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This Morning
Tuesday, 11 September 2001 at 12:50PM
This morning, my mom woke me up around 9:40. CNN was already on, full blast... Weirdisms:
While Keyur and I were driving back from the city to Edison, we saw the Twin Towers and talked about the '93 bombing.
My dad's company used to have its US headquarters in the World Trade Center until 1993. When post-attack security measures got too annoying and too expensive, they moved to Jersey City.
My United flight on Saturday the 15th, UA 73 (not 93), is also a nonstop from Newark to San Francisco that leaves around the same time in the morning.
My mom is insisting that we're going to buy a new car this afternoon and drive cross-country starting tomorrow. I'm fairly certain she's joking.
Just as these events were unfolding, Welton and I headed to JP. We came in via a side door; a good number of teachers were talking quietly to each other just outside the faculty room. A lot of administrators were roaming, spreading the word that kids could be excused to phone home, listen to the news, et cetera.
We were planning to crash Euro, and had stopped to talk to DiPalo and Miller on the way, when a very nice man named Riccio walked by and ordered us out—not very nicely. I was really tempted to respond, "Yes, sir! Have a wonderful day!" in very chipper tones, but the inspiration hit me a few milliseconds too late.
Not wanting to go home, we drove to the Menlo Park Diner with the radio on. Everyone there was muted, listening to the speakers which for once broadcast news instead of '50's rock and roll.
It's funny how, in situations like this, the anal journalist side of me kicks in and I observe logistics rather than content. When I first signed online around 9:45 to check the news ticker, AIM had just posted a report rife with grammar and spelling mistakes. It's since been replaced by long, detailed articles courtesy of the Associated Press. The usually smooth packaging of the CNN programming had crumbled: anchor and correspondents were interrupting each other, each with more dire news; shots switched without warning from wide-angle statics of the Twin Towers to helicopters over the Pentagon to dizzying, bouncing, intimate shots from crews at the scene; at times, the anchor, spewing out stuff to fill in the silence, would be fumbling for three or four seconds, straight—three or four eternities in the communications business.
I'm thankful that my dad's office is now across the Hudson River. I'm thankful that everyone else I've heard of or talked to is doing well. But at the same time, that just means that someone else's father/ husband/ brother/ mother/ wife/ sister/ friend was in their place.
It's all so surreal. The pandemonium is only 30 miles away, but Edison seems so serene, so sheltered. Barring a few more fire trucks and police cars on the road than I'd usually expect, there's nothing that indicates the national crisis that we're currently in.
I guess I ought to go give blood sometime today. The other part of me just wants to turn off the radio and TV and computer, and go play Ultimate in a park as if I were totally oblivious to the whole thing.
Just as these events were unfolding, Welton and I headed to JP. We came in via a side door; a good number of teachers were talking quietly to each other just outside the faculty room. A lot of administrators were roaming, spreading the word that kids could be excused to phone home, listen to the news, et cetera.
We were planning to crash Euro, and had stopped to talk to DiPalo and Miller on the way, when a very nice man named Riccio walked by and ordered us out—not very nicely. I was really tempted to respond, "Yes, sir! Have a wonderful day!" in very chipper tones, but the inspiration hit me a few milliseconds too late.
Not wanting to go home, we drove to the Menlo Park Diner with the radio on. Everyone there was muted, listening to the speakers which for once broadcast news instead of '50's rock and roll.
It's funny how, in situations like this, the anal journalist side of me kicks in and I observe logistics rather than content. When I first signed online around 9:45 to check the news ticker, AIM had just posted a report rife with grammar and spelling mistakes. It's since been replaced by long, detailed articles courtesy of the Associated Press. The usually smooth packaging of the CNN programming had crumbled: anchor and correspondents were interrupting each other, each with more dire news; shots switched without warning from wide-angle statics of the Twin Towers to helicopters over the Pentagon to dizzying, bouncing, intimate shots from crews at the scene; at times, the anchor, spewing out stuff to fill in the silence, would be fumbling for three or four seconds, straight—three or four eternities in the communications business.
I'm thankful that my dad's office is now across the Hudson River. I'm thankful that everyone else I've heard of or talked to is doing well. But at the same time, that just means that someone else's father/ husband/ brother/ mother/ wife/ sister/ friend was in their place.
It's all so surreal. The pandemonium is only 30 miles away, but Edison seems so serene, so sheltered. Barring a few more fire trucks and police cars on the road than I'd usually expect, there's nothing that indicates the national crisis that we're currently in.
I guess I ought to go give blood sometime today. The other part of me just wants to turn off the radio and TV and computer, and go play Ultimate in a park as if I were totally oblivious to the whole thing.
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