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Nick Paumgarten and Lillian Ross

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I Just Want To Watch Mayor Giuliani

By Lillian Ross
Posted Monday, Sept. 17, 2001, at 11:27 AM ET

Nick,

RSS

My journalistic life has been forever changed. Like everybody else I know, I'm still numb from the horrible catastrophe, mesmerized by what I see on the television screen. I keep watching Mayor Giuliani and all our firefighters, and that's all I want to do, unless I can write something that has something to do with it. This is supposed to be the time of year when we're withdrawing from Labor Day barbecues--the ones with the fat, juicy hot dogs and big buns--on the pretty Long Island lawns teeming with friendly people and wild, funny little kids running around the smoky grills. Actually, I didn't go to a single barbecue because I was finishing a new book. I had to make a Sept. 1 deadline. Then I was looking forward to going to some of the mindless parties you and I get invited to at this point in September, the kind where the hosts just want you to be there to fill the place with bodies and where the hot dogs are those tiny ones on platters, along with boiled potatoes with Beluga caviar resting on top. At those parties, nobody can give you anything to read because your hands are occupied with a potato and a drink. And nobody asks you to talk because your mouth is full. So you don't have to talk. You don't have to shake hands. You don't even have to wave. All you're required to do is eat. That was my idea of relaxation and maybe finding little stories to write about this nonsense.

Not that I ever really cared or wanted to write a story about Niketown or American Pie 2. I might want to vote for Betsy Gottbaum for public advocate, but I might have skipped her fund-raiser parties. I might have gone to Eminem's party for the reopening of Cartiers. Or to parties for movies like Lisa Picard Is Famous or P.S. Your Cat Is Dead. There's a "Piaget Polo Is Back--Homage to the '80s" party, which was also called "Homage to the New Millennium" for some reason. I don't want to go. I even have an invitation to go to a reception in honor of Jose Saragamo and Harold Bloom, who are going to give a "Conversation with Harold Bloom and Jose Saramago After-Party" at Lotus because I like to see what's going on with these people. I might really have wanted go to a party where Mike Piazza was expected. Or a party given by Bloomberg just to find out why it was being given.

But I don't want to go to anybody's party for anything. I just want to watch Mayor Giuliani. He starts out every morning with a press conference. He's gone to every funeral for every hero. He's telling me what I want to hear or even what I'm afraid to hear. But parties are out for me. I don't want to write about anything unless it has some bearing on what happened to us on Sept. 11. What about you?