(i wrote this the day after 9/11/2001, in the wake of the attacks on my new hometown, lower manhattan, since the best way to communicate in those few days seemed to be email, instant messaging, and this new thing, "the blog". It was originally posted on my homepage at ryan.net, since a lot of people i know from way back know to look there to find my current email address/employer/pgp-key/etc. ... since i've started semi-periodically keeping a real blog, and because it's about time i take it off my homepage, i've moved it into a one-year-backdated blog entry.)
hey... i'm ok, and so are all the people i know personally... i used to work in the WTC, but that was over three years ago, and i haven't maintained contact with the people i worked with there... they were on the 34th floor, so i hope they had time to evacuate.
new york is shut down below 14th street (i live on st. marks, or 8th street), so outside my house the streets are empty, except for foot-traffic and the occasional police/fire/ambulance. The wind shifted this morning, so where yesterday there was just a huge column of smoke to the south, now the air smells burnt now, as well.
work (and all baseball games -- i work for major league baseball) was cancelled today... i'll probably go into the office tomorrow, although stuff's cancelled tomorrow, too.
everyone seems to want to be able to do something about "it"... so many have gone to donate blood that they're turning people away... i'll go later in the week. there isn't really anything volunteers can do... either you were killed, or you escaped... not many people were displaced, (non-residential area), so non-professional volunteers don't have much to do... (except support and feed the rescue-workers, which was almost automatic in a city with this many businesses to support them.)
A lot of people seem restless, since we've had nothing to do but watch CNN for the last two days, and get depressed or angry.
Not unlike cajun funerals, where they play dixieland jazz and dance, i want to go out and act normal, and be around people. Yesterday, lots of New Yorkers went to bars to be with their friends and to watch tv's, and frankly, to get drunk. The vibe around me now is that people want to show the world that we're not afraid, and we're not going to let terror change the way we live. I want to go see a movie. Or bowl.
When the yankees play again, i'll be in the stadium, with the rest of new york, cheering Roger Clemens, and daring whoever's out there to come get me.