ugh
I don't think I've said a goddamn thing about 9/11 since it happened, but here, for archival purposes, is reproductions of what I blogged about that day, ten years ago.
First post:
I'm in NYC.
I'm okay.
This is a nightmare.
Second post:
I wish I could go home.
Third post:
All right, now that I'm not blithering and twitching in shock, my report of the day.
I woke up around 8:30 to get ready for my 9:30 class, cursed my still-down computer network, took a shower, did the usual. When I was getting dressed, I heard a loud plane-in-the-sky noise. I thought, "Plane crash!?" And then I shook my head at myself and thought, "Oh, Whitney, you always think it's a plane crash when you hear noises like that. Silly girl."
I went downstairs to where people were lining up to vote in the NYC mayoral primary, and heard someone say, "A jet crashed into the World Trade Center." I stopped in my tracks and did a double take, looked outside to see the people staring south, and then went back to my room, thinking it was an accident.
I went to class and had to stop and stare at the big, gaping, smoking hole in one of the towers. I think only one of the planes had crashed by then. I thought for a minute that I should get my camera and take a picture of it, smoking pouring out. People were lined up in the street staring, and lined up in the middle of Washington Square Park, just staring south. I had to stop for a while and look, just to burn the image into my mind. I kept thinking that this was a horrible accident, and I couldn't imagine how many people were dead or injured.
I went to class. I learned how to say something is on fire in Japanese. The lights flickered once, but class went on without incident.
I left class and went home. I kept looking south as I walked across the park. I saw a few people crying. I passed a group of friends who said with relief that so-and-so hadn't been at work today. I couldn't understand why I couldn't see the towers. It seemed weird, since I'd been able to see them from the park and from the street on my way to class, but I couldn't see them then. There was a lot more smoke than before. I didn't occur to me that in the span of an hour and a half, both buildings could have gone down.
In front of my dorm building, someone was playing a radio news report. I stood there, alternately staring at the pavement and looking at the smoke to the south and listened to the report of what had happened. I went into the standard shock position - hand over my mouth, then over my heart. I could only move inside when someone turned down the radio.
I think I went into shock or some kind of panic attack after that. Heart pounding, hands shaking, fingers numb, world swimming. I turned on the news, quietly as so not to wake my still-sleeping roommate. After about ten minutes of watching in horror, my network connection came back, and I signed on to the MOO to find a whole lot of people who were very, very worried about me. And that's when I started crying.
The morning and afternoon blurred into a lot of numb, shaking hours of trying to get the phones to work, answering a lot of frantic emails and IMs, and hugging my stuffed bunny, Eep. After a while, I had to turn the news off because I couldn't listen anymore. I eventually got a hold of my parents. My brother in Japan apparently called home, in a panic about me.
By the time I could go downstairs to try to eat something, I'd worked into the stage where you make bad jokes ('Not a cloud in the sky... well, except for that one.') and Simpsons references ('Oh, here comes that gas that turns people inside out.') in defense. Laughter, shaky and brittle as it may be, helps.
After a long nap interrupted by the sounds of sirens and F-16's flying overhead, I'm feeling closer to human. Although, you know, maybe that's not such a good thing to be at the moment.
Insert standard message here. Give blood. Pray. Don't panic.
Fourth post:
As someone who lives in New York City, I just can't talk about this anymore. Actually, I hit my limit around five o'clock on Tuesday. I can't talk about it anymore, I can't think about it anymore, and as the fact that I haven't gone outside in two days would attest, I sure as hell can't look at it. And I have to keep my windows closed to keep from smelling it. And they don't keep out the sound of the sirens or the fighter jets.
I can't listen to it anymore. The words "Pearl Harbor" or "act of war" or "retaliation" or any of those new things that are being said other breath. I have to deal with my life and be normal if I ever want a hope of going outside this room for more than five minutes ever again.
I'm sure that as soon as I get out of the city and get to see D&Arielle and everyone (whenever the hell that may be, fuck living below 14th street), it'll all bite me in the ass and they'll have to carry around a sack of quivering Whitney for a few days, but right now, I'm doing what I can to keep myself a functioning human being. Although "functioning" is questionable, since I still haven't done my damn laundry, and this morning was the first time in two days that I've showered brushed my teeth changed my clothes eaten a meal other than ramen.
So, you know, I'm learning how to collage. I'm watching Kenshin filler episodes. I'm arguing with my roommate about Omi/Aya vs. Omi/Ken. I'm also checking cnn.com every few hours and spending too much time staring at the postcards of the World Trade Center that have appeared on my door.
I understand that talking about it is how other people deal with things. So I can't argue your right to talk yourself mute about whatever you want to talk about, but I've got earplugs.
And that's pretty much where I've been for the past ten years. With earplugs. It's not something I like talking about. It's something I hate what the media does to. I hate the lights they blow up from ground zero every year, too. And I cannot begin to express how much I do not need tumblr giving me animated gifs of shit right now.
I'm nothing special, though. 7 million other New Yorkers have the same experience as me. I don't need to talk about everything since. It's the same for all of us.
First post:
I'm in NYC.
I'm okay.
This is a nightmare.
Second post:
I wish I could go home.
Third post:
All right, now that I'm not blithering and twitching in shock, my report of the day.
I woke up around 8:30 to get ready for my 9:30 class, cursed my still-down computer network, took a shower, did the usual. When I was getting dressed, I heard a loud plane-in-the-sky noise. I thought, "Plane crash!?" And then I shook my head at myself and thought, "Oh, Whitney, you always think it's a plane crash when you hear noises like that. Silly girl."
I went downstairs to where people were lining up to vote in the NYC mayoral primary, and heard someone say, "A jet crashed into the World Trade Center." I stopped in my tracks and did a double take, looked outside to see the people staring south, and then went back to my room, thinking it was an accident.
I went to class and had to stop and stare at the big, gaping, smoking hole in one of the towers. I think only one of the planes had crashed by then. I thought for a minute that I should get my camera and take a picture of it, smoking pouring out. People were lined up in the street staring, and lined up in the middle of Washington Square Park, just staring south. I had to stop for a while and look, just to burn the image into my mind. I kept thinking that this was a horrible accident, and I couldn't imagine how many people were dead or injured.
I went to class. I learned how to say something is on fire in Japanese. The lights flickered once, but class went on without incident.
I left class and went home. I kept looking south as I walked across the park. I saw a few people crying. I passed a group of friends who said with relief that so-and-so hadn't been at work today. I couldn't understand why I couldn't see the towers. It seemed weird, since I'd been able to see them from the park and from the street on my way to class, but I couldn't see them then. There was a lot more smoke than before. I didn't occur to me that in the span of an hour and a half, both buildings could have gone down.
In front of my dorm building, someone was playing a radio news report. I stood there, alternately staring at the pavement and looking at the smoke to the south and listened to the report of what had happened. I went into the standard shock position - hand over my mouth, then over my heart. I could only move inside when someone turned down the radio.
I think I went into shock or some kind of panic attack after that. Heart pounding, hands shaking, fingers numb, world swimming. I turned on the news, quietly as so not to wake my still-sleeping roommate. After about ten minutes of watching in horror, my network connection came back, and I signed on to the MOO to find a whole lot of people who were very, very worried about me. And that's when I started crying.
The morning and afternoon blurred into a lot of numb, shaking hours of trying to get the phones to work, answering a lot of frantic emails and IMs, and hugging my stuffed bunny, Eep. After a while, I had to turn the news off because I couldn't listen anymore. I eventually got a hold of my parents. My brother in Japan apparently called home, in a panic about me.
By the time I could go downstairs to try to eat something, I'd worked into the stage where you make bad jokes ('Not a cloud in the sky... well, except for that one.') and Simpsons references ('Oh, here comes that gas that turns people inside out.') in defense. Laughter, shaky and brittle as it may be, helps.
After a long nap interrupted by the sounds of sirens and F-16's flying overhead, I'm feeling closer to human. Although, you know, maybe that's not such a good thing to be at the moment.
Insert standard message here. Give blood. Pray. Don't panic.
Fourth post:
As someone who lives in New York City, I just can't talk about this anymore. Actually, I hit my limit around five o'clock on Tuesday. I can't talk about it anymore, I can't think about it anymore, and as the fact that I haven't gone outside in two days would attest, I sure as hell can't look at it. And I have to keep my windows closed to keep from smelling it. And they don't keep out the sound of the sirens or the fighter jets.
I can't listen to it anymore. The words "Pearl Harbor" or "act of war" or "retaliation" or any of those new things that are being said other breath. I have to deal with my life and be normal if I ever want a hope of going outside this room for more than five minutes ever again.
I'm sure that as soon as I get out of the city and get to see D&Arielle and everyone (whenever the hell that may be, fuck living below 14th street), it'll all bite me in the ass and they'll have to carry around a sack of quivering Whitney for a few days, but right now, I'm doing what I can to keep myself a functioning human being. Although "functioning" is questionable, since I still haven't done my damn laundry, and this morning was the first time in two days that I've showered brushed my teeth changed my clothes eaten a meal other than ramen.
So, you know, I'm learning how to collage. I'm watching Kenshin filler episodes. I'm arguing with my roommate about Omi/Aya vs. Omi/Ken. I'm also checking cnn.com every few hours and spending too much time staring at the postcards of the World Trade Center that have appeared on my door.
I understand that talking about it is how other people deal with things. So I can't argue your right to talk yourself mute about whatever you want to talk about, but I've got earplugs.
And that's pretty much where I've been for the past ten years. With earplugs. It's not something I like talking about. It's something I hate what the media does to. I hate the lights they blow up from ground zero every year, too. And I cannot begin to express how much I do not need tumblr giving me animated gifs of shit right now.
I'm nothing special, though. 7 million other New Yorkers have the same experience as me. I don't need to talk about everything since. It's the same for all of us.