Just realized I never blogged about the day I was almost dismembered by a giant falling PVC pipe

Sometime between the two crane collapses that have happened here in the city recently, I'm walking east on 23rd, nearing Lexington, and CRASH-clinkclink-bamclink-burrrclink. A piece of PVC pipe falls about 10 feet in front of me on the sidewalk. It's about as long as my wingspan (armspan?), and a little bigger around than my arm.

It bounces a few times, settles and rolls into the curb.

The guy walking abreast of me noticed it too, of course, and we didn't say anything to each other, but we did both stop on the sidewalk (after shouting some similar expletives), crane our necks back and try to figure out where the HELL this piece of pipe came from. There was a crane in sight, but it was yards and yards away from where the pipe fell. There didn't appear to be anyone working atop a building or throwing PVC pipe out of a window. No clues, no way to know.

So I just ... kept walking, and immediately called B., because she lives in the neighborhood, and duh, I always call someone whenever I narrowly escape seriously injury. Anyway, B. suggested I report the incident, but I didn't know whom to call at the time — but now I do: 311 in the five boroughs works for just about everything.

Anyway, it was quite freaky-deaky, but I was thrift-store shopping about 10 minutes later, so I knew I was probably not traumatized for life.

It's 3 a.m.

I just came from sitting outside my door for almost an hour.

The keys were in the crevice of my papasan chair, sitting there almost in mockery of my constant anal state of, "Do I have my keys? Am I sure I have my keys?" Tonight, I managed to do the almost impossible, and at 2 a.m., I could only reach one person: B. She set up a backup plan for me, all the way from San Francisco. But thankfully, my super saved. My. Ass.

I'm so glad I'm not sleeping in my clothes, or in a hallway, right now.

Usually, these are the things you only do once! We'll see.