a few months earlier, i had been hired by gq magazine to illustrate a 4-5 page advertorial comp; a cute idea to be pitched to american express blue. american express blue was a new amex product, and gq wanted a slice of their advertising pie. if amex bought the idea, how exciting for me…i would, very likely, illustrate the ‘special section’, and, finally, segue my career from graphic designer into full-time illustrator. i had studied illustration at fit years earlier, did quite well, loved to illustrate, but, illustration jobs in the 80s gave way to photography, more or less. but here we were, in the new millennium, loving illustration once again, in no small way thanks to adobe illustrator and wallpaper magazine.

well, the meeting with amex blue went well, but, alas, amex had already allocated their advertising budget for the year, so, wa wa wa, the section never sold.

i was disappointed, but still buoyed by the fact that the marketing design director had given me the opportunity to showcase my work, which could, possibly, lead to other illustration projects at gq, or, condé nast, for that matter. i was grateful.

the design director was leaving gq for a bigger job at victoria’s secret, so, i thought i would express my thanks with a cute illustration of a buddha (she was interested in the spirituality of buddhism) wearing a brassiere, you know, the victoria’s secret connection. silly, but cute. my illustration style was whimsical, after all.

and so, in my williamsburg apartment, my second bedroom-turned-office,  that night, the night of september 10th, 2001, i worked.

i had the window open and the radio on. i enjoyed flipping through radio stations, and, if i had enough of music, i would settle on some talk radio, something like art bell’s ‘coast to coast’, with his weird intro song…something about ‘isis’. whatever it was. the paranormal subject matter totally set the mood in the wee hours of the night.

well, the night of september 10th was a crazy night, weather-wise. torrential downpours, a bit chilly, too. i was thoroughly enjoying the dramatic weather, windows wide open, backyard possibly flooding, all the while, totally enjoying my new-found freedom…with each click of my illustrative mouse, i thought, truly believed, ‘life is good! i’m going to make a career of being an illustrator! it’s so possible! anything and everything is possible!’ each time, whatever radio station i was listening to took a break for news and weather, the newscaster would say, something to the effect of, ‘it’s crazy weather out there tonight, but, tomorrow is going to be a perfect day!’ it was hard to believe, really. i felt like i was sitting right there inside the weather, with buckets upon buckets of rain pouring down…how could tomorrow possibly be a perfect day?

at 5am, wide awake and alive with the possibilities of what the future held for me, i forced myself to step away from my work, and go to bed.

i awoke to my clock radio, and heard something, ‘blah blah blah, world trade center…’ i slipped into a weird dream in which i was at the world trade center, going there for a job interview. funny, years earlier, i had…a design job with deloitte touche…i ended up being late for that interview, not knowing that it would take an eternity to get through world trade center security, and what an elaborate labyrinth it would be to find my destination. that complex was massive. i guess my brief encounter with the corporate side of the wtc was deeply etched in my subconscious but rose to the surface that morning.

and then, my phone, the old-fashioned landline that we all had back in 2001, rang, and my neighbor left a message on my answering machine. all that i heard was ‘world trade center’, or, ‘twin towers’. i shot out of bed.

i listened to the message, and heard, i don’t know, something about the planes, maybe. i frantically turned on the television, and saw the north tower smoldering. moments later, my television went dead. the antenna that transmitted what i was watching was on the north tower.

i grabbed my cell phone and ran up to my neighbors apartment, the neighbor who had left me the message. her door was locked. she was not home.

i ran back to my apartment only to find, i had locked myself out. i was wearing really really bad ‘bed wear’…i had taken a hiatus from doing laundry the past few weeks, and, a hiatus from cleaning the house. it had been so blazing hot that august. the clothes i wore were the things you would never wear, something clean, yes, but stuck in the back of the armoire, smelling kind of musty, and very ill-fitting. definitely not something you want to be caught out on the street in.

i called my brother neil who lived down the block, not sure if he would be home, or, at work. i needed to reach out to someone immediately. i left him a message, and tried to not sound too panicked. but deep down inside, i knew the world had, in that instance, changed, and definitely not for the better.

i ran downstairs to my neighbors, with whom i shared a backyard.

they let me in to their place, and, on their big screen tv, and through cable, they were watching the events unfold.

as we watched, my neighbor, told me that her mother had, years earlier, worked at the world trade center.

i said, ‘they’ve got to take those buildings down…’

she looked at me, aghast.

i was living in japan in 1993. the first attack on the twin towers was on my birthday: february 26th, 1993. it was pretty clear to me, from that day forward, that those buildings were vulnerable, that someone wanted them down. how george bush could sit in a classroom, knowing one building was hit on that fateful day in 2001, sit through a reading of ‘my pet goat’, and not know the country was under some sort of siege, was beyond me then, and is beyond me now. something there does not add up.

and when i said, ‘they have to take those buildings down’, i was thinking about the people who had pretty obviously perished on that first plane, and any people who might have been on the floors that were hit…it would have just seemed wrong to keep those vulnerable buildings up, after that first attack in ’93, and now this.

and then, the second plane hit…

‘i need to get into my house,’ i said to my neighbor. ‘can i use your back door?’

i slipped through my bedroom window, the radio still on, and heard, ‘the pentagon…hit…’

at first, i thought they were reporting something from the past, talking of former attacks, like, maybe there had been an attack on the pentagon years ago, i just could not fathom that both world trade center towers were hit, plus the pentagon. as i hurriedly dressed, i realized they were talking real time. we were under attack.

my brother showed up…i can’t remember if i let him in or he let himself in.

‘we need to go to the water,’ i said. we were two blocks from the east river.

i thought about grabbing my camera, but felt it disrespectful of the people who had undoubtably perished. i’d hoped that it was too early for people to be in their office, so, sad as it might be, maybe it was only those that were on those planes.

we headed to the east river, kent avenue and north 7th street. there was no ‘edge’ back then, just a clear, unobstructed view of downtown manhattan. the sky was a brilliant blue, with not one cloud in it. it was, as predicted, ‘a perfect day’.

there were a dozen or so people there, all looking west to the smoldering sky. all looking on in silence, sadness, and disbelief.

an suv was on the street, with a video camera pointed at the crime scene, and the radio on.

i saw a fireball in the south tower, suddenly, and thought, with a terrible feeling in my gut, ‘oh my god, there’s no way anyone could survive that..’ and then, just as i was praying that no one was anywhere near the floors of impact, and that terrible fireball, the south tower collapsed.

it’s almost impossible to describe the feeling. it is one of absolute disbelief. the collapse of that building, visually, was nothing short of…it was as if the building was razed. it was simply, like an elegant accordion, folding, folding, folding, down, down, down. and all that you could think of were the lives that might have been, god i hope they were not, somewhere inside those folds.

there was a cry, there were many cries, a group of strangers watching. a moment of utter disbelief, a stark realization that everything in the world as we knew it then, had so drastically changed.

and when the north tower fell, it was not as shocking or surprising. it was not expected, no, but it was anticipated. you could only think, ‘what next?’ things change that quickly in the human psyche. you just prayed that there were no casualties there. that there was time for people to leave those buildings, to have not been in the office, to have been late to work, to have taken the day off, to have made that dentist appointment for that morning, and kept it, to have missed that train, to have waited too long for change for that cup of coffee.

we called our folks and miraculously got through to them. we were the lucky ones, making calls, connecting, knowing that our people were safe.

my brother and i were not the first to arrive at teddy’s. there was a young hasidic guy at the bar, watching the tv.

soon, others came in, eyes glued to the television.

a girl who worked at teddy’s came in, flustered and perturbed. late for work. complaining about the trains not running, having come from a doctor’s appointment in the city, having to walk across the williamsburg bridge. she was young. i guess she had no idea how much the world had changed that day. i wonder still, if she ever realized this, or, is she still bemoaning the inconvenience the events of september 11th thrust upon her.

my brother colin had flown into boston early that morning for a meeting, and found out, during the meeting, that the towers were hit. some guy in the meeting was watching on his laptop, and casually mentioned that the towers were hit, and then, business as usual. as if it were just ‘a new york thing’.

colin was at logan airport that morning. who knows, he may have passed those hijackers, somewhere in transit there.

he drove back to new york in the rental car he had hired before the world changed. 8 hours or more later, a slow crawl back to new york, he met me and my brother neil for dinner at vera cruz.

it was a day, for those of us that were lucky to have, for whatever reason, not been in those towers or on those planes, a day of ‘why? why? why?’ up and down the stairs from my neighbor’s house to mine, friends dropping in, shock, disbelief and a lot of talking.

after dinner at vera cruz (it was so good to be with family), my brothers and i parted ways.

i was at my door, but thought, ‘no…i need to go take another look, i need to see…’

so, i headed back to the river.

some girls were walking ahead of me, they heard my footsteps, turned around, and said, ‘are you alone? you shouldn’t be alone, join us…’

we went down to the river, a small group had gathered.

sitting on rocks, pylons, whatever one could sit on, we watched the thick black toxic plume of smoke, and the smell…the smell and smoke that lasted for weeks on end. someone from galapagaos passed around a bottle of jamesons.

i walked home, someone walked me home. i did not want the day to end. i did not want to go to bed, to go to sleep, because i knew that when i awoke, it would not have been a bad dream, but would be the new reality.

my cat, he really is the coolest, you know, never acts out, no crazy behavior, he had taken a shit in the middle of my bedroom floor. even he knew that the world had changed.

for the past several months, maybe even the past year, i have not had, to my recollection, any outstanding dreams, if any dreams at all.

i’m no different than your average dreamer, i’m sure.

i dream in colour.

i dream in disconnected iambic pentameter.

i dream of flying, soaring, and sometimes falling.

i dream of people in my present.

i dream of people from my past.

i dream nonsensical dreams.

whatever the dream, i say, bring it on.

i love to dream.

the fact that i have not really dreamt much in the past year, while upsetting, i sensed it was temporary.

i knew it had to do with my situation, and yes, my bed. or lack thereof.

i think it was self-defense that either put my dreams on hold, or, just buried them deep enough in my subconscience and before i awoke, so as to not give me more to analyze, worry about, fret over, on top of everything else in my life at this point that might bring out the very best woody allen in me.

and so, it just came to me now, a dream i had prior to waking this AM.

it was brief, an interlude of sorts, really.

i was standing at a corner, not the corner of a building, but the corner of some sort of wall, chatting with friends. i think they were friends. people. people i know, i think.

when he walked by.

the boy i had a crush on.

from the 5th grade to…my junior year of high school, at least.

he was the beautiful boy i remember.

in my dream, no more than 17.

our eyes met and held for a moment.

‘wow’, i thought. ‘i forgot all about that boy.’

we had our moment and then, it passed as quickly as it came.

i was left feeling happy. happy to have seen that once beautiful boy.

and then i thought, ‘my hair. i hope my hair looked good.’

i had aches i was not aware of, really, until the knots and tension were forced from my back and body, and stretched out of shape.

i hope the newness of the experience never wears off.

i aim to appreciate always, the goodness of a good night’s sleep.

gosh. how i wish i were home in bed right now.

it started with my painting my bedroom. my old bedroom.

a friend, a self-proclaimed painter of walls, came over to help me with the small project.

‘you know’ i said, ‘i’m thinking of getting rid of this mattress…’

no sooner had the words slipped from my lips, but, there he was, dragging the old thing through the house. out the door, and onto the sidewalk.

i find random mattresses on sidewalks pretty gross, so, i was a bit appalled that i was one of those people, this was one of those mattresses.

i peered out the window, cringing as i saw folks walk by my discard. i stepped away from the window momentarily, and then, back to the window, only to see some guy, with a station wagon piled high with mattresses, looking mine over, and miraculously throwing mine on the top of his pile.

‘ew’, i thought, ‘but, thank you, thank you!”

i had these comfortable guest futons from japan. they are different from the american-made ‘futon’.

the japanese deal is this:

you have this tri-fold thing, called a shikibuton, i think. it’s quite firm, ‘twin’ in size.

that folds out, and you place it on top of your tatami mats.

then, you have a ‘twin size’ cotton futon, that, when stored, is softly tri-folded, as well.

stack one of those atop the firmer tri-fold ‘base’, atop the tatami mats, and, voila, there’s your traditional japanese bed.

well, i had 2 ‘twin’ size cotton futons.

stack ‘em one on top the other, quite comfy.

and shortly, thereafter, i acquired 2 beautiful tatami mats, beautiful, earthy smelling behemoths of mats.

until i purchase another bed, this ‘system’ will do fine, i thought.

and it did.

for how many years now?

the way my apartment was laid out, the 2 rooms in the back with the pane glass doors, well, there was something nice about not having to look at a bed from the dining area, the living room.

to me, anyway.

i rather enjoyed the sparse, clean aesthetic.

and the futons were fine.

there were dreams and schemes of building a platform, to get the whole operation a foot or so off the floor.

the crawling up and out and up from ‘bed’ was getting very old.

arising each morning from the floor was getting old.

i was getting old.

but the idea of a new bed at this point in time was a bit incomprehensible, for a number of reasons.

one, being that aforementioned aesthetic thing.

the other, well, the hard times were upon me.

each month, after the rent and bills had been paid, i was left with little. not enough to make such a ‘big’ purchase.

when i left my home last november 30th, i ended up on a friend’s very uncomfortable couch for several weeks.

certainly not worth the rate he was charging.

(‘some friend’, really.)

so, my sleep (and living) situation went from ‘meh’ to worse.

then, a dear friend said, ‘hey…i’ll be out-of-town for a few weeks. stay at my place while i’m gone.’

i hesitated, because of ‘cat’.

i must have been crazy, hesitating at all.

‘okay’, i finally decided.

her place was charming.

clean.

‘well appointed’.

the tray on the bed, upon my arrival, with the slippers, body lotion, cookies, chocolates, and ‘welcome’ note, were all too much.

it had been a helluva few weeks there, for me, in godforsaken queens.

it had been a helluva few months there, for me, dealing with my bully of a landlord, his disgusting wife, the courts, the shyster lawyer of theirs, the ‘embarrassment’, the packing up of ten plus years, the taking whatever little money i had, hiring movers, putting my life in storage at a monthly expense i could barely afford…

i climbed up and into my friend’s bed.

so high, was this bed, you actually had to use the little step stool she had placed beside it.

i’ll never forget the emotions that overcame me as i lay prone, completely straight, for the first time in weeks.

i laughed.

i cried.

i laughed.

i cried.

i had not felt this good, this alive, this sane, this happy, this comfortable in a long, long time.

i felt my friend was an angel.

the short stay, which actually extend a few weeks more, as her out-of-town trip extended a few weeks more, gave me the space to get some thinking done.

what was i thinking, living there in queens with this so-called ‘friend’?

could my life spiral down any further, really?

i needed to get out of there.

as fate would have it, a text message from an old williamsburg neighborhood friend was perfectly timed.

he had a massive room available in bushwick.

it was the dead of winter, january.

i knew i could deal with the treeless bushwick street, in the dead of winter.

i knew the snow would blanket the bushwick grime, and maybe crime, in the dead of winter.

i knew i could deal with bushwick for the short-term.

for the most part, it was fine.

my ‘mind-over-matter’approach to life at this point helped me deal with a few of the unpleasant realities:

the cockroaches.

the odors outside my room.

the grimy streets and grimy people.

on the positive side:

i liked the elevated train.

my space itself was rather nice.

but sadly and certainly, i was not falling in love with bushwick.

somehow february had slipped into july.

i was starting to wonder how long my ‘mind-over-matter’ approach was going to hold out, with the ridiculous ghetto noise from the neighbors on this treeless block.

they were beginning to know me down there at the local precinct, which i never hesitated to call at 4 in the morning to say, ‘come on guys, enough is enough. there are children outside, across the street (i swear their padre was some kind of drug lord, what with the hummer parked in his junkyard, the tacky home improvements that were buzzing at the crack of dawn on the 3 aluminum sided buildings he owned, and the dirty above ground pool his little street urchin-like children wallowed in at all hours of the day or night). it’s 4 in the morning…’

it’s best not to dwell or focus too much on the negative aspects of one’s situation, especially when you are deep in the thick of the experience itself.

just pray.

prayers answered. perfect timing.

this opportunity opened up.

when i opened the door here, already, it smelled better.

noisy neighbors?

well, yeah, sometimes the kids can get a little shrill while playing in central park across the street. okay.

the futons do not work as well here as they did in bushwick.

the tatami mats were sadly destroyed by the drip drip drip of the air conditioner.

(my bad)

the small rattan sofa i have been sleeping on since mid-july, well, here is a perfect example of where that ‘mind-over-matter’ thing is about to come to a head and snap.

today, my q3 bonus hit my bank account.

i’m jumping in the shower, and heading to sleepy’s.

i think it’s time i get in on this real-bed action.

so, if you don’t hear from me for a few weeks, you’ll know why.

i was the instructor, not the pupil.

the client: working housewives, patiently awaiting my arrival.

a long string of saturday afternoons.

sweet, they were.

lively in a quiet, somewhat sad way.

a generation of women, betwixt and between.

a gray day.

i remember.

and friendship.

the one i had for years, solid, strong.

solid ought be in quotes.

friendship is and is not, solid, liquid, gas.

ethereal, maybe.

perhaps i did not do my part to maintain it as i should.

always assumed it would just be.

took it for granted, maybe.

nothing more to say right now.

to sleep on the deeper meaning of something intangible…

elusive.

i’ve spent the last few days mulling over my plan of attack.

it’s been heaven on earth, not having to deal with kitty litter these past few months.

and, not having to deal with the feeding of…

i’ve never had a big problem with either, when i was in my own space, and had my own routine, my own system.

and, had a cat that was raised on hard food only, an occasional wet food ‘treat’.

1 cat, 1 kitty litter situation to contend with.

and now, 3 cats, 1 big nasty box, outside, thank god.

the litter deal has been a mystery to me, since andrew took of that task without complaint.

his system was ‘guy-like’: no liner in the kitty litter ‘bin’. just dump the litter straight into the pan.

me? i need a liner, i need to clean the pan itself, bleach, detergent…the works…each time.

so, i wanted to start ‘fresh’.

i picked up a jumbo covered kitty litter thingy at k-mart, schlepped it uptown, via subway, praying i would not run into anyone i know, thus being labeled ‘the single lady with multiple cats’.

‘hey, look! nice new toilet, kids!’

you would think they would be excited.

no.

instead, someone pooped (a lot of poop!) right in the middle of andy’s bed. and peed in the old, bleached and detergented litter box, void of kitty litter, rather than the fabulous, fresh new majestic box.

and the food.

i can’t do the wet friskies. i just can’t.

it makes me want to barf.

and when i think of what the hell might even be in that stuff, it makes me even sicker.

so, it’s on to a more organic diet for these kids.

no more ‘fast food’ ‘happy meals’ for these kitties.

i keep telling them, ‘it’s okay. we’re in a transitional stage, here.’

i try not to say, ‘it’s for your own good.’

no one ever wants to hear that.

topic: unconditional love on this american life.

romanian orphanages in the 80s.

gad gross.

amazing photographer.

his images moved me.

and now he’s gone.

gone for some time.

in iraq.

the first go-round.

before the internet was what it is today.

therefore, gad gross, his work, his life, his story, are hardly ever shared or told.

i had a crush on gad, whom i had only known through pictures and brief telephone conversations.

his images, especially of romanian orphanages, moved me to the point of tears as i studied every detail: the dark somber colours, the sad, aids-stricken faces and bodies of the innocent children who fell victim to the insanity of ceausescu and his regime.

this was a long time ago: 1989. i was 25 years old. not that young, but still very impressionable.

i may have been, in jocelyn benzakin’s eyes, a lousy photo editor, but i was not.

i was very good at that job, which i insecurely held for a few short months.

i just wasn’t very good about getting to the job at whatever time jocelyn wanted me there, and, at the end of the day, i wasn’t keen on jocelyn. she was dark, weird, controlling, and kind of creeped me out.

and the mandatory lunches with our little crew.

the french guy.

pablo.

i learned so much, though, in those few short months.

through maggie steber’s images, i learned about haiti.

mark peterson introduced me to inbreds of maine.

mark asnin gave me a peek into the worlds of america’s white supremacist skinheads, and porn star annie sprinkle.

i saw, first hand, turmoil and mayhem unfold in tiananmen square through peter charlesworth’s lens. he just happened to be there.

and the berlin wall. i forget who documented that historic event, but, i was ‘there’, sorting through slides for time and newsweek magazines.

gad gross’s story should be told, again.

the village voice did a story, right after it happened.

the article was written, as i recall, by the journalist who travelled with him to iraq, to follow the post-dessert storm suni shiite conflict that proved to be more violent than our invasion itself.

jocelyn, as i had heard, did not want gad to go.

i’d been fired at this point, but pablo and i kept in touch.

and so, there was gad, accepted to harvard grad school, ‘summering’ in iraq.

and in the wrong place at the wrong time.

the details are a little hazy, but, as i recall, gad, the journalist and their guide were traveling through a remote, dangerous, volatile area north of baghdad: kurdistan. gad and his guide were separated (i may be wrong here) from the journalist, merely a building / hut apart.

shouts and interrogations, accusations, pleas, and then, shots.

gad was gone.

the other thing i recall, in the aftermath was, gad’s body was never recovered.

his mother fought to have his passport and his camera returned to her, if not the body itself.

to no avail.

it’s been so long and so little information is available regarding gad and his story.

i lost touch with pablo soon thereafter.

and i was but a blip on the jb pictures radar.

jocelyn is gone, too. cancer, i believe.

and the images. whatever became of all those poignantly beautiful images gad brought to the world?

and his mother: did she ever find real peace in the passing of her beautiful boy.

i, of course, would have happily ‘rolled’ back over (it’s really virtually impossible to ‘roll over’ on the sliver of a rattan couch i’ve been sleeping on since mid-july. btw, an interesting concept came to me last night: this could be some sort of dress rehearsal for the eternal rest one has, six feet under, in the pine box.)

instead, i said to toby who was sitting beside me, on his even tinier sliver, ‘let’s go.’

i felt, suddenly, very responsible, and mature.

i was getting up, ‘early’ on this monday morning, to do laundry.

after a day of organizing and cleaning, not the white tornado i have been in the past, mind you, just gleaning the surface, prepping for the big one, the laundry was on my monday-morning-before-work to-do list.

done.

and so began my first monday, in more than a month of mondays, more like a year of mondays, where i awoke, in a space, alone.

i don’t mean someone sleepily smiling at me as i open my sleep-encrusted eyes meeting his sleep-encrusted eyes across a shared pillow. lord know it has been years since that experience. i’m talking, since the insanity of my being shoved out of my brooklyn home, first, sleeping for a month on a very uncomfortable couch, in a very uncomfortable neighborhood, with a very uncomfortable friend, then, moving to a better space in a pithole called, ‘bushwick’, to this space. this very okay space with the world stretched before me in the way of central park outside my door, my balcony, 20 floors up…what a sick, sick, view!!

well, it’s a 2 bedroom that i’ve been sharing with a friend since july, but, as of saturday, that friend is out of town…until the hudson river fully thaws in the spring.

so, it’s me, toby, and my flatmate’s 2 furry friends, mena and ‘mr. big.

so far, so great.

well, it’s been quite a year.

‘you’ve come a long way, baby!’

it was a year ago that i was in the thick of, having recently found the perfect word for it, the ‘bullying’ my williamsburg, brooklyn landlord and his beloved were inflicting upon me, in order to heave-ho me from my not-inexpensive home of ten years.

it was painful in many ways, and tested my strength and fortitude both physically and psychically.

i feel i passed with flying colours.

i’m still miles away from where i am now realizing i want to be.

i’ve put my brain, my heart, my head on hiatus.

it’s been a pleasure to take time off from: dealing with landlords, taking care of utilities, changing kitty litter boxes, coping, if you will beyond the minimum.

but now, it’s time to step things up.

time to, slowly, get back into the game.

i say slowly because, i am set with good housing, if you will, thru spring.

i am ‘saving’ money, meaning, i am not spending the kind of money i was, in the über hip neighborhood, williamsburg, brooklyn.

i am paying off debts and bills.

i am still, crawling from the wreckage.

but what an amazing, awesome, wonderful view to crawl to, each and every day.

i have, a year later, after the madness, come a long way, baby!