Everyone across America has been so amazing. You gave us your firemen, your policemen, your medics, your technicians, your ironworkers and even your money. Most significantly, you gave us here in NYC your fathers, your brothers, your sons, your lovers and your friends. Thank you. We needed them.

*~*

Wednesday, as you saw, was a hard day for me. The night was even worse, as more calls poured in. I received a call from 1 of the guys we occasionally hung out with who lived in apt. 1C in our building. He saw our flyer down at Bellevue and called to saw he was sorry. He had been down at the floor of the Exchange on 9/11 and actually ran out after the first plane hit and watched the second. Shortly after that he ran as the building fell and doesn't remember much else.

He's back at work and said it's incredibly grim downtown. The strench is almost unbearable and they have oxygen masks to go from the subway to the Floor. They are escorted by the National Guard. I quietly asked him, if he thought...from seeing...if anyone...could possibly survive.

He paused and then tried to explain to me the all of the steel girders...and the metal...and he said "I just don't see...how...I'm sorry...I have to go."

And he disconnected.

And I sat there in my room. And I smoked. Many cigarettes.

Each day I get a call about someone else I knew in those buildings. I can't even imagine the number of memorials...

I find it hard to speak with anyone who wasn't in New York on Sept. 11 or there in the days after. I just have nothing to speak with them about.

Yesterday I shook Clinton's hand. I saw him from my window and I ran down to the street.

He had just finished greeting a crowd and was walking away when my friend pushed me forward. I balked, saying, "No, I don't want to bother him..." when he pushed back through the crowd and came right over to me, hand extended. I grasped his hand as I stared at him and I don't know what he saw in my face but he looked at me so sadly and started backing away with Secret Service and as the distance grew greater between us, I shouted to him, "I have 6 friends missing...please...you must help us...you have do something..." He stared at me with this undescribable look as secret service started to push him away and then someone came and held me and I just remember saying, "I think he can do something...if he could just help us...just to do something..."

For no reason at all, after that I felt better somehow. I felt like Clinton knew that someone like me has her shit together and this situation has me unrattled. I am unsteady. And people like me need his help.

I'll be away for few days. Next week is a new week and I will return then.

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