There but for the grace of God
I'm not a terribly religious person. As a half-Jew baptised a Southern Baptist and then introduced to Buddhism, Atheism and Just Not Paying Attention, it's still hard for me to believe in a Higher Power watching over me. But when I remember 9-11, when I remember how lucky I was when thousands were not, I have to thank the deity that at least part of me still believes in. For I am a native Californian, not a born-and-bred New Yorker, not even an east coaster. Yet in June of 2001, I packed up my skinny cat and bulging boxes into my Nissan and headed east on I-80. It made my mother cry, but filled me with a kind of glee they don't even sing about on the hit Fox TV show. I had accepted a job at one of the city's top PR firms, Rubenstein Associates, where I'd be tasked with writing about real estate. What I knew about real estate in Manhattan could be listed on a one-inch notepad: I knew where Grand Central Station was, sort of, and where the Empire State Building w...