Post 9/11

Not only did I not stay home on 9/11, I ventured into the belly of the beast.

The Saturday evening prior we decided to head out to Williamsburg to meet up with Frans and Michelle for drinks. Timon spent hours before that completing the Australian tax forms online and as a result we didn't end up leaving our place until 10pm. We almost never go to Brooklyn and we absolutely never go out at that time of night. We should have known right then that the night would end badly. We rolled up at The Rabbit Hole (Frans ex-place of employ) around 11pm and started catching up with the rest of the party. The bartender was generous due to our affiliation with Frans and the wine, beer and whisky was flowing. I even partook in a tequila slammer with loft-mate Trudon. Huge mistake. I can't say it wasn't my fault but the free-pouring shots that the bartender gave out made it hard to track drinks and alcohol consumption. By the time we left the restaurant in the direction of some club I was ...blotto. Yeah, that's the word. I remember searching desperately for Timon, who turned out to be enjoying the beer garden with Frans, then spewing in the bathroom. That was it for me and Timon escorted me, messy and sobby, back to F&Ms. I woke up in the middle of the night next to T on a pull-down sofa with Star Wars music blaring from a speaker. By the time I woke again the other boys were passed out on various chairs with the DVD menu screen looping over and over.

Hungover and in the same clothes as yesterday T and I walked our way through Williamsburg to the train. Despite fresh terror warnings the week before we had no choice but to catch the subway across the river and back into Manhattan. We ended up at a seedy diner not far from Timon's work, eating pretty nasty food (with a cup of tea straight from heaven) before I left T at Jack's and subway'd all the way home. So inadvertently I had ended up right in the heart of all the 9/11 shenanigans. Jack's Front Street is a 5 minute walk from the World Trade Center memorial and site of the still-in-construction new skyscraper. Lucky for everyone, and no big surprise really, the day was uneventful (besides the ceremonies and mourning of course). My only disappointment was not being able to see the light memorial from our roof - I did the next best thing and watched it on TV.