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9.04.2003i was happily making sushi, having a beer waiting for the girl to come pick me up to go out and have cocktails with her rugbymates. Seven Days In September was on A&E when i walked in the room. I bawled my eyes out for at least one hour out of the 2 that it was on (the second hour was really hokey). I noted in my head that I had not marked the 'anniversary' last year. Or at least, if i did, i don't remember. i think i went and had dinner with mark and alex and it was super lo-fi and mellow. one thing that alex said (out of the 6 million brilliant things that she has said to me) was "the one thing that I realized is that my family and friends were no more important to me on September 12th than they were on September 10th. That means i must be doing something right". exactly. when i came in to work someone told me that a plane had crashed into the trade center i thought "omg what a weird, horrible accident". then as the second plane hit, like everyone else, i realized that it was horrible and weird but NOT an accident. when the 3rd plane hit the pentagon, I really lost my shit. I think my exact words to a co-worker were "omg we are now at war" I called my team in NJ. They had no idea what was happening. one of them said "don't you think you are over-reacting a little bit?" I just started screaming at her. The world as i knew it had just ended. they froze Time Square and the national guard came in very shortly after that. I stayed put. I couldn't get back to brooklyn and wandering the streets of what was once my home and was now a war-zone didn't seem smart. friends who were downtown came up to my office. THe president of the company came in and told us that they were keeping the building open for as long as anyone needed to stay there. they walked over 50 blocks uptown to my office from Canal street where their office is, shell shocked and scared and covered in dust. we left at around 4 pm and just walked. I was petrified to get on the subway, some of which were running at that point in the afternoon. I just kept saying "this isn't over". Sure that we were going to continue to be attacked. The friends who had already walked the 50 plus blocks to my office finally BEGGED me to get on the train because she was going to collapse. I held my breath and got on at 14th st. i do not think i have EVER been so scared of anything in my entire life. in brooklyn, the sky was like pea soup and smelled HORRIBLE. much worse than in manhattan. For those of you that are not familiar with the layout of NYC, my house in brooklyn was MUCH closer to the trade center than my office in manhattan is. My house was about a half mile, my office is about 3 miles. i walked in the door to a film of dust over everything, including my dog. what i think eveyone else can relate to most is that that day, while scary and confusing, was not nearly as hard as the days to come. for the next 3 months i would spontaneously combust into tears out of nowhere and it didn't matter where i was. no one went anywhere the next day except to bars and memorial sevices. anything to keep us away from TVs. i went into work on Thursday because i didn't know what else to do. my subway line goes above ground over the manhattan bridge. there were no more than 30 people on my car with me. everyone of them practically in tears looking at downtown. i got on a plane a week and a half later. I am not going to go on and on about the vitality of new yorkers. i will say that its takes a lot of guts to live there. You have to be a special sort of soul. and it is that brand of special that allows them to endure something as horrific as that. tell me where you were. no matter where. and what you were doing and what you were thinking about. e-mail me if you don't want to post it. .: posted by landry 11:58 PM
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