Month: September 2006

My friend’s dog Bean is missing since Wednesday night. I’ve posted pictures of Bean before — I love this dog. She somehow got out of an apartment on 17th between 2nd and 3rd.

There’s a $1,000.00 reward.

Bean is a puggle, (a mix between a pug and a beagle, she is a smallish dog). She has been missing since Wednesday night.

If found please call: 917-612-8086.

I wonder what else can be done? I put flyers up around her neighborhood. Maybe Gothamist would be willing to post something?

But maybe not. Then they’d be deluged with requests like this.

This is what it sounds like in my house. Me talking babytalk to Finney and Buddy, periodically all throughout the day. “Monkey” is one of the 16 billion million katrillion nicknames I have for them.

UPDATE. Oh God, I was going to go the library today, before I remembered it was Monday and it was closed. But I just read Bush is going to be at the library today (ew ew ew) to discuss literacy (hahaha, no seriously, you’ve got to be kidding me, literacy? Bush??).

This is my coffee table which sits in front of my couch, all of which sits in front of the TV. I brought my work over and was sitting there thinking, I could work on my chapter, continue reading that book on the left (quite good so far, it’s called Brimstone) or watch TV.

Work, TV, book, work, TV, book, work, TV, book. What did I do? What, are you kidding? I watched TV even though there was nothing on except re-runs! (That actor who plays Denny on Grey’s Anatomy though. Be still my heart.)

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – More people kill themselves each year than die from wars and murders combined, but most suicides could be prevented, two international experts on suicide said on Friday.

Some 20 million to 60 million try to kill themselves each year, but only about a million of them succeed, said Dr. Jose Manoel Bertolote, a mental health official at the World Health Organization in Geneva.

I cut and paste this from somewhere, I forget where, but it’s from this month. In my mind, I immediately had this bird’s eye view of the planet, showing millions of people furiously trying to end it all. It was just so sad. We’re not on the ball about something. Or was it always like this? If you went back a hundred years would the percentage be the same, even if the numbers were smaller?

It reminds me of a very moving book, Wisconsin Death Trip. The author, Michael Lesy, found an archive of photographs taken in the 1890’s of a town in Wisconsin called Black River Falls. He went through old newspapers and found that it was a particularly sad time. People kept dying, often by their own hand.

It’s an incredible book. I read it in one sitting and when I was done it was like walking out of a movie. You know that feeling you have for a few seconds after a movie, like you were in a dream and have to come back to the real world?

Yesterday was intense.

New York Magazine put up the things we said on Echo on 9/11. It begins with my post about the first plane crashing into the WTC. Reading that was how I began my day.

Then I went downtown and spent about 8 hours down at St. Paul’s Chapel. Saw a lot of old friends, not a single picture came out well, unfortunately. I stayed for the Interfaith Memorial Service, which was emotional and well done on so many levels. They had people from Buddhism, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh (and more) faiths reading and speaking. I loved the Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr. so much I want to join his church even though I don’t believe in God! I also loved the Buddhist, (not sure of her name) one of the Rabbi’s (Joseph Potasnik) and Mr. Amardeep Singh, one of the Sikhs. I grabbed him afterwards to ask him about the text he read. I’ve only been able to find a piece of it, but just from this one piece I think you can get how amazing it was:

As out of a single fire,
Millions of spark arise;
So from God’s form emerge all creation,
Animate and inanimate.

(From the Akal Ustat, which is from the Dasam Granth.)

Barbara brought a copy of one of our favorite letters that came to the Chapel. It’s from a young girl named Claudia. I left out her last name for privacy sake, but here is the letter.

Dear Firefighter,

There are many deaths that I can die. Cancer, heart attack, AIDS, hepatitus, sickle cell anemia, Leukemia, natural causes, choking, being strangled, shot or hanged, I could get the death penilty, or rabies or a snake bite, or a wild animal could attack me. I could get run over by a car, be in a car crash, fall, slip, get a concussion, get small pox or be stabbed, cracking my skull, get poisoned, heart disease, get stung by too many bees, and many, many, many more. But I know I will never, ever, die in a fire, because people like you great people would go into flames to save an ordinary person like me, and that’s what makes you so great, courageous, brave, terrific, wonderful, special people.

Yours truly,
Claudia

Finally, I got a little obsessed photographing the Towers of Light as I walked home. The first shot is right at the Trade Center. The last was once I hit the Village, where I live. It was just so beautiful.