Diary of a Low Budget Superhero

"Why do you do this?"

A simple enough question. Why it made me tearful? That part isn't so simple. This is a bout between me and my own whiny self pity, so if you're not in the mood or are sick of people griping about the economy, move along, nothin' to see here.

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I was driving my Geo Prism, my first car that was "my" car, commuting from my apartment in Somerville to work at GiantSuckingSound.com in Billerica. I generally listened to WERS on the radio. A song ended, and news broke in, reporting that a plane had hit one of the towers.

I thought that was so strange and unfortunate! My first thought was literally "How did that pilot hit the WORLD TRADE CENTER, it's not like you can't SEE it." But I was envisioning a LITTLE plane, a Cessna or something, and assumed it would come out that the pilot lost control or the engines failed. I didn't think of damage to the building at all-- they're HUGE, a small plane crashing into one would mean closing a few floors for repair at most, and hopefully the people inside saw the plane in time and ran for safety.

I think the reporter thought that, too.

But not a few minutes later, the flustered reporter came back and said that ANOTHER plane hit. That was the first time I felt any dread. I switched to a news station. It became more serious and the world darkened a bit. It wasn't a little plane. Big plane. And not just one, which may have been a believable accident...two planes. No accident. We didn't even know yet about the other planes.

I got to the office park, quickly parked the car. I saw "the smokers" outside. A group of women who took smoke breaks together, they would step outside this certain door. They were clustered outside that door and one of them, Corrine, had a radio. Everyone looked ashen and stunned. I hurried past them into my office and turned on my radio at my desk, shoved my laptop into its dock and turned it on, while snatching up the phone to call Hub. I either woke him up,, or he'd just woken up -- he was in grad school at the time. "Turn on the TV," I said.

"What channel?"

"Any channel."

He watched while I listened in, the horror increasing. He turned up the volume so I could hear. He described what was on the screen. People running. Smoke. Blackness. When the towers fell, he told me. I wanted to not believe him, but I heard it. I could actually hear it. I think we tried calling all our NY friends. I think I may have tried to work. I know we hugged each other and there were tears. I know I went home later and watched and re-watched the footage. The running, the screaming, over and over again.

A few weeks later we went camping in upstate NY with Z and Fatima, Jeff and Zephyr. They needed to get out of the city, and we really needed to spend some quiet time with them. Z and Fatima are Arab. There was a lot of meaningful discussion and hugging. They're wonderful people. They'd cooked food and brought it on foot to the workers at Ground Zero. Hot food, coffee.

Kind of like Arthur Dent in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, when he tries to fully internalize that the earth had been demolished by Vogons to make way for a hyperspace bypass, I couldn't get my head all the way around "the towers are gone. New York doesn't have the twin towers anymore. Thousands of people died horribly." It was too much to think about, I couldn't accept it. Instead, little realizations would come to me and fit through a crack in my wall of nonacceptance. I broke down when I remembered the T-shirt I had when I was little, with my own face on it, that my parents bought in a novelty shop at the top of the World Trade Center -- they took your photo and made you a T-shirt. And remembered and revisited bits of an online diary I'd followed for years, then called Cubegirl, whose actual cube had been in an office in the towers and who'd cheated death only because she'd very recently fallen in love and moved to Boston...I'm proud to say I know her, now, so it's weird to think of her as "cubegirl" anymore. Or just every movie (or episode of Friends) that used a skyline shot of NY, featuring the towers, was enough to send me into a fresh bout with sorrow.

This will be a day of remembrance for my whole life, and I guess my main wish is that it's the worst thing I'll have as a firsthand fact of terrorism. So many people in the world have seen so much more. Bombings and worse.

As for the men and women in uniform keeping us all safe, "thank you" doesn't even cover it.

I didn't so much clear yesterday's Hurdle of Blah. It's more like I kinda shuffled up to it, stared at it awhile, drank a second cup of coffee, nudged it aside with my butt as I plodded past. Hey, I got to work and did my stuff, didn't I? Leaping over hurdles is for next week.

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Or is it the blah's? Blahs. Blah's. I dunno, some words look wrong both ways. Either way you spell it: meh.

I haven't had a tummy ache in a couple of weeks, but I just feel blah! I got the blood work results -- no apparent gallbladder issues, and liver and pancreas look fine. No results from the ultrasound but I assume they'd have called right away if anything was amiss. I guess I should just keep doing the food diary (kinda HAVE to, counting the Points on Weight Watchers!) and see if there are any triggers in common. I'm definitely leery of the Vitalicious gluten-free, sugar-free low-fat mini-muffins now...then again, I ate four of them in one day. (Well they're SMALL).

I didn't go to work today. I just felt too...blah. Treating myself to movies (13 Ghosts remake, and I Love You, Man and a re-screen of Sneakers). Work tomorrow, so I'm mentally working up towards a blah-clearing hurdle!

I was struggling to get through a particularly gnarly workday, but when my co-worker ventured out into the rain and brought me back a tuna sub (thanks Jeff!) I tried to shut out all the frustrations and take an actual break.

One hand on the sandwich, the other on my mouse, I tried to take my mind off work for ten minutes. Facebook tipped me off that E News online was streaming the Michael Jackson service. I came in during the latter half, and I couldn't watch it all (a "break" at my work is, well, not so much) but I caught bits of it.

And you know what? All you haters can kiss the back of my butt.

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As I happily wrap presents, tie sparkly ribbon into floppy bows and make decorations from faux greens and baubles from the Dollar Store, I notice that there seems to be a lot of humbugging going on among my friends and acquaintances this year.

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