Today's rambling: One day in history class...
Written on September 11, 2001 at 10:53 p.m.
while feeling a bit

Okay, now that I've calmed down slightly from that last entry, apologies to anyone who was offended by my little "if I was president your country would cease to exist" paragraph. *shrug* I wasn't saying it out of prejudice, I was saying it because they're being callous bastards. Doesn't matter if it had been Germany, France, or England...I'd still have been angry. But anyway, I probably should have kept that for a private diary or something.

Not much has happened since my last entry. I STILL haven't heard from Dad (either he hasn't checked his voicemail, he couldn't understand the message I sent, or...well, we won't go down that avenue). I'll try calling again tomorrow. Mum wants me to try calling LouAnn (or however her name is spelled), but I'm sorry, I can't bring myself to even speak to her.

The news was showing this video footage taken by an out-of-town doctor who actually survived the implosion (well, he was outside, but the rubble and ash fell on him)...by some eerily odd coincidence, he happened to have a video camera, and so he taped pretty much everything. All of a sudden, you see this huge gray cloud of ash coming out of the sky, and he ducks behind a big car. The cloud gets bigger and bigger as it comes closer, and then either the guy shuts his camera off or the news people did a little editing. Either way, the next scene is him walking through rubble. The air is so chokingly thick with ash that you can't see more than 10 feet (that's my estimate, anyway). Financial papers and other assorted documents are lying on the ground as thick as the ash is in the air...it looks like the road has been paved with pieces of ash-covered paper. And the people walking around are covered with this gray-white stuff that almost looks like snow. One man you see right at the left edge of the screen, and he's holding a briefcase, and both he and the briefcase are covered with this stuff. He looks for all the world like a man come back from the dead, even down to the blank and staring expression. "Do you have any oxygen?" he asks (or something to that effect). Unfortunately, the videotaping doctor doesn't have any, but he gets a fireman to go help. Meanwhile, the footage continues, mostly facing the paper-strewn ground, but at one point you see this scraggly shrubbery...y'know those medians on city streets that have shrubs and trees and things planted on them to kind of 'spruce up' the otherwise ugly urban setting? I think that's what it was. I don't know, it was just so weird.

That guy who was covered with ash, however, was the eeriest of all. The image of him standing there, looking dead...it just sticks in my head. And all the time the air is so thick with soot, and it's broad daylight but the ash in the air makes it look like it's around 7 in the evening with thunderclouds hiding the sun and fog shrouding everything else. Eerie.

President Bush didn't declare war, which is probably a good thing. Not to say that it won't happen, but at least he's not being hasty and starting a war before the enemy is even found out. This is seriously going to test his competence, but if he pulls the country through this, I don't think I'll ever complain about him again. Unless he does something really stupid. Which is still possible.

I feel like I want to just keep talking about this, but I think it's just because I'm still reeling from it. There's so much unanswered, and the future is so uncertain right now...not that I plan on curling up and hiding or something, but it's just freaky! And without even knowing if my father is alright...Yeah, I'm worried. The guy aggravates me to no end, but I don't wish for anything BAD to happen to him. At least, death certainly wasn't on my wishlist.

Blargh. My eyes are REALLY burning and heavy right now. It just happened all of a sudden...I think today has just drained me. Weird, seeing as I didn't actually KNOW anyone involved in this (at least, I don't think I did), but I mean, it's emotionally draining to just about everyone. Except Adrienne's bastard of a son. He was like, "I don't care, it wasn't me." He should have been the one in one of those planes...save the life of someone who actually CARED about life. Yeah, I know that's mean to say, but it pisses me off that anyone could be so apathetic in the face of this kind of tragedy! Then again, we're talking about the kid who calls his own mother a lazy, stupid bitch...Yeah, he's a real winner.

Anyway, I'm going to go. I think I might go to bed, but at the same time I don't want to turn off the lights. A part of me is just so paranoid, and I know that it's kind of silly, but I can't help it! And when I said good night to Mum, I didn't want to close the door! I don't know why exactly, I guess it was just the same feeling as turning off the lights. I also don't want to turn off the television because the silence would be too overwhelming for me (whereas normally I embrace silence). Tonight might just be a 'sleep with the lights and TV on' night. Not that I can sleep for beans when the lights are on, but tonight might be an exception!

Y'know, many years from now kids are going to be sitting in their History classes reading about this. They'll listen to their teacher with the same apathetic attitudes that most students nowadays acquire when their teacher talks about World War II. Some of them will care, but none of them will really feel anything. They won't feel the terror that the whole country has been put through, won't feel the fear of people who wonder if they'll be caught in the next attack...Isn't it just weird to think of things that way?