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Nation braces for flood of self-absorbed NYC writing. And I get to be part of it this time!

Honestly, I’m pretty embarrassed to admit that after hearing that the blackout extended beyond the city I was mad I wasn’t experiencing a NYC-unique moment.

Thursday, I was in a pretty craptastic mood. I hadn’t accomplished anything all day due to the phone ringing off the hook and I was feverishly trying to prepare for the return of my RAs from their day of training up in the village. I didn’t think much at first when the lights went out, because the power goes out all the time in the South. I grabbed a flashlight and started the slow journey down 15 flights of stairs to the security desk in the lobby.

A few frantic cell phone calls with the Director of University Housing later, I was trudging back up 17 flights of stairs to knock on all the residents’ doors and ask them to come down to the lobby, since we didn’t know how long the emergency lighting in the hallways and stairwells would last (turns out, not very long).

I spent most of the night in the lobby, feeling pretty useless and ill-prepared to be in charge of my building during a crisis. After missing the initial throngs in the street around my neighborhood (2 blocks from Wall St), I was able to snap a couple of shots of people drinking next door on the sidewalk (which totally cracked me up) and this blurry shot of the machine gun-toting guards across the street at the Federal Reserve.

Our electricity came back on at 5:45am this morning (maybe because we’re across from the Fed?), but Internet access didn’t return until this evening. And we still don’t have hot water because Con Edison hasn’t turned the steam back on. The lesson learned is that I need to keep a couple of bottles of water and some extra flashlight batteries on hand.

I’m just glad I wasn’t stuck in the subway.

Update: My super tells me that Con Edison won’t have steam running again for hot water until Monday (which I consider far worse than being without electricity). I guess that means no shower, laundry, or washing my dishes for another two days.

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My biggest fear on the crowded platforms is being accidentally pushed in front of an oncoming train. For the second time in a few week, it’s happened at the Union Square Station (which I go in and out of 3 or 4 times a week).

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I’m very conscious of the fact that much of my time and activities since moving to NYC have gone undocumented on this weblog. I haven’t even taken a single photo of my surroundings. I don’t honestly know how any New Yorker has the time (or energy) to keep a weblog.

I’m living life, so that’s good, right? That’s the change I wanted to make after spending 10 years in the rural Midwest. But I’m just worried that I’m going to look back someday and wish that I had taken a few extra minutes here and there to jot down my initial impressions of the city, the subway, etc, so I can remember what I was like before I inevitably become a horribly jaded urbanite.

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I’m positive that I saw Jason Kottke waiting for a train in the subway this morning. If I hadn’t been trying to hurry along my staff to the first day of RA training, I totally would have stopped and asked for his autograph.

Updated: Jason wrote back that he was at that station at that time, so it probably was him.

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