Words Fail
Yesterday I spent the entire day in front of my computer, reading, watching, listening, writing, absorbing news. I don’t have a television, so I watched web casts all day long. From 14 hours I just sat and took it all in, living on Metafilter and CNN and Yahoo and MSN and Salon and Slate and countless blogs. The blogs really were almost better than the news. Once you understand the logistics of what happened, it’s just looking at it objectively again and again from thirty different angles. Once you understand the logistics of what happened, you need to read the personal stories to make it real. To make it human.

I realized at 10pm that I had not left my home or spoken to another person face to face all day. I went out to get a drink with a friend. The streets were silent. The only person I saw was a police officer who pulled over and griped at me for jaywalking on an empty street.

“You know, those lights are COLOR CODED so you know when to walk,” he said sarcastically.

“Oh, I’m sorry, officer,” I thought, equally sarchastic. “Silly me lost in thought over the fact that tens of thousands of my fellow citizens died today. Yeah. I’m just a little distracted. Must be the site of New York City burning that got my mind off heeding walk/don’t walk signs.”

But all I said was “Thank you.”