I neglected to mention yesterday one of the other weird things that happened, that made the day feel just slightly more unreal that usual. This week marks the United Nations General Assembly, and since our office is only a couple of short blocks from the UN itself, there’s been an increased police presence in the neighborhood. To the point that the streets between 2nd and 1st Avenue are blocked entirely, by both police barricades and officers, except to people working at or around the UN itself.
Our office is on 3rd, the UN is on 1st, and on nice days, I often eat my lunch in a little parklet — basically just a few benches in a building’s courtyard — in between. But not yesterday. “Where you going?” the police officer asked me, as I clearly wasn’t wearing an ID badge. “I guess not over there,” I said. I found another park to eat my chicken sandwich in.
I also received confirmation that my 3-Day Novel submission was received. To which my first thought was, oh yeah, I wrote a 3-day novel. It’s actually all kind of a blur. I still haven’t even re-read it, but I guess this means somebody’s going to. That’s got to be a tough job, reading and judging all of those novels written feverishly over three days. I suppose you score points just for being comprehensible after a certain point. 
And that’s about it for today: more about yesterday. We had a roundtable discussion/presentation this afternoon on commissioning new textbooks, which isn’t strictly speaking something I do in my day-to-day, but I am involved in the process as a development editor, and there’s been some weird overlap at times. (I’m not an acquiring editor, but with a few revised editions from our inherited backlist, I’ve kind of become one at times.)
It was too rainy to really go looking for parks to eat my lunch in, but you still can’t miss the police presence in the neighborhood, directing car and foot traffic alike. Today’s the day the General Assembly really kicks off, and with the talk likely to center around Libya and Palestine, it’s little wonder security has been beefed up.
Still plugging away at edits for Kaleidotrope‘s next issue, still not getting enough writing of my own done. But the week is still young…ish.