What Colors the Steel Sky Blue

I worked in a company that tried its best to emulate the typical new economy company, complete with its unruly employees, cancerous and unreasonable growth, lots of big talk, and among many other things toys in the office. The Austin Branch took pride in having a certain time of day set aside for nerf wars and late night Quake tournaments. In fact, so many employees spent so much time goofing around that we all ended up spending every waking hour at work to catch up with our endless diversions and unrealistic totally overblown milestones.

The New York office was no different. However, by the time I was relocated to the New York office, the economy was already slowly tanking. The pipeline was so empty you could see tomorrow through it and tomorrow did not look good. There were constant rumors of pending layoffs. Will it be this Friday? No, it will be Monday. If not Monday, well it may be Tuesday because it is right before the end of the quarter. In this "sobering" environment all the toys had been cast off to one of the lower unoccupied floors in the hopes that quitting the fooling around would somehow increase our chances of getting new clients and keeping our jobs.

During my lunch breaks, I would go through this huge conference room full of toys trying to find something entertaining to get my mind off, however briefly, of the horrible project I was working on. During one of these excursions, I saw a familiar shape and color towards one of the back corners of the room. Was that really a box of LEGO blocks? Yes it was!

I quickly salvaged it and brought it up to our office work area. At the time I did not worry about a layoff hitting me. I thought to myself; "They just paid 20 odd thousand dollars to relocate me here, there's no way they're going to let me go anywhere in less than 2 years. I was wrong but as I said, I did not know better back then.

This is how my recent prolonged addiction to LEGO started. Several of my office mates also were into LEGO blocks. I remember many of our hopelessly long meetings ending with some sort of a game involving LEGO blocks. Our culture was screwed up, the New York office's culture was worse and the combination of the two was just vile. We all needed an escape and mine was these miniature towers I started building during my lunch breaks.

The first few ones I built were lame but then I suddenly developed a style: It involved over-emphasized verticality conveyed through alternating "floor" colors. Using two different colors created structures that conveyed floors that human eye could recognize even from a distance. Using two different colors of blocks also had another advantage: taller structures thanks to twice the number of pieces. I went from building completely solid towers to more and more shell like structures that housed a significant amount of empty space in them. Creating the voids within the tower created lighter structures as well as allowing me to build taller. Through trial and error, I became pretty experienced in making tall ziggurat-like stepped structures reminiscent of most New York high-rises.

I must admit that I spent most of the summer pre-occupied with my LEGO towers when I should have been paying more attention to the Flash Presentation we were preparing for Deutsche Bank. In all honesty, the presentation was as entertaining as watching paint dry and I had long lost interest in the endless stream of corporate mumbo-jumbo we had come up with for our client through endless hours of fruitless meetings that to me felt like the intellectual equivalent of having bamboo sticks drawn under my fingernails.

Soon I was out of LEGO blocks and in a fit of insanity, I went and bought us another box. A month later towards the end of August 2001, in an effort to increase my engagement in the project, my crazy but well-meaning project manager bought me one more of the same tub of 4000 pieces. I was in LEGO heaven; I had more pieces than I knew what to do with.

Well, you know what happened next.

After 9/11, we were back at the office pretty soon, a little too soon. I was back at work on Thursday of that same week. Considering my commute path had literally been destroyed and now it took me about an hour and half to get to work, just like the other crazies at my work place I was going to work everyday as if nothing actually happened. I now believe we were experiencing some sort of denial. We all figured, if we kept busy, perhaps then all of this mess across Hudson that played like a bad 9/11 DVD day and night through our endless floor to ceiling windows would somehow stop. But it didn't. The site kept smoldering for weeks, as we stared on like campers on the skirts of Mt. St. Helens. A gaping hole, a steam that ever changed direction and strange metallic sounds growling as the heavy machinery worked at the site. The reality did not stop, though we buried our heads deeper into the fictional drama of our project deadlines and goals.

I disassembled all of my towers and started working on a way too big model of the World Trade Center Towers. This model was so big I would need at least 3-4 4000-piece tubs to complete it. I felt compelled to recreate them in some shape or form. Perhaps many people felt the same thing, despite the fact that most of us did not find the two towers all that aesthetically pleasing.

Three or four weeks after 9/11 I gave up on trying to build the models. Our clients were finally out of the mess they had fallen into when the south tower fell onto their headquarters in New York and put all their vitals systems offline. Once I abandoned the WTC model idea, I went back to building the same type of towers; Though I must admit, the towers I was building were much taller and larger --thanks in part to the number of blocks at my disposal and our communal need to make up for the drastic decrease in phallic objects in our proximity.

In a couple of months I ended up with a large block of fairly good-looking designs, each with its unique edge and story. Until I got laid off I dragged this large block of 3-4 foot towers around the office as our team kept getting moved every 2-3 weeks. Every time we moved, people came to watch. They wanted to see how the city was moved they said -- I think they wanted to see if we would take a wrong step and drop the whole thing by accident.

The day before we all got laid off, I already knew we were all toast so I broke the tall towers into neat segments and packed them all. The next day, as I expected, I got laid off along with the rest of the people that were relocated from Austin. I told my project manager that I considered the LEGO city to be mine as a parting gift. He did not object. When I got home from work, the first thing I did was to assemble the city back together.

By the time I was done, it was clear to me: I was an unemployed alien worker in New York City living in a $2200 rent apartment in Manhattan at the worst possible time -- right after the biggest terrorist attack in US history.

Why do I open my eyes in the morning?
Why all the beating in my heart?

Why does this broken back bend,
curl and then roll out of bed?

My body a bag of deliciously colored BBs
all headed toward the kitchen
bouncing off the walls
some getting lost in the floorboards.

Why brew coffee, cook some eggs, talk back to the TV?
Why look at the paper, water the plants, why shower?

Lotion is applied, then comes brushing my teeth
then flossing, then the Listerine.
Cleaning my ears, combing my hair
as the iron is heating.

Why iron clothes
when I know that I when I take a step outside
I will be naked but no one will be seeing.

Why even bother putting on shoes
when every step of mine takes me further away
from where I need to be going?

Pack the lunch, turn the TV off
close the windows, put the dishes away
dont forget your phone, grab your bag
keys, wallet, watch and I am leaving.

Why the happy tunes in the car?
Why pass a car? Why stop at a stop sign?
As I pass on by, I see the old driver
he smiles and motions me forward.
--his eyes mutter, go ahead run forward.

Rushing to work,
getting trapped at untimed lights
trying to find parking
running to the office
being late again to a meeting.

Why even bother?
When it is so much easier to just stop breating.

"Oh I have discovered the most divine little restaurant in East Village--and it was cheap! It's called Amato. Go there before the masses find it and ruin it" --Typical New Yorker

I too have caught myself many times saying something pretty similar to the statement above. I guess when you live in New York city, in addition to the weather, traffic and models, you have the infinitely dense, diverse, and elusive fauna of restaurants to talk about. There's part gloating, part sharing and part shameless need to talk constantly in all this. Gloating because you were there first, you discovered it, before you came this restaurant was buried under rubble and the waiters were sitting around wondering why there were no customers. Sharing because New York people are not all bad, unlike the way I make them sound here, they too have a good bone or two in them and they like to share little secrets of living well in the city --not with just anyone tough these little factoids are only to be shared with the cool and the savvy.

David, my partner whose southern upbringing has been lost on him except for his excellent manners and amazing wit, is hopelessly addicted to Turkish food ever since he met me. In addition to this addiction, he also dislikes several other cuisines of the world; specifically Chinese, Japanese, Indian. He does not eat fish, and avoids anything with rice. I can brave just about everything with the exception of Italian restaurants in NYC -- too much mafia behavior, it ruins my appetite. I single Italian restaurants out because several times I have eaten at Italian restaurants in NYC only to find the food ordinary and the bill higher than it should be. The hefty bill also is compounded by the fact that most Italian restaurants in NYC will not accept MasterCard or Visa, they only accept American Express and what else... cash. Silly and pretentious.

As you can imagine, between David and I we cut about more than half the list of available restaurants. The remaining restaurants are usually either really busy or surrounded by traffic that turns a taxi cab ride to for lunch an insane crusade of two across Manhattan. Naturally, we end up eating most of our lunches in East Village.

Several restaurants we frequent are The Cloister Cafe, Telephone Bar, St. Marx Cafe, Veselka, Lemon Leaf, Shangri La, and several street corner pizza joint on 1^st and 3^rd Avenues. Missing from this list is the 2^nd Avenue Deli, a prominent historical staple of the East Village scene. Oh we have eaten there, just not more than once.

It was an overcast day in Manhattan, not cold but there was a lukewarm breeze in the air. Both David and I were starving. to make matters worse we were in one of our let's try something new moods. It seemed like in a city full of restaurants we were suddenly unable to find one to eat lunch at. It was 2pm already and I was starting to switch from just grouchy from hunger to down right unpleasant. David was no better, whenever he is hungry he just gets quieter and quieter and quieter until it feels like I am escorting a mute person.

Here we were on 2^nd Avenue in front of the infamous deli. On one had I was not familiar with Kosher food and wanted to try it. I had heard mixed reviews of the kosher food phenomenon. I think we did not have much time to decide. In a matter of a few more minutes I was going to start picking fights with strangers and because of his hunger David would not even have the energy to stop me. So with one brave step we entered the 2nd Avenue Deli.

We were running late so the lunch crowd had already left. Many days I have walked past this restaurant and silently giggled at the masses of people piled in waiting for a table for 45 minutes. I had a strange understanding of these people today, perhaps they too were stranded in their search for a restaurant and the 2^nd Avenue Deli was right there looking at them in the face and asking no questions.

We were promptly seated at one of the booths that had been just cleaned up. The table was still shiny from the rag with long curly streaks drying fast to reveal a dull tan colored formica table. The interior of the restaurant was paneled with a very dark red wood that at times made me feel like I was in a mountain lodge or perhaps a lost Frank Lloyd Wright building. Our drinks arrived, a diet coke and an ice tea. The coleslaw and pickles plate also arrived a few minutes later although we had not requested it. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against coleslaw, it was actually pretty tasty. What I don't like about coleslaw is not so much as what it tastes like as what it does to me once I eat it. There's the indigestion, followed by gas and perhaps the shame. It should be marked as a controlled substance.

The coleslaw tasted good, but the pickles were sad. They were sad like kids pulled out of bed way too early. They were neither cucumbers nor pickles; They were a little bit of each and neither at the same time. They were soft and not crunch. They only promised more indigestion and perhaps even a wonderful episode of IBS and I did not even want to think about that.

Then finally like a diva our waitress took stage and came by our table to take our order. She was a 5'7" tall lady in her late fifties with a big cheap blonde wig that was topped by a white hat not dissimilar from those worn by nurses in old war movies. Her makeup was heavy like a wooden puppets and I could swear it was flaking. To make matters worse she was in some sort of a French maid outfit; while the this dress code might be provocative and sexually titilating on perhaps a 20 year old girl, at her age she looked like a French and Saunders episode that found a way to break out of the TV screen.

As we began ordering my mind had completely stopped and I merely emitting a waxing and waning glow like the Apple Macintosh laptops do when they're asleep. So in the middle of my low blood sugar crisis, I listened on as I mouthed the words "I'll have a 2^ndAvenue Burger with American Cheese." Before I had a chance to look up, I knew I had said something wrong. I did not have to wait long, the waitress was quick to correct me with a capital C.

She literally shouted at me saying "THIS is a kosher restaurant! You can not mix meat with cheese. You should know that." With no further ado, she turned around, her short black skirt taking flight from the abrupt move and proceeded into the kitchen. David and I were left behind staring each other like kids that just spilled something at the dinner table. On one hand what had happened was so wrong, on the other hand we were so hungry that we did not have the power to pick a fight. And even if we did, we would be back on the street looking for another restaurant again --and you know we would be searching for another hour before we settled down again.

The food arrived and I still had not recovered from the abuse. Like a victim of abusive parents, I sat at the table and quietly ate my bland, boring, and greasy burger. David was also laying pretty low. I think we had made a silent agreement not to talk about the incident until we got out of there.

We must have left her the smallest tip we have left in our 2 years of dining in New York City. We walked back home slowly on 2^nd Avenue replaying the incident in our heads -- trying to weight how wrong it was of me to say what I did and how wrong of her was it to snap like that. Perhaps we were thin skinned, perhaps we were not ready for this city with all its rules and regulations and hidden gotchas around every corner. Perhaps we were too tired and hungry and despite my stupidity someone could have been more gracious.

After this incident 2^nd Avenue Deli has become for me a monument to the over-rated nature of kosher food: double the price, half the service, and rules and regulations that make less than zero sense. I mean what's the point of washing lettuce a specific number of times when you know you're washing it with the water that comes out of NYC main?

...ruthless time
your hand on the gun
your eye in mine
ready to commit
that ruthless crime...

...clinging on,
tangled emotions turning
turning around the missing wheel
loopy like the greasy chain.
Dangling brakes unable to stop
the time passing.
The pavement heats,
the pavement cools,
soon it will be raining.
The clouds don't speak
the clouds don't call,
but they lick this wounded bike
with two wheels missing.

Although you run through me
like deep streams of a hot morning shower
you wash nothing off of me,
leaving me with my dirty thoughts
and a pile of laundry beside the couch.

Beside me a dog that barks for love
and is beaten to silence,
Outside the door a lawn overgrown
with diminishing hope for water.

In this three bedroom house
without you I wait for the ceiling to fall
but it hangs on by its tresses like claws
onto the laughter filled days that echoed here.

Now I can do the cleaning
with environmentally friendly detergent.

Take out the trash again
and yes even clean the oven.

Brew another pot of coffee
pour a cup for me, a cup for you.

The passing hours clouding my memory
As this house and I wait.
Waiting for you to come back to me
again.

Troy James Vega

One usually goes from bad to worse, hopeless to desparate from deep to rock bottom. Well, I was sinking deeper into my depression too. Days were rolling by, I was sending job applications by the hundreds per week. Still most of the time I never heard back from any of the employers. I was convinced it was because of my visa status. No one wanted to go through the trouble of applying for an H1-B visa for a foreigner when their doors were lined with hopeful citizens. It all made perfect sense to me; however it was still hard to accept that I was yet again on the outside, yet again not a part of the in-crowd.

I was Americanized to a point of no return. A point at which one goes back to his own country only to find his own people dismissing him as a foreigner. Furthermore, I had finally put the sexual orientation issues part of my life behind and focused on my career. Needless to say the bust of 2001, and 9/11 really arrived at the wrong time for me. Then again, I guess there was no good time for either one of these two event to arrive. They never were and never would have been welcome.

My partner David insisted that I return to Austin, TX where he had an apartment. He himself was almost never there because he commuted to Long Island for his job. He worked as a consultant on one of the information system migration projects of a big hospital in Long Island. He also was not yet completely disengaged from his project in LA. So he was traveling to LA one week, then to Long Island in the next, and spending one weekend in Austin and another in New York City with me. This was a taxing schedule for both of us. We did not see each other much that whole year. Needless to say, things were not the same, there was less and less to talk about, less and less intimacy, and it all just did not feel right anymore.

If he had not been as mature and as patient as he is, he and I would have broken up long time ago I think. What's worse is I was stranded in alternate options land with all the time in the world. Two ingredients one should never put together: time and options if he is intending to keep a relationship going.

The thing that was on my side however was the fact that most Manhattan boys at one time or another did something or said something that immediately threw their cover. Most of them seemed so normal, so nice, so interested at first. They immediately sniffed out that I had a weakness for compliments, and man they piled them on.

It is through this experience that I learned that you can make people do whatever you want if you just find the right place to rub. Self esteem usually is the point that's common to most people out there. So that's where they hit first. If it's not that, then it's money, if not that then it's status, or drugs, or sex or something else.

Most of the time I am very good with sniffing out what someone is up to. That's because most of the time, people usually have little patience and theyget to the point pretty fast. Just when I thought I had people figured out, I was fooled. Just when I thought I could not be deceived I made the biggest mistake of my life.

I am not ready to write about this experience yet but I am willing to say that during the last three months of my stay in the big apple, I was really tempted by something, by someone, by another path that could have been mine.

Most other people would have taken the other path, but I felt this would be the wrong choice for me, the wrong solution to my woes, and perhaps an addition to the pile of troubles I had created for myself. So I passed it on, I turned it down, I pushed it away, and out of my system as forcefully as I could.

It flew out of me like a projectile, tearing bits and pieces of me off, and leaving gushing wound behind that just as quickly as it formed, filled with blood and strangely started a speedy healing process. By the time I moved back to Austin, there was only a scar left, a subtle reminder of a mistake, a bitter keepsake from my last days in New York City.

I had given the King Midas his haircut, and now I had to keep my mouth shut.ˇ