Eat, Pray, Shove

This afternoon, a coworker and fellow avid reader handed me a book that she said was “spiritual” and “transformational.” It had changed her outlook on life.

I promised I would give the book a try.

But I was instantly brought back to July 18, 2007. It was around 6 p.m., and I was standing just inside the AT&T store on 43^rd Street and Lexington Avenue. The line was long, and I was thinking that if I stayed I would probably be late to my book club.

I had turned to leave when I heard a loud boom! and saw a couple people outside the store look behind them and start to run. As I’ve mentioned before, my fight-or-flight response is pretty heavy on the flight, so I opened the door, adrenaline already sparking like electricity throughout my body. It wasn’t unfounded. I stepped outside and saw a thick cloud of dark gray smoke. I couldn’t see the Chrysler Building right behind me.

As I ran uptown along Lexington Avenue I heard – and felt – a series of at least a dozen explosions and thought, I’ve always been afraid of dying. I can’t believe today is the day that I’m going to die.

I heard someone scream, “They’re blowing up Grand Central” and someone else yell, “The subways are exploding!” Shockingly (to me, at least), my brain kicked in and I thought, Hmmm, if the subways are exploding, is it a good idea to run along the Lexington Avenue line of the SUBWAY? At 45^th Street I took a quick right and kept jogging until I hit First Avenue.

The decision to get out of harm’s way was an unexpected yet heartening flash of logical thinking for someone prone to panic.

My second flash of brilliance also happened at the corner of 45^th Street and Lexington Avenue. I realized I needed to get rid of dead weight. Since I couldn’t drop 50 pounds on the spot through the miracle of the Hollywood Cookie Diet, the Hollywood Juice Diet or the Hollywood Methamphetamines Diet, I did the second best thing. I looked down at the book in my hand, which I was forcing myself to finish for my book club that night. I knew that my life was worth more than a crummy book – no matter how beloved it was – and as I was fleeing the 2007 Con Edison Midtown New York Explosion, I threw it on a pile of black garbage bags.

I never finished “Eat, Pray, Love,” by Elizabeth Gilbert.

I don’t care how much Oprah loved it. I don’t care that it was optioned for a movie that is being released this August and will probably be a smash hit. I don’t care that I seem to be the only person who hated it. But I really, really did.

I’m sure that Ms. Gilbert really did have a transformational experience. But once she left the bacchanalian portion of her journey, I had to keep suppressing the frequent eye-rolling that her earnest prose seemed to induce in me. I have read and enjoyed truly inspiring books. But this was not one of them.

Without a second thought, I released “Eat, Pray, Love” from my left hand and took off across town.

I eventually hot-footed it up to 59^th Street and First Avenue, where I barged into a pizzeria and demanded napkins to wipe my face. It was July, after all. They hadn’t heard the news yet, so I got some choice looks.

I called my father, hoping he could tell me what was happening. At first, he said nothing was on the news. And then he called back, saying that by all reports a transformer had exploded. I told him that it had seemed worse than that, and much louder. He calmed me down by saying that it had probably sounded like that due to the noise bouncing off buildings.

My mother called and told me that I should take a deep breath, radio reports were saying it wasn’t a big deal, and that I should go to my book club.

Despite shaking, sweating and crying, I walked over to the subway and met my book club at Katz’s Delicatessen on Houston. I spent the first 15 minutes taking deep breaths and telling my friends what had happened.

During dinner, which I wasn’t eating, my mother called.

“Oh my god, are you ok?” she said, sounding a lot more upset than she had earlier.

I asked what was wrong.

The real story had hit CNN and she was finally seeing what I had seen a couple hours earlier. According to Wikipedia (not always the most accurate source, but I promise this is what happened):

The July 18, 2007 New York City steam explosion sent a geyser of hot steam up from beneath a busy intersection, with a 40-story-high shower of mud and flying debris raining down on the crowded streets of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. It was caused by the failure of a Consolidated Edison 24-inch underground steam pipe installed in 1924, at 41st Street and Lexington Avenue, near Grand Central Terminal, just before 6 p.m. local time, near the peak of the evening rush hour. The towering cloud of billowing steam, higher than the nearby 1,047-foot (319 m)-tall Chrysler Building, persisted for at least two hours, leaving a crater about 35 feet (10 m) wide and 15 feet (4 m) deep.

I assured my mother that while I was upset, I was basically fine. I hung up my cell phone and proceeded to discuss “Eat, Pray, Love” (well, minus the last 20 pages I hadn’t read) with my fellow book clubbers.

I already disliked the book prior to July 18, 2007, but now it would forever be linked to one of the most traumatic events in my life.

So, I’ll read my coworker’s “transformational” book. But if I don’t like it, I'm going to ditch it at the corner of 45^th Street and Lexington Avenue.

Blame it on the Rain

It was a dark and stormy night. (I’ve always wanted to write that!)

The roaring thunder and the eye-squintingly bright lightning tore through my apartment at 2:30 a.m. and lasted about 45 minutes.

I woke up this morning completely exhausted, took a shower while still half-asleep, and then managed to blow a fuse while drying my hair. I was only partway to an exquisite 'do but decided the lack of light was more urgent. So I peeked into my bedroom to confirm the power was off there too (it was) and made my way into the kitchen, where the fuse box is mounted about 7 feet off the ground. I used a spatula to open it and flip the bottom switch back to the “on” position. Voila! Power was restored. I'm like Bob Vila, but with kitchen utensils.

I returned to the bedroom so I could get dressed. I then reached for my glasses...which were no longer on my night stand, where I had placed them before going to sleep last night.

Forty-five long minutes passed, during which I did the following in order to locate my much-needed glasses:

1. Pushed night stand away from wall, looked in all drawers, then lifted it up and looked underneath.

2. Moved bed to center of room, tore off all linens, including pillowcases, put lost socks back into laundry basket, decided it was time to sweep behind my bed.

3. Ransacked my newly-folded (now unfolded) clothes.

4. Looked in my laundry basket. Left giant, heaping pile of linens and assorted clothing on floor.

5. Examined my closet, faux-armoire, hallway, living room, kitchen and front hallway.

6. Approached highest levels of desperation, began peeking in toilet, medicine cabinet, refrigerator, underneath my jewelry box and inside my air conditioner.

At this point, I was supposed to be at work in 5 minutes. I was half-dressed, completely confused, and entirely certain that a cockroach had wandered in during the night and decided my prescription would be perfect for his elderly cockroach father.

I also was starting to feel like my apartment was getting unbearably stuffy and humid. A bead of sweat proceeded to roll down my forehead and land...on a lens. On my face.

On the glasses which I had apparently been wearing THE ENTIRE TIME.

You know what? I still have no idea when I put them on, since I definitely wasn’t wearing them in the shower. On the way to work (clocking in a whopping 30 minutes late), I periodically touched my face, still unable to believe that I was in possession of my glasses.

Clearly, both my brain and the fuse shut off simultaneously. And I’m starting to think I will never know what truly happened during those lost minutes.

Hey, have you seen my watch?

Never mind.

I Will CUT YOU!

The paper cut pandemic continues.

Just call me Typhoid Nancy – I appear to be a very dangerous carrier of the disease.

I was in my boss’s office yesterday afternoon when he asked me for a document he wanted to review. I told him it was on his desk, and we both proceeded to rifle though the papers in front of him. We saw it about the same time. I got there first, and snapped it up.

“Ow!”

That was the sound my boss made as the papers slipped through his fingers and sliced his pinky.

I had two thoughts when this happened:
“Oh. My. God. I just hurt my boss.”
“Oh! My! God! I just hurt my boss!”

He and I have a good working relationship. But he’s still my boss, and in any superior-subordinate situation you’re going to have moments when you want to give your boss a big, fat, juicy paper cut and pour a little lemon juice over it. Now, I didn’t have lemon juice handy. This was real life, and I don’t inflict injury on purpose. So I forewent the citrus in favor of a Band-Aid and Neosporin.

He took it with a sense of humor, pretending to pass out when the blood pooled over the paper cut. I felt terrible about injuring him. And I apologized profusely.

But I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t recall that moment fondly the next time he really pisses me off.