Small Moves

The terrorists wanted to strike at the heart of America. I think they vastly underestimated what they would find there.

No, it still hasn't sunk in. I haven't gone to see it up close. I refuse to listen to the personal stories of luck or tragedy. I don't want to know. Numbers, the state of the remaining buildings, and the latest transit situation is all I can deal with right now.

I have managed to get supremely bummed that I'll never get back to Windows on the World. That's all that is processing at the moment.

One Liberty Plaza is about to fall down. That building housed the beginning of my illustrious Wall St. career. I've spent time in 1, 2, 5, and 7 World trade, as well as 3 World Financial, which is also in danger of coming down. So is the Millenium hotel (or however it's spelled, it *is* spelled wrong). I've been there a few times too.

It's getting harder not to take this personally.

I'm beginning to think that it's a twisted version of dominoes, taking weeks to unfold.

Of course, after all of those, the next building that has to go (to affect me) is on 23rd St. That should take months. (If you know NYC, you should be laughing now)

A couple of little events do feel good, considering the circumstances. The details of the revolt on the plane in Pittsburgh is one. Watching traditional US enemy states trip all over each other to offer aid to us is another. Seeing people be good to one another for a change is a third.

I know it's only temporary.

Some time between 30 seconds from now and next year I will completely lose it. I don't know when that is, but it is bound to happen. I don't do the blubbering mess thing well, so when it does happen, it won't be pretty.

Most of the people alive in the world today have never seen a truly pissed off USA, myself included. We have seen an annoyed USA, a frustrated USA, even a ticked off USA. The large hammer that congress has talked about feels good at the moment, and I am inclined to make all the problems look like nails.

Violence may beget violence, however, as Howard Stern pointed out (and I never listen to him...it was one of those chance statements I heard), Japan was never violent again after WWII. Extreme violence can put certain institutions back in their place. Or worse.

That may not work in this case, but we are about to find out.

I want to feel bad for liking that fact. I want to be more logical and less pissed off.

It's not working. I don't care.

I want to see something blown up. I want to know we did it.

This isn't a debate, it's a statement of fact:

I want revenge.

Other little details: the first non-fighter jet flew overhead today. It appeared to be a 727. I was more scared by that sound than any of the prior F-16's screaming by.

I haven't heard any sirens tonight. I don't know that I can sleep with all the quiet.

I don't know that I want to.

The infighting comes next. The cheesy tribute remixes and the commemmorative plates on QVC. The mouring period will end and the chance to cash in will be too great for some. The arguments over the appropriate courses of action and the staggering impact of the cost of it all. For now, though, we are still basically united.

And pissed off.

What can I say?

Like a lot of people around here, the planes hitting the towers was one thing, the collapse refocused everything again.

That last post was written before the collapse.

I have gone to see it with my own eyes. I know people who worked there.

Two weeks in either direction I could have easily been there myself, although on the lower floors. Small consolation I suppose, but I'll take what I can get right now.

I have forced myself to watch the video over and over again. It's still on now. They're gone. It's not computing. They're fucking gone.

I think everyone I know got out, although the phones are still locked up solid. My new town I've moved to, with a distant view of the city, is receiving some victims by ferry. The sound of sirens has subsided this late, although I suspect it will go all night.

I listen to the media frenzy, trying to make it all sink in. The events of today, and the call for justice which is really a demand for vengeance. I can't say that I am all that interested in justice myself at the moment. I can only hope any retribution gets applied to the right people.

I should feel relieved. I left a life that would have centered me in the middle of the hell today. I should feel lucky that, so far, everyone I know is likely to be safe. I should feel lucky that this only glanced my life...but it's gutted my psyche right now, and I am wavering between denial and rage.

I want to believe that it's over too.

So I'm pouring another screwdriver, trying to make sense of it all, which I know won't happen. I will fall asleep, again, jolted awake by another nightmare, again, and wake up tomorrow in a temporary bliss that it was all a bad dream. I will go outside and see the plume of smoke filling the horizon, centered from where the tiny towers were visible yesterday.

Yes, I am OK.

No, I'm not.

I had all kinds of things to say about sharks and the legal system and various things in the world, but none of them seem important anymore.

And I thought that just the traffic was annoying today.

Perhaps it's just a sign that I really needed to get off my ass and come back to this. Heh.

No matter how many times I pack everything up, no matter how many times I try to be organized, whenever I move, I wind up with 20 boxes labeled "misc. stuff." I'm only on box #2...this is going to take a while.

:::

Whenever I try to clean the car, I'm left with a mess in the house. When I try to clean up that mess, I wind up with crap back in the car. It's amazing how many cycles it takes before I actually notice this.

:::

Attention span is a problem lately. I'm not sure where it comes from exactly, but I do know....hey, cool! Check out that butterfly!

:::

Wireless technology is wonderful for two purposes: working/talking/doing things pretty much anywhere, and reminding us that microwave frequencies don't travel well through obstacles with high water content. Too bad people have a reeeeealllllly high water content. I feel dizzy.

:::

It used to be floppies, now it's CD's. I wonder what the next storage technology will emerge that becomes so entrenched in daily life that I lose, break, place in unlabeled stacks, and otherwise abuse it?

:::

*blink* *blink* *blink* *blink*

Ugh...it's SUNNY out during the day. Gotta talk to someone about that.

Yes, I am still alive. For those who I personally told that the Week In Review was returning this past weekend...oops...I missed. I apologize.

It's returning soon. Really!

Other than that...nothing much going on.

Bullshit...all kinds of stuff going on, but most of it isn't gonna show up here.

Hey, I'm not happy about that, either. But that's the way it is.

_sigh_

Thought for today:

"Back Door Bill" is a common phrase in the modern vernacular.

It's used in reference to Bill Clinton and his Oval Office follies.

It's used in reference to any attempt to sneak a law past the public right under everyone's nose.

Now it can be used in reference to one Bill Gates, specifically due to the latest hole he took a hit in...

I park the car, and head towards the bar/restaurant set in the middle of an outdoor shopping complex/mall. It is about 200 feet from the parking lot to the door.

So why the fuck do I have to walk 6 miles to get there?!?

Perfectly cut bricks inlaid in a winding pathway through nothing in particular to get nowhere important, except for possibly the bar, serves no one in particular, except for perhaps the bricklayers. What happened to a straight walkway to where you want to go?

I mean, I'm all for beauty in the details making the mundane aspects of life more bearable, but this isn't quite what I had in mind.

The post-techno-ultra-modern-new-age-feng-shui whatever has resulted in carefully engineered concrete courtyards encrusting shiny chain stores in simulated organic layouts. The plasticine peacefulness is worse than not trying in the first place.

If I was so interested in finding a little peace and quiet in my life, I would go to an actual garden with winding pathways and pretty flowers far removed from the modern world. I would *not* go to a strip mall at the intersection of three major highways. I don't appreciate having it thrust upon me, either.

What possible motive could a developer have here? Do I need more serenity in my shopping? Hardly. I hope someone mercifully shoots me if I ever claim otherwise. Shopping is a necessary evil of a consumerist society, something to be endured to get what I need from people I don't know who are paid too much for pretending to like me. Don't insult my intelligence by trying to pretty up the place and forcing me to window-shop at the bridal boutique and video store on my way to get a beer. If there is any pleasant experiences to be had here, I will seek them out at my destination, not in the navigation of an annoying random pathway for the sake of being random. It only comes out as annoying.

Otherwise, I'd be somewhere else in the first place.

I suppose there are some people who prefer to meander aimlessly along roads to nowhere, blissfully forgetting what they were here for in the first place. Fine. Leave the yellow brick road in place for them.

I'm not one of them. Put in a straight line for me.