Monday

There was something very Monday-ish about today.

I came back from lunch and had to cut across a Free Tibet protest rally marching down the Third Avenue sidewalk. Then there was an unannounced fire alarm, the sort of thing that used to be an almost daily occurrence at our old building, during which I semi-frantically dug through my e-mail to find the instructions for emergency searchers, of which I’m one, in case I was called upon to act. It was a false alarm, not even a drill, so I wasn’t, though my actions would have largely been confined to making sure everyone was out of the conference rooms and men’s bathroom, so frantic might have been pushing it, semi- or otherwise.

And you know, when I type it out like that, it actually seems like something happened today, like things happened beyond it being an ordinary (if slightly warm and slightly humid) Monday in December. It’s like that one night in college, when I drank a couple of chocolate stouts, went to an Ibsen play, and then a magic show. Like that, it sounds like the start of a story. But really, it was just a night when I drank a couple of chocolate stouts, went to an Ibsen play, and then a magic show. (The play was Hedda Gabler, if you’re interested; the beers were Samuel Adams. I think the latter may have improved the former.)

I could say today was a day of protest rallies and fire alarms, and that would be true. But it was much more a day of just ordinary Monday-ness.