Denial

I was waiting in line at the bank today and there was a CNN Report on about last year's bombings on the London Underground (I remember the day vividly, since my sister and brother-in-law lived in London at the time, and because I was an hour away from boarding a plane when I heard the news). The interviewer asked the London correspondent if he thought the attack had had any effect on the number of people riding the tube since then, which he dismissed with light indignance, saying, of course not -- in a city like London (as in New York) there simply is no other option if you want to get from point A to point B.

I've been asked similar questions when I come home. "Do you ride the subway?" "Aren't you scared?" The answers are yes, and no, respectively. Which surprises me, as anyone who knows me well is wearily familiar with all the imaginative demises I've (so far) wrongly predicted. T0 be honest, I'm more scared of a rabid sewer rat climbing up the fire escape and tearing through the window screen to have a rassle with my cat, or perhaps getting a fatal case of salmonella from a garden snail I've rescued from the hazards of the sidewalk.

For good or ill, living in New York just takes a certain amount of denial.