Clareified

I went to school during the blizzard of ‘85. I was nine years old, I was in fourth grade. All my classmates went too. They were also in fourth grade, one boy was eight. We stayed the whole day. When the day was over we poured out into the schoolyard and trudged through, oh, three feet of snow, and got on our busses home. My friends in the neighborhood and I threw snowballs at one another until our parents, who went to work, came and collected us. And that was a BLIZZARD, not just “snow.” Today it is snowing. Like raining, just a bit colder and for some reason we are on doomsday alert. My cousin is home from high school. HIGH SCHOOL is closed???!!! FOR *snow* in NEW YORK CITY? What in the name of the price of arugala is going on here? When I was out in Las Vegas and all anybody could talk about was “the snow,” I guess I could understand. It’s the Vegas desert…shit stops for water falling out of the sky, nevermind solids…but here on the East Coast, where Christmas in New York conjures images of ice skating rinks and evergreens that tower amongst the skyscrapers, we are supposed to be made of sterner stuff. We fly through underground tunnels at 60 mph, we work on 65th floors of places, our revered athletes are so badass they shoot themselves! Come on! We are New York! One of the worst things about the 9/11 terrorist attacks was when I’d leave the City and visit some shit hole like…Canada and the store clerks would be all “where are you from?” And then when I told them, they’d be all “awww, so sorry, are you okay?” And I’d just want to punch them in the face. Don’t cry for me, Canadian! I blame Giuliani. When hookers ruled times square, instead of Disney, none of this would have happened! The hookers were tough! They were on those corners with safety pins in their boots and shared needles in their arms, come rain, snow or sleet! The meatpacking district was strictly for the disposal of snitches. And packing meat. Oh, but now it’s all whole foods and doppler warnings and billionaire mayors and heiress senators! Foul, I cry! Foul. And for shame! Someone needs to bean this city in the head with one of those rocks packed in snow that elementary kids find so hilarious…and if we cry, out moms should give us something to cry about.

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.