Tuesday November 13. 2001

no brainer

When Jillian came into the glaze room and announced another airplane had gone down on 129th street, I was hunched over my laptop, trying to pound out the design for the craft show advertisement. The irony was that I was in the exact same spot when I heard about the World Trade Center. The exact same spot, and it was the exact same black sucking feeling. I had visions of Harlem in ruins, in flames. Olive lived on the Upper West Side, the same numb panic seized my body. I only then heard that it was 129th street in Rockaway, Queens, not Manhattan. Not that that made it any better.

But why now? Why again? Hasn't this city suffered enough for a thousand lifetimes? Why not somewhere else? Why did it have to be us again? Even though it doesn't look like terrorism this time around, it doesn't make it any better. The entire world just makes me want to vomit right now. Nothing makes me feel better, not our leaders, not the troops, not the bombs, not Operation Infinite Justice, not even the calls for peace.

I haven't combed my hair in about 4 days. I have washed it, though, I'm not that gross. It just got too tangled for me to bother, and it's so matted now that I can actually dred it. I've always thought of dreds as the domain of dirty hippies, but they look pretty cool.

My apartment is a similar state of disarray. That's because all I'm home for these days is to check my email and sleep. My days have averaged getting up around eight, staying at school until midnight or 1 am, stumbling back, staring at my email and possibly grabbing a little something to eat. Tonight it's tangerines. Thanks, Mom.

Clothes everywhere, garbage piling up, food containers and empty soda cans here and there. I haven't even looked at the kitchen in about 3 days, and I don't want to.

I can't think of anything else to say, so I will leave with these two questions (and my answers) which I have been pondering for a while.

If you had to be a character from Winnie the Pooh, who would you be?

I think I would have to be Rabbit. The arrogant intellectual self-absorbed loner who gets annoyed whenever someone distracts him.

If you had to be a borough of New York City, which would you be?

I would be Queens. A little trashy, but charming nonetheless.

One Year Ago:
"Why can't I just LIE, for fuck's sake? Why do I have to always wear my heart on my sleeve and spill my feelings to any schmuck I meet?"

Two Years Ago:
"Too bad I don't have a car, we could go to the King of Prussia Mall. And I could also hurl myself off a ten story building."