I was leaving, contemplating how long it was going to take me to get home, the security guard made a point of telling me that the power was being shut off at 1 and that I’d better shut everything down in my office. I thanked her and told her that’s what I was here doing. She smiled and said “There gowna be some ticked off people tomorrow.” And I’m sure there were.

So there it is. My first happy story! The train came right away, I got home at 12:40 and was in bed (well, on the couch…yet again, another story) early enough to get a decent night’s sleep. And my boss, until now, was none the wiser that a meltdown almost happened in the office, and in my head.

Hope you are well. If not, baby don’t worry…