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Reply to "Blackout!"

Jade and I were two hours in to a complete reformatting of daddy's hard drive, and we had just returned from a spell on our roof where we had been talking about 9/11 (Not so strange because its 17 floors up with a deadon view.) We looked at the big clock on the Con Ed building and it was 4 PM. "I think I'll go see my friend in Union Square and come back in an hour to help you finish" Jade said. He was out the door, as was Daddy, on his way up to a DJ gig at Bergdorf Goodman.

Minutes later, everything went. Of course I thought the reformatting of the drive had blown a fuse. Then I looked out the window and saw the 14th Street Con Ed plant burning - well, just a huge black cloud of smoke billowing and a thin white plume rising beside it. And, like a recurring nightmare, the people running onto their rooftops all around us, and craning their necks in the street below.

Like a zombie, I went about my preparations. Into the black Harvey Nichols tote went the passports, a St. Jude talisman, the cellphone, all the 5s and 1s from the Cabaret's cash bank, my great-grandmother's diamond, two Mac lipsticks, a small flashlight and a joint.

Realizing that I might have to carry Whitney (our 15 year old border collie)down nine flights of stairs, I reluctantly threw off my rhinestone flip-flops and changed to my DMs with the sensible toggle heels and soles. At least I had a fabulous new skirt on and it was black, very Commes de Garcons. Just as I had on 9/11, I thought of Edina on Ab-Fab saying to the firemen "That's easy for YOU to say..you're wearing a uniform!" when they were evacuating her.

Pleased with my possible burial look, I sat, bag over shoulder, watching the billowing smoke, thinking thoughts like "If the plant explodes, would the flying debris make it to Third Avenue?" All the time trying not to transmit my fear to the dog, who was already so puzzled and hot since I certainly wasnt opening any windows.

Over the plant, two fighter jets and a mess of helicopters were circling. I watched in horror for a few minutes, and then noticed that the black cloud seemed to be getting smaller. Five minutes later, it had stopped altogether. More importantly, the sounds of Armageddeon hadn't begun - there were fire engines, sure, but not the constant wail of ambulances, fire trucks, police cars et al that was heard practically round the clock on 9/11.

This must be an old-fashioned blackout, I marvelled, having lived through the Summer of Sam edition uptown. How quaint! How Old New York!
I breathed again, for the first time in a quarter-hour, and very well prepared for almost anything, opened the windows, left the dog sleeping, and walked down the nine flights to the
spectacle below.
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