This might be the hottest day of the year. It feels like a hundred degrees out there. It's really hot. On what might be the hottest day of the year, all of our bus and subway systems — connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and, of course, New Jersey — were absolutely crippled.
Just like me. But not by a subwoofer.
The heaviest, most explosive thunder I've ever heard, accompanied by the brightest, most shocking lightning I've ever seen, erupted through the early morning, setting off car alarms and waking entire neighborhoods. I got up and pee'd. Not on myself, fortunately. My legs still work.
"That was the heaviest, most explosive thunder I've ever heard," I thought to myself.
I thought nothing much more about it.
A couple of hours later, dressed and soaked in sweat, I stood on the PATH platform, waiting for a 33rd Street train that would never come. After about an hour of that, I decided to push my way onto a World Trade Center train. From there, I figured I could catch the 1, 2, or 3, or the A, C, or E up to 34th Street, and then walk across town, several long blocks to our office. It would suck, but I'd make it.
When I finally arrived at the World Trade Center, however, I only found more sweat-drenched shirts, more frustration, more garbled announcements. Exhausted commuters bonded with one another:
"What did they just say?"
"No trains are running from this station. At all."
"No trains at all?"
"I was on the A for a minute, but then they kicked us off."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
Back out on the street, there was only more confusion, more sweat, long lines of people waiting for buses that would not stop, desperate others waving for cabs that would not stop. I said, "Screw this," and walked from the World Trade Center to the West Village, where I was lucky to find an operating D train.
I couldn't help but laugh. So many frustrated commuters, stuffed into a crowded train, trying like mad to get to work, as if work was a beating heart, an understanding smile, a gentle hug, a blue-eyed woman who knows you better than you know yourself and loves you anyway. Not much later, I was in the office, all alone.
John was nearly taken by a tornado, Robert was marooned in Park Slope, and Elizabeth is home with the baby. I've called her twenty-three times this afternoon because I’m scared of shipping the magazine without her. I've never done this before.
I'm like that with things I've never done before: Scared.
Seriously. I'm having a little anxiety attack over here.
But so far, so good, it seems. I use a program called Mass Transit to send our final files to the prepress people. I've never met these people. I'm not even sure where they live. Los Angeles, I think. Everything's out there on the west coast. On the west coast, people don't get stuck in tornados or on subway platforms. It just doesn't happen. On the west coast, people spend their time in air conditioned cars, nodding their heads to sweet tunes, while they enjoy views of the sparkling ocean.
I don't have Mass Transit on my computer. I go back and forth between my office and Elizabeth's, moving files and naming folders on my PC, where things are familiar and friendly, and sending them off to the west coast, like eager-eyed adventurers searching for a better life, on Elizabeth's foreign Mac. I press a couple of buttons, click and drag some stuff, say a little prayer, and that's that.
I'm crossing my fingers, dudes. It's no sweat. It's just like crossing the street. If I could, I might just upload myself to our FTP site, stuff myself into an appropriately named folder — I would call it "STRP-071000-Stephen080807" — and have someone on the west coast download me.
It's easier than taking the subway.
