I knew that when I got back to New York I would confront a reverse culture shock of sorts. I had prepared myself for buildings taller than palm trees and roads that were paved. I knew that everyone on the streets was not going to greet me as I walked passed. But there were other things I had forgotten: the F train does not go to Union Square, for instance. And I did not stand clear of the closing doors. The first day back in New York City I got a vertical bruise from my chest down as the conductor tried to pilot his train forward, with me half in and half out of the subway car.

At Union Square I felt voracious for all purchasable things bright and beautiful I saw in the stores. Oh what you can buy in New York! Oh the capitalism! Instantly I needed those flip-flops with the sequin flowers, and that Le Sportsac waist bag, and I swore it seemed necessary to spend twenty bucks on eye shadows in rainbow colors. I felt like I was Steve Martin’s character in that last scene of The Jerk: “all I need are these sunglasses. All I need are these sunglasses, that tank top, and that snoopy pin. And this bathing suit.” And so on and so forth. (My second day in the city I found that I just couldn’t face it again. I spent the day more or less in bed.)

And lots of things were going on. Mostly, I was turning thirty. Also, there were going to be huge carnival-like protests happening all week outside of the Republican National Convention. I was walking back into the biggest party New York had seen…well, ever, perhaps.

At Union Square one of the first protests was underway. I bumped into my friend Jonah, who I had met at Burning Man a few years ago just after sunrise at an open-air bar with three stools and a half-dressed mannequin. At the time Jonah had taken on the identity of a Ukrainian student named Yuri, and swore up and down in his East European accent that he was from Kiev. He had everyone convinced, and I only figured him out when I asked him to actually say something in his native tongue. In any event, he and his young neo-hippie friends had come down to protest.

“I’m turning 30 tomorrow,” I said. “I’m getting old! I may have to grow up now,” I told him. At twenty-two, Jonah can now be regarded by us thirty-somethings as “just a baby.”

“You’re not old,” he responded, “I don’t think you really need to grow up until you’re 70. Maybe 70.” And then he added: “Just don’t become a square.”

Look at me, I said. Could I ever be a square? As if.

The next evening my birthday party was the drunken soiree I had envisioned (slideshow here), though these occasions always make me slightly batty -- all the people from various sections of your life all coming together just to see you; the desire to both entertain and spend some quality time with each one as you get increasingly drunker and less cognizant. I decided, finally, that the only way to combat my anxiety over everyone else’s relative comfort and happiness at the party was to start doing some shots.

After some dancing to a protest marching band playing with a DJ in a cellar bar, a small romp through the Lower East side of Manhattan (I kept trying to convince Mary Jane to take me to get a tattoo but she said that they wouldn’t accept me in my present condition), a bodega stop to buy Gatorade and hostess cupcakes, and a visit to a late-night diner (where I threw up and passed out on one of my companions), we called it a night. I’m not sure how I got home, but I do remember that the cabbie had to knock on the glass divider more than once to wake me. And I lost some of my birthday presents.

On Sunday I went to the protest. It was fabulous. Half a million people: families, Chelsea boys, smelly neo-hippies, ancient blacklisted McCarthy-era Jewish couples, people claiming to be from the Midwest (where’s that?), hipsters and beautiful people, the bikers bloc, the carnival bloc (performance artists like the Missile Dick Chicks, people dressed as animals, radical cheerleaders, hula-hoopers, baton-twirlers etc), the books not bombs folks, the axis of eve girls, socialist worker groups, the Billionaires for Bush, you name it, they were there. It was an epic five-hour march (slideshow here.)

It gave me chills. And I wondered if it would do any good. And I saw that we leftists and activists seriously need some media training to stop looking like a bunch of disorganized freaks to the rest of the world.

By the end of the day I felt like I had had enough, I had maybe even done my part to oust the Bush regime. I thought I maybe didn’t need to be the one pushing the boundaries, yelling three word slogans, and heckling the silly republican delegates. I was certainly glad the Mouse Bloc was there to do it for me (“if one mouse can scare an elephant, what could 1000 do?”). But, I thought, I don’t really want to be them anymore.

And then the next day I tried to reach Jonah on his friend’s cell phone. “We’re still outside the jailhouse,” he said matter-of-factly. “Yeah, Courtney got arrested and still hasn’t been released.” I thought to myself: you only get arrested at something like this if you decide to do something stupid.

And then I realized: maybe I am growing up. Maybe I am a square.

I had to do something, and it was going to be one of two things: either I go get a (new) tattoo, or I go join the Dance Dance Revolution troupe gallivanting around the RNC, trying to accomplish some non-confrontational infiltration, showing the Republicans what it’s like to really let loose.

At Bryant Park, where the dance troupe was supposed to meet, something very different went down. I was the witness of mass arrests of peaceful protesters walking down the street. The police used an orange mesh net to trap the protesters, forcing a conflict between the group and police in riot gear at the end of the mesh tunnel. At the end of the incident, over 50 people were arrested. I was told, watching from across the street and shooting photos, that if anyone so much as stepped off the curb of the sidewalk (into the street), they would be locked up (this statement was made by Investigator Murtau, whose subordinates all but refused to give me his name).

I witnessed many more arrests that night. After all was said and done, over 900 people ended up in a large holding tank on the West Side Highway that was being referred to by New Yorkers as Manhattan’s Guantanamo Bay.

The week continued on like this. As soon as leftist-looking people gathered in a public space, the cops in riot gear would surround them, threaten them. I was afraid. I was even afraid to walk around wearing my No Bush pin (and especially the “The only Bush I trust is my own” pin that Ellen gave me). I was terrified of those orange nets and the possibility that an arrest would make it impossible for me to return to Sierra Leone the following Sunday.

And still no one had heard from the people inside the West Side holding tank. Some unsubstantiated reports said that they were receiving bologna sandwiches for meals, drinking water out of Dixie cups, receiving no medical attention, and playing Red Rover to entertain themselves.

As I sit here now, watching Dick Cheney give a speech at Madison Square Garden to a sea of faces that I don’t recognize as belonging in any way to a group I identify with, feel comfortable with, want to be a part of, or even want to be standing next to in the subway, I wonder, desperately: what can I, as an individual, do to stop what is being done to this country (and by extension our world) by this administration, and how can I stop it from continuing for the next four years?

I have to admit it, I after what I saw transpire between the police and the protesters this past week and the media treatment of the RNC, I feel demoralized, powerless, defeated. At the same time, I feel grateful that there are those who have more energy and determination than I do. I feel inspired by the people who are out there again on the streets tonight, but I don’t feel hopeful that they’ll be effective. And as my very-active activist friend Will said, maybe just going about our lives in the way we want on a daily basis and having a good time is victory enough for now.

But I know that change (and ousting the Bush administration) is possible. And my work now is to figure out how we, as individuals, can use our talents to make change happen.

September 2, 2004