Woke up a little groggy on Saturday morning, having stayed up late to watch the Mets lose in extra innings. When Jose, the Executive Director at Bronx AIDS Services, called me at 7:30 I had yet to consume a needed cup of coffee or even attempt to communicate in full sentences. When I heard his voice on my cellphone, my brain couldn't even compute that it was him calling. "Why is Jose calling me, at 7:30 am, on a Saturday morning?" This three-part question could have been answered rather immediately had I been listening to him and not groggily formulating that three-part question in my mind. Gradually, I regained communication cognizance, I understood him to be telling me that someone had broken into the BAS offices and had done a number on the legal department.
Hey, that's my department. My pride and joy. My homely home away from home.
I showered, brewed that much-needed cup of coffee and jumped in the car...zoom to the office.
BAS "main office" is at 540 East Fordham Road. It's a busy road, even by urban standards. Our offices are on the second floor of a two-story building. The legal department occupies the eastern side of the street-facing portion of the building. We have four windowed-offices, with the secretary/senior paralegal office at the easternmost end, then a pair of two-attorney offices, and then there's my office. Opposite these offices, in the interior of the building, is an alcove where our two other paralegals sit.
My would-be burglar entered BAS through one of the windows in the secretary/senior paralegal office via a glass-smashing crowbar. He proceeded to spend some time trying to get into our safe - he managed to break off the door handle and the number-dial thing, but couldn't get the door open. Not sure how we're going to get that door open now, but I suppose that's for the locksmith to figure out. Burglar dude then played around with the computers in the office, knocking them over to see what he could easily transport out of the place I suppose. He rifled through cabinet drawers, spilling all sorts of paperwork on the floor, looking for items of the value (none to be found). I imagine he was in that office for a good 10 - 15 minutes or so, before heading out into the hallway at around 4:15 am. That's when the motion-sensor alarm system discovered him.
Not sure when he decided to fnd the alarm keypad and smash it off the wall, but I suspect it was soon after the alarm went off. He then (or before then) went into the two attorney offices and tried dismantling the computers. He made some more of a mess as he continued his search for valuables. In the third office, he actually took a pair of scissors and cut the cords that connect the monitors to the computers. He then wrapped the two monitors in that office in a brown hooded-sweatjacket and took them into the secretary/senior paralegal office. That's where we found them.
He then probably headed down to my office, stopping at the supply cabinet outside my office where he rifled through the supplies, spilling many of them onto the floor. In my office, he took almost all of the loose change I keep in a dish on my desk (hey, how the hell am I going to pay for that afternoon package of Skittles, asshole!), and he opened a cabinet where I keep all of my funding binders (the government contracts, correspondence, data reports). These binders have often given me the urge to want to flee the building, but I bet that it was right around this time that the cop cars, responding to the triggered alarm system, finally appeared, because lame-ass burglar dude bolted out of the legal area towards the back of the agency, where he escaped via a roof hatch in the ceiling. I've worked in that office for seven years and never knew that there was a roof hatch.
Well, when I arrived at the office at around 8:30 am on Saturday, surveying all of the damage was a bit shocking. Here's a tip for all of you asiring legal directors out there: staring at a ransacked office is about the only time that it is OK to say "that dirty motherfucker" in front of your executive director.
The good news is that, with the exception of about three dollars in loose change from my office, it does not appear that he got away with anything. Some of our computers might be damaged (at the very least we've lost those two monitors), but insurance will cover that kind of loss, and all of our data/records are on a network so the hardware is completely fungible. He made a mess, particularly in the secretary/senior paralegal office, but clean-up should not take much more than an hour or two on Tuesday morning. Bozo the burglar left behind his sweatjacket (duh) and no doubt a bunch of fingerprints, so I'm optimistic that the police have something to work with. And we have a good story to tell.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Booooooooook!
The real thing -- Slipping, in it's hardcovered glory -- arrived the other day. It won't be in the bookstores for another four weeks, but Bloomsbury sent Cathleen a copy from the first batch they received from the printer (she'll get a handful more "author's copies" soon as well). The cover looks excellent, the blue a bit deeper and more metallic looking than that in the advance copies, and pieces of added text are well-placed.
If you take it and wack it on your head, as I have done, it feels like a real book.
If you take it and wack it on your head, as I have done, it feels like a real book.
Swab the Rick, matey
Ever since the summer of 2005, in the wake of an attack in the London subway system, the NYPD has been conducting "random" searches of travelers' bags at the entranceways to various NYC subway stations. When the policy was first announced, I still retained a shred of naivete about the protections afforded by the US Constitution, and I figured that there was no way that this practice would stand judicial scrutiny. Well, in a "post-9/11 world" there is no measure of civil rights that can't stand to be sacrificed at the altar of "making us safe" and so here we are, three years into the bag-searching regime.
I live near one of the larger subway stations in the city -- the Atlantic Ave/Pacific Street Station-- and I pass through it twice every day during the week. At least once a week during the morning rush the police are set up at the Pacific Street entrance (where I enter) conducting random bag searches. For three years I've walked by them, never quite knowing how to play the situation. Somewhat to my relief, I think, after three years I remain irked by the trappings of a police state, but I never figured out in my mind how much my consternation should influence my conduct if I were to be stopped for a search.
Two mornings ago I entered the subway station with Dinosaur Jr's Start Choppin' blaring through my iPod headphones. Sometimes, depending on the song and my mood, I likes to hear the music loud. A police officer stood in front of the turnstiles, and as I walked towards him he beckoned me towards a table on the left, behind which stood three more officers. One of them said something to me, but I was still fumbling with my iPod in an attempt to turn it off. I placed my bag on the table and defiantly stepped backwards. You want to search my bag, open it your damn self. Instead of searching the contents of my bag, however, the police officer took a small piece of paper, swabbed it across the top of my bag a couple of times, and then stuck the paper into a small machine that resembled a small credit card machine that you might find in a bodega or a dry cleaners. They were testing my bag for explosives.
Did the high-tech screening make it any less invasive? Was the relatively de minimis extent of the inconvenience supposed to render me more complacent? Is anyone feeling safer? Was anyone feeling that unsafe to begin with?
Scared into war, and eventually war becomes the state of being. Scared into giving away some civil rights, and eventually the absence of civil rights becomes the state of being.
Oh there's no goin back to that, I'm so numb, can't even react.
I live near one of the larger subway stations in the city -- the Atlantic Ave/Pacific Street Station-- and I pass through it twice every day during the week. At least once a week during the morning rush the police are set up at the Pacific Street entrance (where I enter) conducting random bag searches. For three years I've walked by them, never quite knowing how to play the situation. Somewhat to my relief, I think, after three years I remain irked by the trappings of a police state, but I never figured out in my mind how much my consternation should influence my conduct if I were to be stopped for a search.
Two mornings ago I entered the subway station with Dinosaur Jr's Start Choppin' blaring through my iPod headphones. Sometimes, depending on the song and my mood, I likes to hear the music loud. A police officer stood in front of the turnstiles, and as I walked towards him he beckoned me towards a table on the left, behind which stood three more officers. One of them said something to me, but I was still fumbling with my iPod in an attempt to turn it off. I placed my bag on the table and defiantly stepped backwards. You want to search my bag, open it your damn self. Instead of searching the contents of my bag, however, the police officer took a small piece of paper, swabbed it across the top of my bag a couple of times, and then stuck the paper into a small machine that resembled a small credit card machine that you might find in a bodega or a dry cleaners. They were testing my bag for explosives.
Did the high-tech screening make it any less invasive? Was the relatively de minimis extent of the inconvenience supposed to render me more complacent? Is anyone feeling safer? Was anyone feeling that unsafe to begin with?
Scared into war, and eventually war becomes the state of being. Scared into giving away some civil rights, and eventually the absence of civil rights becomes the state of being.
Oh there's no goin back to that, I'm so numb, can't even react.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Transporta-zen
For my daily commute home, I take a Metro North train from Fordham to Grand Central; there I take the Grand Central - Times Square Shuttle (the "S" train), and then the N or Q home from Times Square. The S train, as the full name implies, runs exclusively between Grand Central and Times Square, with three trains operating pretty much every two minutes during rush hour. At these times, the S is always packed like a cattle car because, as it turns out, many a New Yorker passes between Grand Central and Times Square during the business day. I have learned, however, that if you miss one S train, you'll really only have to wait two minutes for the next one -- and I mean two minutes for it to be fully-boarded and leave. It is not a long wait.
Nevertheless, commuters who would think twice before hastening their pace to save their mothers from an oncoming vehicle suddenly feel compelled to break into a full sprint in order to make it into whatever S train they see sitting in the station. I have seen fat people, old ladies, groups of friends holding hands...all running for their lives to make it into a train in order to avoid the two-minute wait for the next one. I have seen folks of all sorts shove parts of their bodies (or their children's bodies -- once I saw someone propel a baby stroller forward as a door jam) or their possessions into the closing train doors in order to buy themselves a spot on a train. Before today, I had never seen an elderly Tibetan monk make that effort. To his credit, when the train left him standing on the platform, he didn't curse or yell. He barely looked anguished. That's called being at peace with yourself.
Nevertheless, commuters who would think twice before hastening their pace to save their mothers from an oncoming vehicle suddenly feel compelled to break into a full sprint in order to make it into whatever S train they see sitting in the station. I have seen fat people, old ladies, groups of friends holding hands...all running for their lives to make it into a train in order to avoid the two-minute wait for the next one. I have seen folks of all sorts shove parts of their bodies (or their children's bodies -- once I saw someone propel a baby stroller forward as a door jam) or their possessions into the closing train doors in order to buy themselves a spot on a train. Before today, I had never seen an elderly Tibetan monk make that effort. To his credit, when the train left him standing on the platform, he didn't curse or yell. He barely looked anguished. That's called being at peace with yourself.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Half, as fast as I could have imagined
Ran the Brooklyn Half-Marathon this past Saturday. Having trained at a 9-minute per mile pace, my goal was to finish in under two hours (9 minute pace translates into 1 hour and almost 58 minutes). I am proud to report that I finished in 1:53:26, which is an 8:39 pace per mile. I placed 2,553rd out of 5,832 participants. But the race, obviously, wasn't about me against the other 5,831 runners; it was about me against the 3,279 slobs that finished behind me. No, I mean it was about me running against myself, challenging myself to do my best.
The morning had not started so well -- I made it to the subway platform as the N train was pulling out, meaning I'd have to wait for more than ten minutes early on a Saturday morning for the next train to arrive. I made it out to Coney Island about 20 minutes before racetime, had to put my bag on a bus for pickup later at the finish, had to use the port-a-potty and then get in the race corrals. The lines at the potties were long, and I basically had enough time to do about a quarter of my normal stretching routine before the gun sounded, and I was able to slip into the race corrals as the horde began to move forward.
The first 2 1/2 miles were along (and double-back again) the Coney Island boardwalk. That was cool. I mean, the weather was chilly, but the sight of the beach and ocean to the immediate left, the creaking and thumping of the wood underneath you, the occasional sand hazard to run through or around...a whole different "race" experience. The beginnings of these long races are always so cool...everyone's in a good mood, optimistic about what lies ahead; there's a folksy comaraderie. Did I spell comaraderie right? It looks funny. In any event, I was at exactly nine minutes at the first mile marker, which surprised me, as the crowd was thick and although I was attempting to weave through the thick parts to get some sort of pace going, I assumed I'd be behind the mark until we hit the more open streets. I was still on pace at two miles, and by the fourth mile marker, on Ocean Parkway, I was slightly ahead of pace. Interesting.
Ocean Parkway is a grand boulevard of Brooklyn -- large median down the center, beautiful homes line the sides. A friend who had run the Brooklyn Half in the past had joked that the Ocean Parkway run is frustrating because the cross-streets are all lettered in reverse alphabetical order ("Avenue Z" and then "Avenue Y" and so on), and so you spend time trying to figure out what number letter "M" is in order to calculate how much longer you have until you make it to Prospect Park. Lo and behold, by the middle of the alphabet I was stumped as to how much more Ocean Parkway lay ahead of me.
By the sixth or seventh mile I was more than a full minute ahead of my nine-minute pace goal. On the one hand, this was great. On the other hand, I was concerned about gassing out at the end. The last four miles of the run are in hilly Prospect Park, and I did not want to be the idiot who tanked with a mile to go. But I was feeling exceptionally well. Without a running partner for the first time in a long race (you know, of the two other long races I've ever run), I was able to focus exclusively on my running, making myself relax my body, maintain a pace and good form on hills, etc.
I entered Prospect Park at the nine-mile marker, and I was about a minute and a half ahead. Now I could turn on the psychological games: this was my park, where I run all the time...get out of my way, shitheads. I know, it's a bit simple and juvenile, but I'm not a very sophisticated runner. When I hit the big hill at the northern end of the park, I was practically laughing to myself -- I own this hill! Around the bend to the west side of the park where I knew that Cathleen, Max, Eliza and my mom would be waiting for me near the Third Street entrance...and then I saw them from about 50 yards away. Such a lift! I kissed them all, and then ran away with a new bounce in my step. Literally. I had about two miles to go, and I was psyched. Down the big hill at the southwest corner, and then the last big hill (in the unchartered, for me, interior part of the park). As I ascended the final hill of the run, some guy on the side shouted out "the 13-mile marker is right around the corner." That's all I needed; I bolted into a full-out sprint to the end, weaving in and around folks ahead of me as a I flew to the finish line.
I often use the experience of the two marathons I've run in other contexts: the mental determination I employed in those runs to overcome physical pain and fatigue in order to finish...it is helpful to look back and know that I have the ability to dig deep in the face of challenges. The half-marathon -- a dramatically more humane and less punishing distance to run -- provides me with something different. Not sure yet what that is, perhaps something about what it takes to exceed a goal, but I'm filing away the 1:53:26 of moments that were that race, and they'll be there when I want or need to use them.
The morning had not started so well -- I made it to the subway platform as the N train was pulling out, meaning I'd have to wait for more than ten minutes early on a Saturday morning for the next train to arrive. I made it out to Coney Island about 20 minutes before racetime, had to put my bag on a bus for pickup later at the finish, had to use the port-a-potty and then get in the race corrals. The lines at the potties were long, and I basically had enough time to do about a quarter of my normal stretching routine before the gun sounded, and I was able to slip into the race corrals as the horde began to move forward.
The first 2 1/2 miles were along (and double-back again) the Coney Island boardwalk. That was cool. I mean, the weather was chilly, but the sight of the beach and ocean to the immediate left, the creaking and thumping of the wood underneath you, the occasional sand hazard to run through or around...a whole different "race" experience. The beginnings of these long races are always so cool...everyone's in a good mood, optimistic about what lies ahead; there's a folksy comaraderie. Did I spell comaraderie right? It looks funny. In any event, I was at exactly nine minutes at the first mile marker, which surprised me, as the crowd was thick and although I was attempting to weave through the thick parts to get some sort of pace going, I assumed I'd be behind the mark until we hit the more open streets. I was still on pace at two miles, and by the fourth mile marker, on Ocean Parkway, I was slightly ahead of pace. Interesting.
Ocean Parkway is a grand boulevard of Brooklyn -- large median down the center, beautiful homes line the sides. A friend who had run the Brooklyn Half in the past had joked that the Ocean Parkway run is frustrating because the cross-streets are all lettered in reverse alphabetical order ("Avenue Z" and then "Avenue Y" and so on), and so you spend time trying to figure out what number letter "M" is in order to calculate how much longer you have until you make it to Prospect Park. Lo and behold, by the middle of the alphabet I was stumped as to how much more Ocean Parkway lay ahead of me.
By the sixth or seventh mile I was more than a full minute ahead of my nine-minute pace goal. On the one hand, this was great. On the other hand, I was concerned about gassing out at the end. The last four miles of the run are in hilly Prospect Park, and I did not want to be the idiot who tanked with a mile to go. But I was feeling exceptionally well. Without a running partner for the first time in a long race (you know, of the two other long races I've ever run), I was able to focus exclusively on my running, making myself relax my body, maintain a pace and good form on hills, etc.
I entered Prospect Park at the nine-mile marker, and I was about a minute and a half ahead. Now I could turn on the psychological games: this was my park, where I run all the time...get out of my way, shitheads. I know, it's a bit simple and juvenile, but I'm not a very sophisticated runner. When I hit the big hill at the northern end of the park, I was practically laughing to myself -- I own this hill! Around the bend to the west side of the park where I knew that Cathleen, Max, Eliza and my mom would be waiting for me near the Third Street entrance...and then I saw them from about 50 yards away. Such a lift! I kissed them all, and then ran away with a new bounce in my step. Literally. I had about two miles to go, and I was psyched. Down the big hill at the southwest corner, and then the last big hill (in the unchartered, for me, interior part of the park). As I ascended the final hill of the run, some guy on the side shouted out "the 13-mile marker is right around the corner." That's all I needed; I bolted into a full-out sprint to the end, weaving in and around folks ahead of me as a I flew to the finish line.
I often use the experience of the two marathons I've run in other contexts: the mental determination I employed in those runs to overcome physical pain and fatigue in order to finish...it is helpful to look back and know that I have the ability to dig deep in the face of challenges. The half-marathon -- a dramatically more humane and less punishing distance to run -- provides me with something different. Not sure yet what that is, perhaps something about what it takes to exceed a goal, but I'm filing away the 1:53:26 of moments that were that race, and they'll be there when I want or need to use them.
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