Writing: 1,177 words
I've been ruminating on some of this for the past couple of days.
Some of it, I've been ruminating on for ten years.
I got to play bachelor on Sunday. Mommy took Baby down to Four Seasons around eight in the morning, and I slept in until almost ten since the menfolk had arranged to meet at my wife's brother-in-law's house. He's the one with the forty-foot pine tree leaning on his roof. The tree-trimming didn't actually get started on time, so I took a ride over to the police station on Route 70 to pay a visit to the WTC Beam memorial. I don't generally consider myself a terribly sensitive guy, but standing that close to that beam did a psychological number on me.
And that was as it should be. Barring brain damage or Alzheimer's disease, I will never forget what I saw that September morning ten years ago. But sometimes remembering the images isn't enough. Every now and then, I have to relive that visceral horror. I have to experience it again. It's my penance, I think, for not being one of the people who died, or one of the people who lost someone they never should have had to live without, or one of the people who had to outrun a duststorm up the middle of 42nd Street in Manhattan and breathe jet-fuel for the next ten years.
Hell is not some spiritual dimension where the souls of the unworthy are tormented for eternity. Hell is the unthinkable destruction that men wreak upon each other right here on Earth, during this life, and it is all the more evil because these short years on Earth are all we get. I don't believe much, but I believe that. This is it, man. And that's the only way that life can have any real meaning. The Beam that stands just off Highway 70 here in Havelock stood in the blistering flames of a Hell of man's creation. So I went to see it, and I relieved that visceral horror, just for a little while, because I was one of the lucky ones.
And then I worked out my own psychological issues by literally tearing a forty-foot pine tree limb from limb for three hours. That made me feel almost human again. Maybe it was just a more sophisticated version of slamming your hand in the door to distract yourself from the pain of banging your shin on the coffeetable. But it worked. And we got the tree off the house, if not off the deck. Mommy and Baby made it home by five or so, and we actually managed to eat dinner together for a change. That made me feel the rest of the way human again.
And after everyone else went to bed, I sequestered myself in the office and wrote another 1,177 words in another one-and-a-half sections to bring the total manuscript up to 103,282 words. I banked another 177 words for a balance of 3,923 words, and then I used 1,025 of them to take Monday night off in order to prepare my Treasurer's report for tomorrow night's Pamlico County Arts Council board meeting.
Some of it, I've been ruminating on for ten years.
I got to play bachelor on Sunday. Mommy took Baby down to Four Seasons around eight in the morning, and I slept in until almost ten since the menfolk had arranged to meet at my wife's brother-in-law's house. He's the one with the forty-foot pine tree leaning on his roof. The tree-trimming didn't actually get started on time, so I took a ride over to the police station on Route 70 to pay a visit to the WTC Beam memorial. I don't generally consider myself a terribly sensitive guy, but standing that close to that beam did a psychological number on me.
And that was as it should be. Barring brain damage or Alzheimer's disease, I will never forget what I saw that September morning ten years ago. But sometimes remembering the images isn't enough. Every now and then, I have to relive that visceral horror. I have to experience it again. It's my penance, I think, for not being one of the people who died, or one of the people who lost someone they never should have had to live without, or one of the people who had to outrun a duststorm up the middle of 42nd Street in Manhattan and breathe jet-fuel for the next ten years.
Hell is not some spiritual dimension where the souls of the unworthy are tormented for eternity. Hell is the unthinkable destruction that men wreak upon each other right here on Earth, during this life, and it is all the more evil because these short years on Earth are all we get. I don't believe much, but I believe that. This is it, man. And that's the only way that life can have any real meaning. The Beam that stands just off Highway 70 here in Havelock stood in the blistering flames of a Hell of man's creation. So I went to see it, and I relieved that visceral horror, just for a little while, because I was one of the lucky ones.
And then I worked out my own psychological issues by literally tearing a forty-foot pine tree limb from limb for three hours. That made me feel almost human again. Maybe it was just a more sophisticated version of slamming your hand in the door to distract yourself from the pain of banging your shin on the coffeetable. But it worked. And we got the tree off the house, if not off the deck. Mommy and Baby made it home by five or so, and we actually managed to eat dinner together for a change. That made me feel the rest of the way human again.
And after everyone else went to bed, I sequestered myself in the office and wrote another 1,177 words in another one-and-a-half sections to bring the total manuscript up to 103,282 words. I banked another 177 words for a balance of 3,923 words, and then I used 1,025 of them to take Monday night off in order to prepare my Treasurer's report for tomorrow night's Pamlico County Arts Council board meeting.