this [link deleted] made me shudder. ben came up behind me a minute ago while i was reading thru posts at adequacy.org and i had misted over. i’ve gone back and forth all day. when i first saw the video footage, i nearly cried; at other points, i’ve made caustic comments or tried to be funny, as has justin. i listened to bush’s uninspiring, uninspired preachiness. i listened to npr alternate b/w straightforward reports and sorta melodramatic somber string music. i discussed w/ my barnmates the future of america: will, as joel believes, george II’s videogame inclinations get the better of the little of his good judgement there is and he starts bombing countries the way frustrated teenagers break windows? he thinks this is the beginning of the end of america’s position of superiority in the world. rebecca concurs: the eu is getting stronger, america’s been in decline (ross chimes in: asian economies are booming) — we’re going to swing our arms too wildly, desperate to strike an invisible/mutable foe, and we’re going to lose our balance and fall. hard.
my barnies are pessimists. i have a good feeling about america, maybe just because i’m in it. maybe we won’t be an isolated First in the world — so what? it’ll be good for us. i don’t think we’ll meet so drastic a fate. most of the people i’ve heard speak so far have been too rational. everyone is cautioning against immediately blaming the arabs; advising restraint; etc. so far we don’t sound like a country that’s going to get so wrapped up in our own objectless fury that we shoot ourselves off the map.

ross drew pink “tears” down my cheek that won’t scrub off. they’ve faded some but people keep asking me what they are. ben just hugged me again and told me to do something else. i have plenty of history reading; it’s just hard to concentrate. a guy is circling asking for a spare copy of moby dick. only at swat.
life continues tomorrow. slowly and painfully for some, less so for others. yet to be determined how for me, but rest assured, you will be kept informed.

this just in: arafat shocked. makes me think of that famous claude raines scene from casablanca.

so apparently the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who claimed responsibility for the attacks at 10:30, have now backed away from that. their leader has expressed condolences. the above article has details — and it made me want to vomit, especially the part where the woman said she’s looking forward to the next similar action in israel:

“Demonstrators distributed candy in a traditional gesture of celebration. Several Palestinian gunmen shot in the air, while other marchers carried Palestinian flags. Nawal Abdel Fatah, 48, wearing a long, black dress, threw sweets in the air, saying she was happy because “America is the head of the snake, America always stands by Israel in its war against us.”

Her daughter Maysoon, 22, said she hoped the next attack would be launched against Tel Aviv.”

please, please, no.

‘Queen Elizabeth II sent a message of condolence expressing her “disbelief and total shock.”‘ according to this article from cnn.com. doesn’t that make you feel better?

my god.

everyone in europe is expressing condolences. israel is pulling out everyone from their embassies around the world. i wonder if they know something we don’t or if they’re just being safe.

the skyline will look entirely different now. what year did the british burn down the white house? 18-something, right? we rebuilt it. i wonder whether we’ll do the same or whether, out of morbid stubbornness or plain nostalgia, we leave the rubble. or, better, erect a monument?

did nostradamus say anything about this? that’s what i want to know.

my mother called me early this morning while becca and i were listening to the radio. we were still laughing about it b/c it seemed so freakish and unbelievable. i told her to take grandpa and grandma and go to rockville. my dad’s safe in albuquerque. it’s like independence day, becca and i squealed to each other. george II got on the radio to stammer about how this “would not stand.” we rolled our eyes and said, shut UP. that man is a moron.

we brought a walkman to class, for which we were late, and b/w that class and the next someone told me that the towers had actually collapsed. i didn’t believe him at first but another person confirmed it. in my next class, polisci, my prof came in wearing a makeshift black armband, looken shaken and near-epileptic. he said we were free to go (only about 10 of us were there anyway) but if we wanted to stay and talk about it, we could. i lingered a few minutes, then walked out in search of a computer. i ran into alison in kohlberg and the two of us went to LPAC, where someone had hooked up a huge screen and people were scattered throughout the theater. we watched peter jennings ramble on about wars and terrorism while behind him, on the monitor, the twin towers exploded and fell, smoke rose in thick rings around the neighboring buildings, and people scattered, holding shirts over their noses, over and over again on a loop.

eventually we went to lunch. everyone was just as shaken there. who doesn’t have family in either ny or dc? almost all of philly has been closed down as well: the train service into the city, the principal train station in the city. oh, and disney land has just been closed. i guess america’s covering all its bases. as long as the liberty bell and disney land are safe, we’re okay.

how much longer will this go on? will they rebuild the twin towers? will they reopen the airports? i’m sorry, i know i’m just reitering the same questions everyone’s asking. but christ. people are calling this the worst terrorist attack and most serious threat to america since pearl harbor. and then we knew who our enemies were AND had a strong, reassuring president.

i think i’m going to go home and hook up the tv. and call my mom again.

i hope everyone’s safe.

dude, i’m supposed to be reading e-reserves. for those of you unfamiliar w/ the notion, e-reserves are an unnatural phenomenon which occurs when professors decide that legibility makes reading too easy and scan printed material online. the assumption, i gather, is that everything here should be challenging; otherwise we students will tire and transfer to princeton ( target=”new” title=”eating clubs, for god’s sake”>Why?). but having billions of polisci pages to read is worse than knowing you have to read them on a computer screen, on adobe acrobat no less, squinting as you pull down w/ that doofy little hand. yuck.

i was thinking today about how passive-agressive i can be. i say incendiary things to people, hoping they’ll start a fight so that i can then say what i really want to. i could start the fight myself, dammit — why don’t i? haven’t quite figured that part out. besides, the majority of the time, the person whom i’m trying to instigate into instigating a confrontation usually doesn’t get it and my ire shrugs, yawns, and wanders in another direction.

also today, i discovered that the same nite i dreamt liz asked me to come over b/c she was upset and i told her i’d be right over (only naturally i couldn’t be), she actually was upset. talk about psychic links.

dinner tonite was funny and fun. i luv my barnies. and lana, who called, and ben, who called but didn’t leave his cellphone number (not ben-the-bunny; other ben, ben my oldest guyfriend. oh hell, here’s a picture: ) and i luv ben I, the bunny — i took a beyond-words picture of him and it’s now hanging up on my computer in my room. every time i look at it, i smile like a fool. i am a fool.

according to chris’s page, i am most like a handful of webloggers i’ve never heard of. if anyone wants to check them out and get back to me, i’d be interested as always in another opinion. i’ll do it myself too later today when i have more time.