a long-ass time

it's good to be back, albeit temporarily. the local cable internets monopoly has me by the short and curlies and i'll be sans connecion until next monday. well, free internet is what i'm paying school for, i suppose. that, and the privilege of getting gouged for textbooks. what a racket.

today is september 11, which means two things to me. first, happy 30th anniversary mom and dad! second, it's been five years since that day, and i'm sure everybody in america is dreading the onslaught of evocation that anniversaries ending in '5' seem to bring about. what's so damn special about half a decade? are thoughts of the world trade center and the pentagon more poignant in 2006 than they were in 2005? highly dubious. no, the cynic in me says that five years is just long enough to pretend we won't reduce the earth-shattering events of that day to petty attempts at making money. sorry united 93, world trade center, and the flight that fought back, you guys almost made it. instead you could only wait four and a half years. that's just crass.

over the summer, i took a tour of the pentagon and the highlight, by far--not counting the ground zero hot dog stand*--was their memorial for 9/11. built into the section that was actually hit by flight 77, it houses a memorial with inscriptions of the names of everybody killed in the impact, including the names of the terrorists. that fact jarred me when i first heard it, and not only because it seemed out of character for a bush-led administration. it jarred me because i found humanization when i expected villification. i say this not as an excuse for the actions of the terrorists, but as a reminder of the fact that they are human and shouldn't be demonized. it's too easy to say they're just fucking evil and leave it at that. and while i find jihadic eradication of the west to be goddamned terrifying, i think that righteous eradication of the east is just as hideously stupid of an idea.

i went back and read the blog entry i wrote for september 13th, 2001. (i had a blog back then, and it was just as much of a self-indulgent screed as this one is. some things never change) besides the obnoxious $.25 vocab words--"zeitgeist"!--and tragicomic poetry--"gaping whole"--i think i made a good point about community. i've never really felt like a part of community simply because of where i live, and i think that's a distinctly american feeling. instead, the times i've felt most like a member of a community is when i'm with my friends--a community i helped to bring together and in which i play an important part. i don't know if that kind of feeling is possible in wider american society. the ability to cross social barriers like class, race, and ideology--which should have been stronger after 9/11!--seems to have left us completely. on the other hand, maybe i just isolate myself with semi-rich white urbanites possessed of an ironical worldview because i'm a big sissy mary on the inside. in any case, here's my old post, if you're interested.

i'll talk about school, west elm, moving, the wedding, and maybe football, politics, and how much i hate marmaduke in a little bit.