allisnow | (no subject)

If anyone's ventured onto my lj proper in the last few hours, you can see, yes, I have changed it again.

Yes, it's very red. I was going to go with blue or white, or even black, in the beginning, but playing around with PS the red felt right.

One of the Discovery Channels tonight was re-airing Inside 9/11. I watched the first 15 minutes, up until the first crash, and then I realized that if I stayed up and watched the whole thing I probably wouldn't be falling asleep very quickly.

This is going to be the 4th anniversary. 4th is kind of a weird number, in between 3 and 5 -- both powerful, meaningful numbers. We think of things in 5s and 10s, mostly, and in a year we can look back and realize that it's been half a decade since it happened. Since the world changed, if only in the eyes of some. In comparison, the number 4 doesn't seem so special.

But every year that goes by we know more about what happened; we can reconstruct and make sense of the timeline of events and actions as we can never make sense of the reasons why. And no matter how much time goes by, I know I'll never be able to able to think about the people on those planes (whether they were on Flight 11 and could only imagine their fate or on Flight 93 and knew too well what was happening), those in the Towers and in the Pentagon and also those in Washington, D.C. who were spared thanks to sheer human determination.

It's in our nature to avoid things that make us feel bad, and goodness knows there's enough bad feeling going around lately with Katrina and her aftermath. But I would hope that everyone would take the time this weekend to watch a bit of meaningful 9/11 programming, visit a memorial or in some other way reflect. I won't tell you what to think. I just ask that you do.

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I'm a geek. I watched all four hours of Inside 9/11 when it first aired. And it was eerie and fascinating.

I'm sensing (and hearing, even from some of my friends) a sort of rejection of wanting to remember or focus on 9/11 on this fourth anniversary. A combo of apathy, laziness, and wanting to "move on" I suppose. I'd be more accepting of that if we weren't still in the middle of the war that 9/11 was a major part/turning point of. But since so many don't think we're at war either :p *sigh*

Thanks for the good words. I echo your sentiments.

We're not at war? Then what the heck are we at?

I think you may have misread:

I'd be more accepting of that if we weren't still in the middle of the war

It was the since so many don't think we're at war either that confused me. Whatever else people think about it, it's a war and it's based on 9/11.

You're welcome. And back atcha.

I haven't entirely figured out what I'm going to do; it's an uneasy balance between not putting my life on pause and not ignoring such a watershed in history.

The balance, such as it is, is probably going to consist on going to the Renfair (because I've looked forward to that through all the craziness at work) but also doing what I've done for the last 3 anniversaries... wearing black with the memorial ribbon (that was, appropriately, handed out at said fair) and then going home, digging up a big box of tissues and rereading the Commission Report, my printouts of my listservs that day, and the 9/12 newspapers.