repost

well 9/11 is the word of the day. When I hear someone say or write "9/11" all I can think of now is Gulliani and how 9/11 has turned into some bullshit political catchphrase. I never liked him when he was mayor...seriosuly, where did all the homeless people go?

9/11 was a great turning point for me in my life...when my feelings about this country turned from pride and mostly indifference to fear and displeasure. Not fear about the big bad terrorists, but fear of my fellow Americans, and the ways in which they react when bad things happen. And not immediate reactions, but the 7 years that followed. When we entered bullshit wars for no reason I can see, and a guy I had a crush on in late 2003 told me he fucked his girlfriend while watching the bombs fall on Baghdad cause it was so awesome and great. Which made me throw up a little in my mouth, and it was crush over from then on out. 9/11 marks the turning point, when I came to realize that I do not agree with nearly, or more than, half this country. On basic fundamental levels. It was also a turning point in that I started reading the news sand following politics, which takes up a lot of my time these days as well. So I guess it was a political awakening.

I went through my other blog to see if I had posted anything interesting about 9/11. Apparently I avoided talking about it for the first 5 years after it had happened. But here's a post from 9/11/06.


I remember being confused when my dad knocking on my door that day and said I couldn't go into school that day cause a plane had hit the world trade center and downtown would probably be a mess. That was when it was only the first plane, and people thought it may have been just a plane crash. I spent the whole day on the couch in front of my parents tv, and didn't bother changing out of my pj's. The only station we got was channel 2 (CBS) because we didn't have cable and all the other stations had been broadcasting from the WTC. Later that day my brother (the EMT one) went to liberty state park where they were bringing people over from downtown on ferries, so they could be treated for smoke inhalation.

I remember the next day going to the top of my ex's office building and looking out to see the huge cloud of smoke that was over downtown. Later we heard stories about friends of friends who had died there, and my dad's friend who was there but got out. My grandfather's office was across the street, and all the windows in his office had been blown out. My "feminist science fiction" class spent a day talking about the events, and about the 4 students from my college who had died in the attacks.

But mostly I remember the missing persons signs that were at the path train station long afterwards..there were hundreds and hundreds of them, they plastered the walls, and I read them every morning when I was waiting for the path. Months after any hope of finding them was completely gone, their pictures hung in the path station, a silent memorial of the hundreds of passengers who would no longer wait beside me for the train