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Aug. 29th, 2004 05:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmMy parents live by the East River, and sitting in my old room, helping my father with his computer and listening to him tell me how my mother wants me to clear the last of my things out, we watch the helicopters (there's a pad near here) -- two big military transports, followed by fleets of the regular type.
I thought there couldn't be a sound more annoying than the helicopters, but I was wrong. The blimps are quieter, but there's a sharp, high pitched whine to their whir, and it's maddening.
I went up to Union Square before coming up town, and was amazed to see two hours after the start of the march people still lining up to get into the feeder marches. The New York Times notes that hundreds of thousands of people protested, and that it was the biggest protest at a political convention ever. Things are mostly peaceful, and everything, really is extraordinary.
I sat in the grass and read the first HH book, and tried to ignore the three idiots with the signs that said "Oppose the protestor agenda." I should note that they had originally mispelled agenda, and had not been sensible enough to buy new board to write their signs on, merely correcting what they had, and making it clear that they were sort of foolish.
I saw the police arrest someone, and that situation seemed insane enough that I don't really have any opionions on it, and lots of Falun Gong people were around demanding attention to their issues (fair enough, but geez, I'm not sure something could me more tangental to the current state of affairs here).
The subway was innocuous, and the Upper East Side was, as ever, it's own amazing little vortex. Much like after 9/11, when you couldn't smell it here, or hear the wailing, the neighborhood seems immune, and clearly many people have fled. While I often feel uncomfortably at home here, because it is where I grew up, I feel less so this time, just because all my supposedly fine manners and British spellings aside, it's just... it's not a very relevant place, to anything really.
Anyway, more later, still at the parental manse (hah). And yes, I found a way not to get busted for LJ this time.
I thought there couldn't be a sound more annoying than the helicopters, but I was wrong. The blimps are quieter, but there's a sharp, high pitched whine to their whir, and it's maddening.
I went up to Union Square before coming up town, and was amazed to see two hours after the start of the march people still lining up to get into the feeder marches. The New York Times notes that hundreds of thousands of people protested, and that it was the biggest protest at a political convention ever. Things are mostly peaceful, and everything, really is extraordinary.
I sat in the grass and read the first HH book, and tried to ignore the three idiots with the signs that said "Oppose the protestor agenda." I should note that they had originally mispelled agenda, and had not been sensible enough to buy new board to write their signs on, merely correcting what they had, and making it clear that they were sort of foolish.
I saw the police arrest someone, and that situation seemed insane enough that I don't really have any opionions on it, and lots of Falun Gong people were around demanding attention to their issues (fair enough, but geez, I'm not sure something could me more tangental to the current state of affairs here).
The subway was innocuous, and the Upper East Side was, as ever, it's own amazing little vortex. Much like after 9/11, when you couldn't smell it here, or hear the wailing, the neighborhood seems immune, and clearly many people have fled. While I often feel uncomfortably at home here, because it is where I grew up, I feel less so this time, just because all my supposedly fine manners and British spellings aside, it's just... it's not a very relevant place, to anything really.
Anyway, more later, still at the parental manse (hah). And yes, I found a way not to get busted for LJ this time.
