![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
1.
*Past was Better or Future will be Better?
Past, I dread the future. Sad. But true. It just looks like one long bleak lonely tunnel. So I prefer not to think about it at all, and stay in the present. (Well, I am saving money and doing everything possible to make it less bleak.)
*Farmers Market or Grocery Store?
Toss-up. Depends. I prefer the Farmer's Market - for the most part, since it can provide fresh produce, and nothing that will kill me. (I've food sensitivities. I don't buy based on cost - I buy based on what won't kill me.
*Crystal Chandelier or Minimalist Light?
I'm definitely a minimalist light person — I don't do ornate, and I also tend to have minimal light — just the least amount necessary for ambient light. I only put on lights when necessary. I like natural light. And I only own two lamps that I only use if the ceiling ones don't work.
*Cooking Class or Painting Class?
Painting class! (I'm not a fan of cooking or having people hover while I cook. Also I'm an intuitive cook.)
*Electric or Gas Stove
Electric - healthier, safer, and better. Less tendency to inhale gas which irritates the throat and lungs, and result in ashma and coughing.
But alas, I live in NYC, in an old apartment complex. We have gas ovens and stoves. I miss the electric.
My brother has a really cool one - it heats food, but just heating the pot, not the surface of the stove. Kind works like a magnet or something. Boils water really fast.
2. Talking with Babs today, who told me that she thinks the feminine gene passed her by. I looked at her - she's wearing a long skirt, a lacy chamisole under a blue button down blouse, with a jeans jacket over it, and boots. Also blue eye shadow.
Me: Well, I'm further down on the feminine gene thing than you are. I refuse to wear eye-shadow or skirts, or dresses for that matter.
Babs (lifts her skirt) - underneath are patterned pajama leggings. : Chidi called me a hippi.
Me: I wouldn't call you that. I don't even wear jewelry any longer.
Babs: Oh I stopped ages ago.
3. Co-workers (basically Babs, BYT and Gabe - I've not shown it to anyone else): Think my rash is an insect bite. BYT was thinking spider or bugs.
Babs thought bedbugs. Gabe thought I was most likely right - flea or spider.
I think it was a flea. I remember seeing a tiny flying insect.
I caved and bought Benedryle (by mouth) and took one. And lo and behold, it's better. Mother told me - that she keeps it on hand just for allergic reactions. It's how she dealt with an allergic reaction to a bite once - which sent her to the emergency room (they thought spider). This has one too many bumps for a spider. It looks like flea.
Although how I managed to get bitten by a flea is anyone's guess.
The horticozone helped, but the Benedryle really took care of it. This is the longest that it has stopped itching.
Note to self - when in doubt, take Benedryle for bug bites.
But all this talk about bedbugs being in chairs and fleas - made me come home and inspect my arm-chair. If there are any? They are invisible and I can't see them.
4. Flirted with American Horror Story: Delicate - the one that is show-run by a female writer? And is a contemporary retelling of Rosemary's Baby based on the novel by Danielle Valentine.
Except, there's a problem - all the spider imagery in the marketing campaign and trailers. I cannot do spiders. And the imagery leads me to believe that she's giving birth to a spider. Just no.
I'm an arachnophobe. I wasn't born that way. I was taught to fear spiders at any early age. Kind of traumatized by them. Over and over again from the age of 6 to the age of 28. I won't bore you with all the ways folks found to either deliberately or inadvertently scare me with spiders.
At this point, I can look at a tiny spider. But that's about it.
Emma Roberts states she's afraid of spiders - and yet here are all these spiders being shown with her in a marketing trailer. Also in the credits to the series.
Anyhow, while hunting trailer for it - I landed on this.. Episode Two: The South Tower - it's a National Geographic Documentary about 9/11.
It's also the day I became a New Yorker for life. Because I stayed in NYC, and continued to do so afterwards. I remember a cabbie asking if I was here for 9/11, and I said yes, also the blackout, the hurricanes, the transit strike...and he said, you are a New Yorker if you were here for 9/11 and stayed.
I still find it hard to watch anything related to it. I know people who escaped from the Towers with their lives, who lost people in them. I worked for two companies that were previously located in the Towers at the time, four years after it happened. I stared at their memorial walls. I walked through the wreckage for job interviews with buildings still down there.
I've visited the memorial. And I had the dust on my air conditioner from the buildings. I walked through the dust and the papers on the ground on my way home that day. I road the subway with the people sobbing and shaking, and terrified - when it got stuck in the tunnel for twenty minutes between Manhattan and Brooklyn, after being shut down for five hours due to the attacks. I knew people who walked all the way home to the Bronx from Manhattan. I thought about walking to Brooklyn from the Bronx (where I worked at the time) but had on the wrong shoes and clothing. Never again would I wear work shoes walking to and from work. Sneakers after 9/11.
Also my clothing changed, and became more casual. I stopped wearing silk suits. A co-worker and a friend drove me to the subway station - when they opened up again, she'd brought me home to her house for lunch, and to watch what was happening, since we'd been released from work - and I couldn't get home (the subways were shut down). I was stuck. And I could see the towers burning from the Bronx.
When I got home - finally? I saw that they were gone from my bedroom window. I had a view of them. And now gone.
It's a trauma that stays with you. That realization that no where is safe and we're all in this together. Also, weirdly, someone helped me when I was alone and needed help.
*Past was Better or Future will be Better?
Past, I dread the future. Sad. But true. It just looks like one long bleak lonely tunnel. So I prefer not to think about it at all, and stay in the present. (Well, I am saving money and doing everything possible to make it less bleak.)
*Farmers Market or Grocery Store?
Toss-up. Depends. I prefer the Farmer's Market - for the most part, since it can provide fresh produce, and nothing that will kill me. (I've food sensitivities. I don't buy based on cost - I buy based on what won't kill me.
*Crystal Chandelier or Minimalist Light?
I'm definitely a minimalist light person — I don't do ornate, and I also tend to have minimal light — just the least amount necessary for ambient light. I only put on lights when necessary. I like natural light. And I only own two lamps that I only use if the ceiling ones don't work.
*Cooking Class or Painting Class?
Painting class! (I'm not a fan of cooking or having people hover while I cook. Also I'm an intuitive cook.)
*Electric or Gas Stove
Electric - healthier, safer, and better. Less tendency to inhale gas which irritates the throat and lungs, and result in ashma and coughing.
But alas, I live in NYC, in an old apartment complex. We have gas ovens and stoves. I miss the electric.
My brother has a really cool one - it heats food, but just heating the pot, not the surface of the stove. Kind works like a magnet or something. Boils water really fast.
2. Talking with Babs today, who told me that she thinks the feminine gene passed her by. I looked at her - she's wearing a long skirt, a lacy chamisole under a blue button down blouse, with a jeans jacket over it, and boots. Also blue eye shadow.
Me: Well, I'm further down on the feminine gene thing than you are. I refuse to wear eye-shadow or skirts, or dresses for that matter.
Babs (lifts her skirt) - underneath are patterned pajama leggings. : Chidi called me a hippi.
Me: I wouldn't call you that. I don't even wear jewelry any longer.
Babs: Oh I stopped ages ago.
3. Co-workers (basically Babs, BYT and Gabe - I've not shown it to anyone else): Think my rash is an insect bite. BYT was thinking spider or bugs.
Babs thought bedbugs. Gabe thought I was most likely right - flea or spider.
I think it was a flea. I remember seeing a tiny flying insect.
I caved and bought Benedryle (by mouth) and took one. And lo and behold, it's better. Mother told me - that she keeps it on hand just for allergic reactions. It's how she dealt with an allergic reaction to a bite once - which sent her to the emergency room (they thought spider). This has one too many bumps for a spider. It looks like flea.
Although how I managed to get bitten by a flea is anyone's guess.
The horticozone helped, but the Benedryle really took care of it. This is the longest that it has stopped itching.
Note to self - when in doubt, take Benedryle for bug bites.
But all this talk about bedbugs being in chairs and fleas - made me come home and inspect my arm-chair. If there are any? They are invisible and I can't see them.
4. Flirted with American Horror Story: Delicate - the one that is show-run by a female writer? And is a contemporary retelling of Rosemary's Baby based on the novel by Danielle Valentine.
Except, there's a problem - all the spider imagery in the marketing campaign and trailers. I cannot do spiders. And the imagery leads me to believe that she's giving birth to a spider. Just no.
I'm an arachnophobe. I wasn't born that way. I was taught to fear spiders at any early age. Kind of traumatized by them. Over and over again from the age of 6 to the age of 28. I won't bore you with all the ways folks found to either deliberately or inadvertently scare me with spiders.
At this point, I can look at a tiny spider. But that's about it.
Emma Roberts states she's afraid of spiders - and yet here are all these spiders being shown with her in a marketing trailer. Also in the credits to the series.
Anyhow, while hunting trailer for it - I landed on this.. Episode Two: The South Tower - it's a National Geographic Documentary about 9/11.
It's also the day I became a New Yorker for life. Because I stayed in NYC, and continued to do so afterwards. I remember a cabbie asking if I was here for 9/11, and I said yes, also the blackout, the hurricanes, the transit strike...and he said, you are a New Yorker if you were here for 9/11 and stayed.
I still find it hard to watch anything related to it. I know people who escaped from the Towers with their lives, who lost people in them. I worked for two companies that were previously located in the Towers at the time, four years after it happened. I stared at their memorial walls. I walked through the wreckage for job interviews with buildings still down there.
I've visited the memorial. And I had the dust on my air conditioner from the buildings. I walked through the dust and the papers on the ground on my way home that day. I road the subway with the people sobbing and shaking, and terrified - when it got stuck in the tunnel for twenty minutes between Manhattan and Brooklyn, after being shut down for five hours due to the attacks. I knew people who walked all the way home to the Bronx from Manhattan. I thought about walking to Brooklyn from the Bronx (where I worked at the time) but had on the wrong shoes and clothing. Never again would I wear work shoes walking to and from work. Sneakers after 9/11.
Also my clothing changed, and became more casual. I stopped wearing silk suits. A co-worker and a friend drove me to the subway station - when they opened up again, she'd brought me home to her house for lunch, and to watch what was happening, since we'd been released from work - and I couldn't get home (the subways were shut down). I was stuck. And I could see the towers burning from the Bronx.
When I got home - finally? I saw that they were gone from my bedroom window. I had a view of them. And now gone.
It's a trauma that stays with you. That realization that no where is safe and we're all in this together. Also, weirdly, someone helped me when I was alone and needed help.
no subject
It's really interesting to read your thoughts about 9/11. I didn't really know anyone from there when it happened so only heard about stuff on the news, documentaries etc. It doesn't really hit you so much if you live far away and don't know anyone who was personally affected.
no subject
Note: don't touch, scratch or over-medicate flea bites. No alcholhol on it, etc.
And thanks you.. on the rest. ;-) I don't know if it would have hit me as hard if I hadn't been here at the time.
no subject
Also there were a lot fewer victims, of course.
no subject
According to the internet: The 9/11 terrorist attacks killed 2,977 people and injured thousands at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. And that's not counting the thousands who died from cancer and other complications due to pollutants released into the air. Also, they used 747 Passenger Planes to bomb the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the third one was supposed to be the White House - but the passengers stopped the hijackers and crashed the plane in Pennsylvania.
The result of 9/11 - was the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars - which cost...over a million lives and security checks for airlines. It basically changed the world. There was life before 9/11 and after.
So, it was just huge. Everyone was affected by it. They grounded all the airlines. No one could travel by plane anywhere for about 72 hours. There's nothing like some nitwit using a 747 Passenger Jet with a thousand passengers on board as a bomb to scare the bejeesus out of practically everybody.
I think if it had just been a bomb, it would have been different.
no subject
Thank you for sharing your memories of 9/11. I live across the country so while I remember it, I was still somewhat removed and getting the point of view from someone who was there really puts things in perspective. I hope this doesn't sound insensitive but it really is interesting to read not only how it affected us all but you in particular and how you changed certain habits after. I can definitely imagine how that kind of trauma sticks with you. It isn't something that can easily be forgotten, even two decades later.
no subject