What to say about today? A pinched nerve (a lovely hereditary gift from my father, though he says it’s not hereditary, though that sounds suspicious to me) in my back kept me in the house Sunday and Monday. After planning to get back on my feet today, the transit strike gave me another enforced day off. I’m actually rather eager to get back to work. And the city seems a bit ghostly and panicked, sort of similar to how it felt during the blackout of a couple of summers ago. But there’s also a Christmas day vibe (I got that notion from one of the papers), as if everyone is at home eating turkeys. A strange feeling here in Brooklyn, and stranger, I imagine, in Manhattan.

So B and I have had three days together, which we’ve spent enjoying each other’s company, indulging ourselves variously--we’ve both been playing with our xmas presents for each other. She got me the complete New Yorker, I got her the complete Sex in the City—and warding off the weird ‘playing hooky’ feeling we’ve both experienced.

The strangest thing is realizing that no one outside of the city really understands what it means for the NY transit system to go down. One can hardly get anywhere in the city without it. The city is no longer really accessible (especially with the increased traffic the strike is causing) without the trains. Brooklyn might as well be Maine. Though it’s not like the supply lines are cut off—we still have rations enough for the winter. But I do feel oddly barred from the center of things.