One
I was late to work today. It was 99% my fault: I forgot to write down the walking portion of my directions to the office in Lower Manhattan, which is an alternate universe that might as well be in another city for all the sense it makes to me. But I remembered the general idea, and the address was distinctive, and I could always ask someone, and I had plenty of time….
The MTA guy was wrong, was the real problem. “Wait, which part of Greenwich?” he asked. He confidently gave me directions that sounded nothing like mine–they were much longer, and none of the street names rang a bell. But…I was at the wrong subway exit, and he’s the MTA guy pointing at the map….
When it was obviously wrong, I stopped to ask some UPS guys. “You’re on the wrong part of Greenwich,” they told me. “The one you want is that building,” and pointed.
Remember that scene in The Wizard of Oz where the Emerald City appears, rising out of nothing? It dominates the screen; it’s unmistakable. There’s really only one place you might be going, even if it’s all kinds of far away, and this was just like that.
It took a moment to realize that it was so prominent because I was viewing it across a massive construction site. Wonder what’s going there, I thought as I set off to circle it.
It took me a minute, you know?
You’d think that, since the address I was hunting for was “7 WTC #2,” I’d've caught on faster, right? I’d think so, too. But. I’d never been.
I think I thought it would look like something, but it doesn’t. It’s too big to see. It creates this sudden attraction-repulsion that shorts out my brain. I don’t feel overwhelmed, even, just…a prickly kind of nothing that is just like how three colors of light become white. It’s a perfect tension.
Two
Um. Anyway. So I somehow find myself in the World Financial Center, well above street level. This is not the worst thing, since it looks like it has passageways that extend to exactly where I’m going.
It’s not so easy from the inside, of course. Those buildings are designed to lead people in, not to let increasingly frantic temps slide through like salmon on their way to somewhere else entirely. It’s certainly an interesting place, and I’m glad I got the tour. Palm trees made of lights, marble everywhere, elevated tunnels, and a giant window overlooking the Footprints. I don’t think I wanted that good of a view, though, so it’s probably lucky that there were about fifty tourists shielding it with their cameras.
Can we say “morbid”?
All in all, 15 minutes late instead of 5-10 minutes early. But they were very nice about it, and the window by me turned out to have a stunning view of the Statue of Liberty, which I only noticed, conveniently, as the sun slipped into the half-inch between the clouds and toward the water. Oh, my, stunning. Although…I think it must have looked bigger, before you could look down at it from the 40th floor.
Speaking of which, security is bizarre in that neck of the woods. I had no trouble getting through the turnstiles–I am learning that “I’m temping for [name of company in building]?” could get anyone in nearly anywhere. As long as the “anyone” is female, young, white, and cheerful, that is, and probably in that order. After years of searching, I finally feel like I have a cultural identity: my “group” is defined by only getting asked for ID about half as often as everyone else (unless it’s by a bartender who suspects we will be flattered).
Anyway. They have other security measures. Most notably, the elevators are the type where you enter your floor number in the lobby, and then it sends you an elevator that will take you there. They have no buttons inside. I assume that this is to prevent anyone from setting into motion my plan for world domination, which is to send dedicated volunteers into elevators to hit all the buttons, then hop out at the first stop and run, preferrably cackling, down the stairs. With enough people in a coordinated attack, we could bring the city to its knees for a full five minutes.
Think of the implications, people!!
Three
After a grueling day of fake work (temping) followed by nearly an hour of real work (if I had more than a few hours a week of it it would be), I got to go see Melissa. And although I was too tired for my absolute favorite girls’ night (a drink at the Dead Poet, dinner at Land, then many more drinks at the Dead Poet), we did at least manage dinner at Land.
Plum sake martinis + delicate yet complex brown sauce + Melissa = oh, God, I’m doing equations now?
See, normally, to be my friend, you have to be a deeply neurotic (but very high-functioning) human being. Nick is not especially neurotic, which I think is a nice balance, but Melissa is some kind of inversion of the entire concept. And it’s great to be around someone who manages to be thoroughly unselfconscious without also being a criminal sociopath, which is a balance Melissa strikes with admirable poise.
Plus, she came up with an idea for a business we’re going to open someday: Drunken Languages.
Stop snickering; this isn’t some frat joke. We were reminiscing about the night we spent at the bar of Samba-Le, when we decided to sample each of their fabulous sangrias. After a few hours, one of the busboys started teaching me Portuguese, and I know this is the sort of thing one is likely to think after the ninth quart of sangria, but seriously: I picked it up right away. My French improves on a glass of wine, as well, and so does my Spanish. I think it’s something about confidence and relaxation and inhibitions when you’re sober enough to know intellectually that the sound you’re hearing is not one you can make.
We’ve even got a financial plan worked out, but I’m keeping that quiet, because none of you have signed NDAs.
But just you wait. In a few years, you’ll all be getting promo materials from Melissa, who will be our school’s Supervising Manager of Drunken Spanish. That’s right. We’ve got titles.