From the thirty-second floor, Boston looks different. Last time I visited, the city was green, noisy, teeming with life: taxicabs honking, pedestrians jostling about, skyscraper façades capturing the reflection of a late summer sun that spared little who walked below from its murderous heat.

Today I sit in a darkened and empty office, yellow light from the hallway incandescents spilling gently onto quiet walls and competing with the dull gray of the skies outside. I am here in Boston for two days on a work trip. My colleague and I arrived yesterday, each armed with a single change of clothing, each exhausted from a long day at the office, each thinking of little but our task ahead. We're between sessions now, and as I sit here waiting, I gaze outside to the city below, her streets blanketed in a snow that has been falling steadily since early morning. Talk of airport closings and cancelled flights sit muffled at the periphery of my hearing and my colleague and I eye each other nervously: the thought of being stranded overnight appeals to neither of us.

It's eerily quiet here on this floor. I look outside again to the falling white and my ears strain to pick up the faint whee-owrr-whee-owrr of a fire engine making its way through the city streets. Down the hall, someone is making copies on the Xerox machine.

It's fascinating being here in Boston now, the city still recovering from last week's blizzard, her streets piled high with snow and slush and all that makes winter so difficult. From up here I can make out the State Street Bank building, the letters of its sign gigantic and white, just visible beyond the swirling snow. Beyond that, I cannot identify any of the other buildings, and all I see are their tops, covered in today's fresh winter white. Outside, another siren blares, more distant, more softly this time, and all I can think of is my flight out of Logan tonight. I hope I can make it home.

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Struggling struggling struggling to recover after a site hosting hiccup, wrestling the bits and pieces of the unorganised mess as best I can, cursing myself a thousand times over for never properly backing up this here my site, my blog, my buddy, my baby, three years of creation at stake.

I cannot so easily give up.

Thanks for the encouragement. A determined Yes, I will be back.

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