The Visible Woman...September 17, 2001

Monday

Sept. 17, 2001

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled...

I wake up dreaming of having my parents over and we are all just getting together to feel safe. Dad asks me to get some books off the shelf and to get a cooler or something. I go to a closet for that, but the closet is in their house. "Why don't you just stay here," I say.

I have an 8:30 phone meeting. I don't have any idea what to do about this meeting. I don't want to be at work. But I must. I must. Get on with it. I try to be helpful and accurate and truthful. I have another meeting after lunch.

I have a quick lunch at Schlotzsky's. I have chips with the sandwich and Cherry Coke. Because, after all, why not? SuRu and I sit at a pleasant table in the corner. I overhear conversations. "Pick up terrorists." "Bin Laden." "Americans...."

FFP and I go to the club after work. I ride a bicycle for twenty minutes reading essays. Then I get on one of those things with paddles and handles. I can't figure out who is doing what to whom but it makes me sweat and reports an elevated heart rate. It's hard to read on it. We poke around, checking out the new facilities, not quite finished yet. They've had a locker break-in in the Men's locker room. The women's steam isn't working. (FFP says the men's is working.) Not that I wanted a steam bath really.

I eat some cheese and we have salmon and spinach for dinner. And some Rosemount Shiraz (the best cheap wine going these days).

I try to think up birthday cards for my parents, who will be 85 (Dad, tomorrow) and 80 (Mom, Wednesday). Creativity wanes.

FFP has purchased a pile of magazines with tower tragedy content. The New Yorker has no fiction and no cartoons. More of this to consume. I can't stop myself even though I'm ready to be thinking of something else. My brain isn't operating. This has to do with lots of things.

I watch some TV. There is still lots of coverage. And reminders in the 'regularly scheduled programming' from blantant to subtle that life is a slightly different hue these days.

During a phone conference today, I e-mailed my mother. To confirm a birthday dinner. Never did I think I'd be e-mailing my mother. Later, when I called, I asked, "Did you get my e-mail?"

"Yes," she said, proudly. "I got it."

The Internet held up in this crisis. A loose conjunction of connections. It held up better than we did, actually.

ties for sale

Meta:
Mighty Kymm noted that some people felt their voices on the disaster were unimportant but that each voice was important. (Something like that, I'm paraphrasing badly.) I believe that's true. My sense of the disaster is more through journals than through TV. It better reflects ordinary Americans than the news.

JUST TYPING
Standard of living.
An interesting term.
Just came to mind.
Ours is high.
Compared to the past.
The present. Elsewhere.
Why are we so lucky?

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