I L N Y

My brother's rottweiler licking my face was enough for a wake up call at 7:30 this morning.

It's past 9 p.m., the sun finally set a while ago, and I just got out of the shower. The drops falling down my face are no longer water. Those evaporated a long time ago. These are coming out of my body. THIS PLACE IS TOO HOT!!!!!!!!! (En este momento marca 26 grados celsius pero "feels like" 27. Claro, por lo que el viento sopla, pero de para adentro.) And I am writing these lines thinking about cold, cold February...

"Dear passengers: if you see any strange behavior or package don't keep it to yourselves. Please inform the MTA authorities or call (call!!!!!!) 1 888 FREAKED."

The London bombings have had their effect in the subway. It is not as I expected, people are not running away from trash cans and lost bubblegum or something like that, but there's this feeling in the air that everybody has their eyes wide open. I was aware of that when I was changing lines today at around 3 p.m: I was moving from the red line to the yellow one when I realized I was missing something in my hand. Not my bag, somebody would've freaked out. And not the chilled Coke, something a little more important. OK, the housing lease, the newly opened checking and savings account numbers, paperwork from the international student's office. All lost inside a train. And I had been in NYC for 14 hours...

My first thought was that there was no problem. I had nothing important in those files. Nah, wrong. Lots of important stuff. So what next? I was thinking about the MTA's lost and found I saw someday in 'People+Arts' (or was it in 'Friends'?), the phone call asking if someone had found a red file, all the time I would spend on this, but then it hit me. What else did I have in my hand? The Coke. Surely I had changed the file for the bottle.

I didn't run into the yellow line but instead I changed direction over the red one and turned back, uptown. I rushed out at 110th, ran three blocks (remember the heat?) and then found the Coke machine. At the top, sitting there like there was nothing else to do, my file was in the same position I left it. The guy from 362 Riverside Drive who wouldn't let me in to take a peak at my future home "because the paper says clearly it is during or after August 1" laughed at me (with me?), told me how lucky I am (I know that) and said things seemed to be starting out quite alright for me.

I agree.