This morning at 6:23 I received the following text from my good friend, Anagram. She was on her way out of the city in a purely relocationary way. To San Diego. Just about as far away as one can get in the contiguous United States:

laguardia has been evacuated. i was literally the next in line for ticketing. apparently nyc was not ready to say goodbye.

A photo was attached to this message. The morning sun shone on crowds of people corralled in one of the airport drives.

I texted back: So wild. What’s going on?

Then, this text conversation followed:

Anagram: no idea. we are all outside but dont know anything. no flights are leaving or arriving since its on lockdown. so much for connecting flight. (6:27am)

Me: Watching the news. Hopefully they’ll tell you something soon. (6:29am)

Anagram: is anything on the news? its been mentioned theres a conspicuous lack of news choppers. (6:30am)

Me: Not so far. The anchors are smiling way too much. (6:31am)

Me: The news is clueless. Nothing about the evacuation yet. (6:42am)

Anagram: google news? [this question is very characteristic of her major search engine fandom.] (6:43am)

Me: Wow. Nada. (6:45am)

Me: Man with explosive. Bomb squad. (6:51am)

Anagram: oh wow. (6:55am)

Me: Well. Reports of a suspicious package from nbc. (7:00am)

Anagram: aww. man w explosive is a better story. (7:01am)

Me: Abc says man w explosive has been arrested. (7:03am)

Anagram: for reals? (7:04am)

Me: Yeah. Bomb threat. Arrest made. Allegedly. (7:05am)

Anagram: i just told that to a passenger and she said that the arrest was made b4 they evacuated. (7:07am)

Me: Civilians are much better reporters than the media. (7:07am)

Anagram: you said it. if only more were on twitter. (7:10am)

It took almost half an hour for something to show up on the news networks. And each station reported varying vaguenesses. When information finally did come, it was stuff I already knew, or I’d already heard about it in better detail. It wasn’t news at all. It was … olds.

Amy, I hope you’re doing okay.