So now what?

It was raining this morning as I left New York, my bedroom looking so sad and empty, my voice echoing off the walls. It was so overcast I couldn't get one last look at the skyline as I drove away. Getting to the airport and running around with my suitcases in tow was an oddly familiar feeling though, as though the tour had only closed yesterday. It seemed almost second nature to be homeless with my life packed up in a few bags.

Now I sit in a hotel room in Pasadena starting yet another new chapter in my life. How will this one begin? "It was a dark and stormy night", or will it be "It was a bright and sunny morning"? Unfortunately, I don't have any more answers now than I did a month ago. It's a waiting game at this point and I'm completely unsure whether I'll actually be offered a contract or not...and sadly I think that fact has taken a lot of the excitement out of this for me.

Intrepid

Continuing my sightseeing tour, here I am on the flight deck of the USS Intrepid. It's now a sea, air and space museum docked here in New York at Pier 86. Behind me is my favorite plane, the A-12 Blackbird. I've wanted to see one for years, but have never been able to get this close to one. You could actually touch it. There was a Harrier, an F-14 Tomcat, an F-16 Falcon and even a Russian Mig among many others. You also got to tour the command deck, crew quarters and the CIC. The hangar deck is now filled with exhibits from World War II up to the space program. Intrepid was one of the carriers that was sent out to retrieve the astronauts after splashdown. Parked next to the Intrepid you also got to tour a Concorde jet and the Growler, a U.S. submarine. Thinking it would only take an hour or two, I had also planned on taking a trip to Central Park. I ended up spending over 4 hours there...

Born in the U.S.A.

On the 4th of July, yes our nations birthday, there was a child in Inwood park drawing on the asphalt with some colored chalk. How cute, right? You know what this kid wrote? "I *heart* the Dominican Republic" with a drawing of the Dominican flag. Twice. On July 4th. This kid has most likely never even been to the Dominican Republic, but has learned that it's acceptable and even trendy to like any country other than America. It has become commonplace to blast the United States and claim to have ties to your "homeland". Odds are their "homeland" hasn't seen anyone from their family in generations...

You see blacks, oh I'm sorry, "African-Americans" walking around wearing their "African" colors. You know, red, green, yellow. Do they even know what those colors mean? Do they have any idea where their roots are? No, it's simply because it's cool. There's "African-American" and "Asian-American" and "Native-American"...well screw it, from now on I no longer want to be called "white", I'm a "European-American". And yes, I'm an American, damnit. My family name is German. Doesn't mean I run around wearing liederhosen and have a German flag on my wall or name my children Hans and Olga. I was born here, my parents were born here, as were their parents before them, and so on. I'll bet yours were too. If you don't like being an American, if you have so much disdain for the fact that you were born in this country, then by all means go back to your "homeland". See how well you fit in. See how much freedom you have. See what life is really like there. Get the hell out and leave America to us Americans.

4th of July

My roommate and I went down to 41st and the FDR to watch the annual Macy's 4th of July fireworks. Prime spots. A lot better than last year when we didn't get there until they'd started and were stuck behind the UN building. What a great show! According to my watch it lasted for 34 minutes. We were right behind the overpass, with the northernmost of the 4 barges right in front of us, so the explosions were almost directly overhead. At times your entire field of vision was nothing but explosions. Lots of new ones this year that I haven't seen before. I love fireworks...

After a long, crowded journey home we got off the subway just in time to see a neighborhood group setting off an aerial display of their own. Some pretty impressive stuff for just regular people. We watched them for about a half hour and then headed home, the explosions continuing into the wee hours of the morning. All in all, a great 4th of July. Hope yours was the same...

Ground Zero

On this Independence Day weekend, I figured what better way to celebrate the freedom and liberties that come with living in this country than to go down to the World Trade Center and pay my respects to all those who died on September 11th. I've lived in New York for a little over a year now and am ashamed to say I haven't been down there before.

It was a very somber, thoughtful atmosphere, most of the time people spoke in whispers. The entire area is fenced in and there are a lot of billboards posted with facts about the attacks, photographs, a timeline, and an alphabetical list of all those who died. It was pretty much what I expected to see.

What I didn't expect was that in one brief moment a surge of anger grew within me...no, not anger, RAGE. Like an intense flame in my chest that spread out to my fingertips. I wanted to find someone, ANYONE who was responsible for this and stab them as many times as I could with a dull, rusty, serrated knife and then set fire to their bleeding corpse, preferably while they were still conscious. I'm not kidding. I'm not sure I've ever hated someone that much. I just wanted to hurt them, hurt them in ways that shouldn't even be thought of...

And then, as quickly as it came on, it left. I felt strange, slightly disoriented. Yes, I thought seeing Ground Zero would be a sobering experience, but...what just happened? I experienced 9/11 on a TV screen, like most people. But being there, seeing that empty space firsthand is simply overwhelming.