earthquakes, heat strokes
Temperatures reached 99 degrees today in NYC, surely the hottest day we've had since I came to the city. On the sidewalks in Chelsea you could feel the heat like a presence; it would hit you in the chest when you walked out of doors, sort of like being stuck under a constant hair dryer set on high. My shirt was spotted with sweat by the time I got to the office.
The heat actually killed four people in the city, three elderly shut-ins and one apparently homeless guy. I see the same crop of homeless folks every day on 7th Avenue, with a little variation, and they were going through it today. On the corner of 13th, a bearded white man in his middle 30s was half lounging against a fence, sweat pouring down his shoulders. He'd stripped to a dirty pair of white shorts. "Homeless" and "almost naked" nearly never go well together, and this was no exception.
The heat broke in the evening with scattered showers across the city, just in time to delay my flight to San Francisco. The 8 p.m. departure soon turned into 11 p.m., and people at EWR were pissed, camped out on the carpet and searching for electrical outlets. Flights were being cancelled left and right (funny what a little rain can do, I guess) and people were digging in for the night — a different kind of homeless, but the desperation starts to look the same.
My flight finally took off close to midnight, and the flight attendents were determined that no one should sleep. Between the booming volume on Dr. Doolittle 3 and being forcefed a steaming, processed chicken sandwich, I dozed for a few hours. I'm always afraid that I'm the asshole who's snoring, which keeps me up.
Once we landed, 5:48 a.m. my time, I was reminded of how creepy airports are when they're empty. It's like a Stephen King novel, though SFO smelled like freshly baked apple cinammon muffins. Which kind of added to the creepiness.
I got into a cab and as I was explaining my destination to the driver, a desperate-looking couple flagged the car down. They'd been stranded with no luggage, they said, and just needed to get to their hotel. The cabbie asked if I minded sharing. I said it was OK, but once they were in the car I thought about how potentially unsafe this could've been: What if the three of them were in cahoots? Next thing you know I'm dead in some ditch in San Bernadino.
But the couple did not look like thugs. He was 40ish, with Anderson Cooper hair and expensive glasses. He mentioned the weather in Valencia, which I took to be where he was coming from. She was 26, or so the dates would imply given an anecdote she told about being in an earthquake in 1989. They held hands the whole ride, and she talked about a "romantic" place she'd rented for them. There was more talk of earthquakes; apparently a minor tremor hit the area yesterday, though it only lasted for three seconds. I had a feeling that their relationship won't last much longer, though I'm sure by their body language that the earth will move for one or both of them later tonight.
When we arrived at Taures's apartment, the Spanish man insisted on paying the full fare. I eventually agreed. Rolling my bag up to the door of the building, I was struck by how brisk the air is here. The high today is only 65, which really sounds lovely.
The heat actually killed four people in the city, three elderly shut-ins and one apparently homeless guy. I see the same crop of homeless folks every day on 7th Avenue, with a little variation, and they were going through it today. On the corner of 13th, a bearded white man in his middle 30s was half lounging against a fence, sweat pouring down his shoulders. He'd stripped to a dirty pair of white shorts. "Homeless" and "almost naked" nearly never go well together, and this was no exception.
The heat broke in the evening with scattered showers across the city, just in time to delay my flight to San Francisco. The 8 p.m. departure soon turned into 11 p.m., and people at EWR were pissed, camped out on the carpet and searching for electrical outlets. Flights were being cancelled left and right (funny what a little rain can do, I guess) and people were digging in for the night — a different kind of homeless, but the desperation starts to look the same.
My flight finally took off close to midnight, and the flight attendents were determined that no one should sleep. Between the booming volume on Dr. Doolittle 3 and being forcefed a steaming, processed chicken sandwich, I dozed for a few hours. I'm always afraid that I'm the asshole who's snoring, which keeps me up.
Once we landed, 5:48 a.m. my time, I was reminded of how creepy airports are when they're empty. It's like a Stephen King novel, though SFO smelled like freshly baked apple cinammon muffins. Which kind of added to the creepiness.
I got into a cab and as I was explaining my destination to the driver, a desperate-looking couple flagged the car down. They'd been stranded with no luggage, they said, and just needed to get to their hotel. The cabbie asked if I minded sharing. I said it was OK, but once they were in the car I thought about how potentially unsafe this could've been: What if the three of them were in cahoots? Next thing you know I'm dead in some ditch in San Bernadino.
But the couple did not look like thugs. He was 40ish, with Anderson Cooper hair and expensive glasses. He mentioned the weather in Valencia, which I took to be where he was coming from. She was 26, or so the dates would imply given an anecdote she told about being in an earthquake in 1989. They held hands the whole ride, and she talked about a "romantic" place she'd rented for them. There was more talk of earthquakes; apparently a minor tremor hit the area yesterday, though it only lasted for three seconds. I had a feeling that their relationship won't last much longer, though I'm sure by their body language that the earth will move for one or both of them later tonight.
When we arrived at Taures's apartment, the Spanish man insisted on paying the full fare. I eventually agreed. Rolling my bag up to the door of the building, I was struck by how brisk the air is here. The high today is only 65, which really sounds lovely.
2 Comments:
Your entries lately have been really, really good. Deep, contemplative and beautifully detailed.
Pray the weather holds in SF. That is one city where you don't want to endure a heat wave.
There are only three places I know of with a/c, and they're all owned by The Gap.
Taures ended up in SF? Wow, the Atlanta diaspora continues! Have a great time.
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