7.08.2005
london
By now, most everyone has heard what's gone on in London today. I haven't yet heard from my friend Edith as to whether she's OK, but I did hear from others. I don't know what to say - I'm pretty shell shocked and stunned. These were places I go to, and particularly also places I was planning on going this weekend. Not so much now, I don't think.
It sounds really cliched to say that though. My friend Adam was in a playwriting class in Hopkins in the fall of 2001. He wrote, if I remember correctly, a play in which the phrase "I only live a block away from the world trade center" was stretched to "I live in Buffalo, but with a four hour drive, yeah, that could have been me up there." A little too soon, perhaps, but the idea that we all tried to share in that sense of dread and awe and near-miss by saying and in some ways exxagerating how close we were to actual tragedy is indeed kind of ridiculous. But I am a little spooked that I did live just over an hour away from NYC on Sept. 11, 2001, and that I now live about an hour outside of London. I wonder if July 7, 2005 or 7.7.05 is going to mean anything like what Sept. 11, 2001 means in terms of the date.
Work has been going well, except that there are some very rude Americans here who seem to talk down to the cleaning staff (myself included) because they think that we don't understand English. What a shock for them to find out that I'm from Boston. More stories of life in housekeeping later - this isn't exactly the appropriate time.
It sounds really cliched to say that though. My friend Adam was in a playwriting class in Hopkins in the fall of 2001. He wrote, if I remember correctly, a play in which the phrase "I only live a block away from the world trade center" was stretched to "I live in Buffalo, but with a four hour drive, yeah, that could have been me up there." A little too soon, perhaps, but the idea that we all tried to share in that sense of dread and awe and near-miss by saying and in some ways exxagerating how close we were to actual tragedy is indeed kind of ridiculous. But I am a little spooked that I did live just over an hour away from NYC on Sept. 11, 2001, and that I now live about an hour outside of London. I wonder if July 7, 2005 or 7.7.05 is going to mean anything like what Sept. 11, 2001 means in terms of the date.
Work has been going well, except that there are some very rude Americans here who seem to talk down to the cleaning staff (myself included) because they think that we don't understand English. What a shock for them to find out that I'm from Boston. More stories of life in housekeeping later - this isn't exactly the appropriate time.
