(no subject)
Sep. 21st, 2001 11:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phamosALRIGHTY THEN!
ok, looks like we're up and running again, and ad-free, thanks to the generous gift of mr. mark kormes (who is apparently really the only person who reads this *wave*).
i've had lots of thoughts and really no way to post them, and now i don't want to go back through them all. i'll see if i can pick out a couple.
downtown is weird. the dust and the smell comes and goes, depending on how the wind is blowing. apparently yesterday the fulton street stop on the 4/5 line was filled with this awful stench. people were rushing onto the train from the platform holding their noses, unable to breathe it was so bad. having not been there, i can't tell you if it was the smell of rotting bodies or the smell of river much slowly flooding downtown's underground because the steel supports of the WTC aren't holding the Hudson out anymore. all i know is that around here, there's often this really thick smell of burning in the air, dust that makes it hard to breathe without sort of choking.
there are national guardsmen with rifles on every corner and camoflauge humvees driving around on the street. i'm usually fine when i'm in my office, i can cope, but walking around outside is just one of the most depressing things i've ever experienced. walking down south street along the river, right outside my building, there are lines of flatbed trucks, each carrying a few pieces of scorched, mangled steel to a ferry that's depositing all the rubble at an old landfill on staten island. these are enormous steel girders that have been melted, twisted, and cooled again, so they're frozen into these frightening shapes that just emphasize the extent of the destruction. it makes my brain hurt.
yesterday we finally got the mail. i was processing a batch of checks when i noticed one from Fiduciary Trust. The address on the check was 2 World Trade Center. It was dated 9/7/01. And I just sat there for a second, thinking about how on that day, two Fridays ago, those people were just doing work as normal, printing up checks, going to lucnh, going home at the end of the day. i try and remember what i was doing that friday. was that the day we went to Scarsdale? or was that the week before? everything is a blur. i feel simultaneously like i've been in this city forever and like i just got here. it's home and it's not. i have no one to go to if anything goes wrong. it's just me and segev. it's lonely and scary and i hate it. i want everything to go back to normal. i want to have nothing but shallow concerns like how to afford that shirt i wanted at banana republic or whether someone will respond to my post on fametracker or when i'll be able to go out drinking with larry again. i don't want to think in really real terms about war! i mean, sure, that's what i read about for fun and education -- i read about foreign countries, foreign politics, foreign regimes. but it always seems very far removed, very academic. i read about the Taliban. i don't want us to be BOMBING the Taliban; that's something completely different and totally immediate. and i hate it.
i hate that there is so much irrational dogma in this world that leads people to hate and envy and destrution. it's the same thing i hate about christianity -- it's not a strictly muslim thing. anything that preaches vengeance and anger over love and understanding with one's fellow man -- where the hell else do you think the world's going to end up! when people are intolerant of others, THIS is what you fucking get! DUH!
*sigh* i'll stop now.
ok, looks like we're up and running again, and ad-free, thanks to the generous gift of mr. mark kormes (who is apparently really the only person who reads this *wave*).
i've had lots of thoughts and really no way to post them, and now i don't want to go back through them all. i'll see if i can pick out a couple.
downtown is weird. the dust and the smell comes and goes, depending on how the wind is blowing. apparently yesterday the fulton street stop on the 4/5 line was filled with this awful stench. people were rushing onto the train from the platform holding their noses, unable to breathe it was so bad. having not been there, i can't tell you if it was the smell of rotting bodies or the smell of river much slowly flooding downtown's underground because the steel supports of the WTC aren't holding the Hudson out anymore. all i know is that around here, there's often this really thick smell of burning in the air, dust that makes it hard to breathe without sort of choking.
there are national guardsmen with rifles on every corner and camoflauge humvees driving around on the street. i'm usually fine when i'm in my office, i can cope, but walking around outside is just one of the most depressing things i've ever experienced. walking down south street along the river, right outside my building, there are lines of flatbed trucks, each carrying a few pieces of scorched, mangled steel to a ferry that's depositing all the rubble at an old landfill on staten island. these are enormous steel girders that have been melted, twisted, and cooled again, so they're frozen into these frightening shapes that just emphasize the extent of the destruction. it makes my brain hurt.
yesterday we finally got the mail. i was processing a batch of checks when i noticed one from Fiduciary Trust. The address on the check was 2 World Trade Center. It was dated 9/7/01. And I just sat there for a second, thinking about how on that day, two Fridays ago, those people were just doing work as normal, printing up checks, going to lucnh, going home at the end of the day. i try and remember what i was doing that friday. was that the day we went to Scarsdale? or was that the week before? everything is a blur. i feel simultaneously like i've been in this city forever and like i just got here. it's home and it's not. i have no one to go to if anything goes wrong. it's just me and segev. it's lonely and scary and i hate it. i want everything to go back to normal. i want to have nothing but shallow concerns like how to afford that shirt i wanted at banana republic or whether someone will respond to my post on fametracker or when i'll be able to go out drinking with larry again. i don't want to think in really real terms about war! i mean, sure, that's what i read about for fun and education -- i read about foreign countries, foreign politics, foreign regimes. but it always seems very far removed, very academic. i read about the Taliban. i don't want us to be BOMBING the Taliban; that's something completely different and totally immediate. and i hate it.
i hate that there is so much irrational dogma in this world that leads people to hate and envy and destrution. it's the same thing i hate about christianity -- it's not a strictly muslim thing. anything that preaches vengeance and anger over love and understanding with one's fellow man -- where the hell else do you think the world's going to end up! when people are intolerant of others, THIS is what you fucking get! DUH!
*sigh* i'll stop now.
