The other day I went for a long walk and tried to decide what I would remember most about 2011, and lord knows there were plenty of noteworthy moments, a 100k bike ride and climbing Mount Kineo alone and, oh right, upending my life in Maine in order to move back to New York for a job. There were memorable lowlights, too, frustrating minor health concerns and motley humiliations, and like it or not those things are just as noteworthy as anything else- but the whole time I pondered this a little voice in my head kept saying, 2011 was the year Cheryl B. died.

What is strange about this is that I did not know Cheryl very well. We met through a friend with whom I’m no longer in touch—which is a shame, now that I think about it—and I saw her at a few parties and chatted with her at a few readings. I remember the first time I met her; she was wearing a black top and dark lipstick and her hair was sort of messy and the first thing that popped into my mind was that Bikini Kill line: “That girl thinks she’s the queen of the neighborhood / I got news for you, she is.” Cheryl was someone I noticed. She was someone you had to notice. I was struck by her confidence, the easy way she moved, the way she talked with precision and humor, the way she fixed her eyes on me and listened (really listened) to what I was saying even though I was probably the only person in the room who was not a published author, a book editor or both. We ended up leaving the party at the same time and as we walked to the train I realized that I had moved to New York so I could meet people like this.

I wish I could say I got to know Cheryl better after that, or that we’d stayed in touch through the years, but I didn’t and we didn’t. We ran into each other now and then, said hi, how are you, nice to see you. We were acquaintances, we had typically casual social connections. After I left New York and moved to Maine I heard she’d been diagnosed with cancer, and I began reading her hilarious and heartwrenching stories at WTF Cancer Diaries. Once in a while I thought about writing her an email, but I never did, because life was busy and we hadn’t really known each other so well anyway.

At one point I posted a link to WTF Cancer Diaries on Twitter and she @ replied, “Thanks, Mary!” That was the last communication we ever had. 

I learned of Cheryl’s death from Facebook, early one morning last June, just as I was packing my things to move back to New York. Someone announced the news in a status update, because that is how it goes now. I sat at the kitchen table and cried harder than I had cried in a long time, the stupid throat-rattling kind of crying that leaves you snotty and gasping. Death is always a shock—especially when it comes many decades too soon—but I was unprepared for this, confused by it even, because we weren’t really friends, we were just acquaintances, it shouldn’t have felt so sharp and so personal.

And yet it did and it still does and I still can’t explain it. Maybe it had to do with that email I never sent, or the fact that I associated Cheryl with New York and then I left and came back and she was gone. Maybe it’s because it hurts to think of the poems and stories that won’t get written, or because the loss of someone so young and talented reminds me that time may be running out, for me, for you, for all my talented friends who say they’ll write that story someday (just not today). I think it is a combination of these things, but ultimately explanation is unnecessary. Death doesn’t give reasons, so grief doesn’t need to either. Why is the wrong question, and in this case it’s a narcissistic one, anyway. I’ll mark this year with mourning for an artist I did not know well enough, I’ll do it because I am doing it. The real question is, to what end?

About that $4.6m JPM gave the NYPD

In light of very recent events, everyone has suddenly noticed that JPMorgan Chase made a $4.6 million donation to the New York City Police Foundation. This Daily Kos headline is typical: “JPMorgan buys NYPD for $4.6 million.”

Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that just as people begin to take out their frustrations with Wall Street by turning out on “the Street” themselves, JPM has given the NYPD’s foundation its biggest gift ever. I suppose the skeptic in me would look at this gift with a jaundiced eye.

That skeptic would say that JPM (knew)(feared) believed that a big protest might be coming, and acted accordingly in order to protect its (property) image. […]

I’m not suggesting there’s any connection to the JPM donation (large as it is) and the way the NYPD has acted towards peaceful protesters. I’ll leave it to others to figure out what it means.

The internet is crawling with variations on this post, many of which draw an even more direct connection between the JPM donation and the Brooklyn Bridge arrests last night. In my mind this is the worst sort of political non-argument there is: “Thing A happened, then Thing B happened, and I’m not saying there’s a connection but that’s the chronology, so I’m just going to leave this here, couched in vaguely accusatory language, and walk away indignant.” It’s an excellent technique if you want to fire people up and get reblogged a hundred times, poor if you want meaningful discourse. It is also, incidentally, why Glenn Beck is a millionaire.

For those who have yet to see it, here’s the (undated) JPM release announcing the gift to the New York City Police Foundation:

JPMorgan Chase recently donated an unprecedented $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation. The gift was the largest in the history of the foundation and will enable the New York City Police Department to strengthen security in the Big Apple. The money will pay for 1,000 new patrol car laptops, as well as security monitoring software in the NYPD’s main data center. New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly sent CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon a note expressing “profound gratitude” for the company’s donation.

“These officers put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe,” Dimon said. “We’re incredibly proud to help them build this program and let them know how much we value their hard work.”

There wasn’t much outcry four months ago, when the JPM donation was first reported, and if you believe that Jamie “go work for a real bank” Dimon had the foresight, last spring, to anticipate the presence of protesters in New York this fall, you give the man more credit (as it were) than I do. My guess is Dimon has larger quandaries on his mind, like figuring out how to screw millions of consumers instead of hundreds of people on a bridge, or dealing with his WaMu problem, or manipulating executive fears in a strangely-timed succession war. 

But even if Dimon did have an inkling that friends in blue would come in handy during this particular protest, what exactly is the NYPD data center that benefits from his bank’s gift? Per the city comptroller:

The Management Information Systems Division (MISD) is responsible for the data center computer operations that provide information to the entire NYPD. The data center provides data-processing operations for the NYPD Local Area Networks (LAN) and mainframe computers. The data center also maintains and supports more than 35 computer applications. MISD is responsible for implementing and periodically testing the disaster-recovery plan of the data center.

It seems like the phrase ‘security monitoring software’ is setting off alarms in some quarters, but without further information we don’t know if it means ‘software that monitors “security threats” ie. people holding signs on the street’ or if it means ‘software that monitors the security of the data in the data center itself.’ It would be interesting to know which, if anyone feels like placing a call to the NYPD MISD.

As for the data center itself, it was last audited in 2006 (.pdf warning). The audit found that:

NYPD has adequate physical security controls that allow only authorized MISD staff members and other approved NYPD personnel access to the data center. MISD also monitors data-center activities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, as required. NYPD has system security policies and procedures in place. In addition, it has a formalized disaster recovery plan, and this plan is periodically tested. NYPD has also hired an outside vendor to provide an alternate processing site and disaster-recovery services in the event of an operational disaster at or affecting the data center.

However, there are four control weaknesses that should be addressed. Specifically, some inactive user accounts have not been disabled or deleted; the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) lasts only 12 minutes, which may not be a sufficient amount of time for the backup generators to be turned on in the event of a disaster; backup tapes, while stored off-site, are not properly secured in a restricted access area of the premises; and the Department of Investigation (DOI) has not reviewed or approved the NYPD Internet plan, as required.

So we have a couple of possibilities. Maybe an additional need for ‘security monitoring software’ was identified in the years since this audit. Then again, maybe not! As for the patrol laptops, you could argue that improved communications systems enable officers to orchestrate mass arrests more quickly. That’s probably true. But they also help save officers’ lives and reduce the risk of administrative errors, and I hope we can agree that those are good things. I suppose there is the possibility that the JPM money did not, in fact, go to laptops and security software, but to something more nefarious from a civil-liberties perspective. It does appear that the MISD is not audited as frequently as it could be given the speed at which technology changes, and despite cuts the NYPD still has a multi-billion-dollar budget in which $4.6 million might be redirected with some creative accounting, but there is no evidence that this has happened, and it’s worth remembering that the recent budget cuts have placed every city agency’s spending under public and internal scrutiny.  

Let me be clear. JPMorgan’s hands are dirty. The most recent audit of the NYPD data systems did not indicate an immediate need for laptops or security monitoring software (however that’s defined), yet that’s what JPM’s gift was reported to be for. That’s still not evidence of any connection whatsoever between the bank’s $4.6 million and the police response to Occupy Wall Street, and to suggest otherwise is to engage in speculation that distracts from the very real problems at hand. Given all we know of New York and its police department, it seems likely that the city’s bureaucratic processes for identifying, reporting and funding police technology needs are a mess, and that the NYPD would have responded to Occupy Wall Street exactly as poorly as they did regardless of who gave them money and when. Doesn’t that anger you more than an unproven meme? It should.

One last thing: I’ve always kept two checking accounts, one at my hometown bank and one at a major national bank for ease of deposits and free ATM access. Next week I’m going to start moving my money from Bank of America to USAA, unless I can find a regional bank that accepts check deposits by mail. (I haven’t found a convenient credit union for which I qualify.) I suggest you do something similar, if you haven’t already.

Things I told myself during an attempted crossing of the Manhattan Bridge, on foot, approx. 12:30 p.m. today

(Context.)

• “You put on lipstick before you left the house. The expensive red one. Nothing bad can happen to you when you are wearing expensive red lipstick.”
• “You’re listening to Bruce Springsteen. Nothing bad can happen to you when you are listening to Bruce Springsteen.”
• “Look at that blue sky. You’d never fall off a bridge on a day like this.”
• “Walk behind this nice couple. Nothing bad can happen to you when you are walking behind this nice couple. Keep pace with them, just like- uh-oh, they’re glancing back. They think you’re following them. It’s all right. They’re a nice couple. They’ll get over it. And so will you! (Get over this bridge.) Act normal. Keep walking.”
• “Pretend the bridge is a big sculpture. It’s just a big sculpture that people stand on and walk around. You’re not on a bridge at all, you’re in a very large sculpture garden.”
• “Don’t look down.” 
• “No seriously, don’t look down.”
• “LOOKING DIAGONALLY COUNTS AS LOOKING DOWN.”
• “Okay, okay, stand still for a second. Collect yourself. Fiddle with some personal technology so people don’t think you’re weird.”
• “Stop sweating.”
• “Look, there’s the Q train. You ride the Q train. You’ve ridden the Q train over this bridge. Walk after the Q train. Has anything bad ever happened to the Q train? Pretend you are the Q train.”
• “The bridge is not about to collapse. If the bridge were about to collapse all these people would be screaming and running.”
• “DO NOT SCREAM AND RUN.”
• “Think how good you’ll feel when you make it across the bridge. Nothing feels better than personal growth.”
• “If you make it across this bridge you can go to the bookstore and buy whatever you want. You can have candy. You can have a cocktail.”
• “In addition to not looking down, do not look across at the high-rise buildings and calculate which floor that is.”
• “JUST LOOK STRAIGHT AHEAD AND TRY TO PUT ONE FOOT AFTER THE OTHER.”

Bridge crossing aborted. I made it about 200 feet.

To the man who nearly ran me over on Canal Street this evening because he was too busy brushing his beard to pay attention to pedestrians:

Respect.

Things people in New York say when you tell them you are from Maine

• “I’ve never been, but I’ve been thinking about going for years.”
• “I went to Bar Harbor one time.”
• “I went to Boothbay Harbor one time.”
• “I went to- Ogunquit? Is that how you say it? I went there one time.”
• “I went to Camden one time.”
• “I went to summer camp there when I was little. I forget the name of the town, but it was near a lake.”
• “I hear Portland has great food!”
• “Maine is still pretty liberal, right?”
• “It must be really cold.”
• “I totally have this fantasy of, like, buying a farmhouse and just running away to Maine, you know?”

The collected wisdom of people on whom I have eavesdropped lately

“It’s a bad idea to study with someone after you’ve hooked up, especially if they stopped calling you.”

“The worst thing about walking in the rain is the backs of your legs get wet.”

“No, don’t get the blue mascara.”

“It’s true what they say about buying flowers for yourself!”

“You just have to realize that you can’t stop yourself from having feelings.”

“I think I’m lost. But maybe I’m not.”

I am starting to recognize people on my commute

Olga Sparkletoes gets on at DeKalb. She is small and wears a severe ponytail and everything about her catches light, from her glittered sneakers to her rhinestone hairclip, with a riot of watches and necklaces and rings in between. Even her earbuds are covered in rhinestones. I’m assuming they’re rhinestones—she might be the wife of a Russian oligarch recently arrived in America, riding the rush hour trains to learn the ways of her new home, but that seems unlikely. In addition to a faux-jewel-encrusted handbag she carries a Bach Rescue Remedy tote, which makes me think she is gullible, or vulnerable, at least, and suffering from anxiety that no amount of polished acrylic can cure.