Oh, Gods.

Okay, I am a fluffy bunny. It's supposed to be good here, we're supposed to be safe.

For those who haven't heard the news yet, at about six o'clock (they didn't say what time zone!), two planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center, and one of the towers (the south tower) has since collapsed (the north tower is burning). A plane crashed into the Pentagon.

FAA has stopped air traffic across the nation. Two of the planes were hijacked.

There was an explosion at the capital (location unknown), and a car bomb has exploded outside the state department.

Federal/government buildings are being evacuated, or perhaps have been.

Okay, I don't always agree with our government, and I think Bush should never have been put in. But this is way, way too much.

I know. I know I've just gotten complacent, but this is not supposed to happen here.

I don't have a TV. I regret this, because the net-news is down (probably slammed by requests!), which leaves me with radio.

And I don't regret it at all, because I don't want to see this.

Still morning.

Why does this morning seem so still? There are people, driving. I've come to work, and there are people here. I stopped to buy gas, and the gas station attendant told me I could have a free snack because it was customer appreciation day, and she smiled and told me to have a nice day when I left. (Without my snack. Going in to find out what it was seemed like too much effort for my mood.)

The office is silent, as it usually is, with just the radio.

They've closed the federal buildings in Portland, as well as the aiport flights being cancelled. One of my coworkers flew into Portland this morning! He landed an hour or two after the incidents...oh, how scary.

Most of the schools here are open to provide support to the children. Normally they don't announce openings, but they are today.

I want to remember every bit of this day, and I want to forget it all. Forgetting things being easier than remembering, I'm going to keep notes on things.

After I left the gas station, on the way in, I sang America the Beautiful, and the Star-Spangled Banner. I mangled it as I always mangle such things. And I didn't cry, because I was driving.

I know I don't talk about it very often. I'm not the most vocally patriotic person you'll meet, and I get caught up in my day-to-day life and focus on that. But I am an American, and however I judge the people who serve us from time to time, this country gives me freedom and ability to live as I do; this country is my home.

They wanted fear, I'm sure. They wanted to strike at our sense of safety. To stir us. To anger and scare us. This could be you, next time.

Whoever you are: These are people, not tokens, and I mourn for them and their families. You've scared me. You've angered me. You've stirred up a busy little hive of anger and fear. You've woken us up.

I hate you. But what you have done, so far, is to warn us and to wake us up. You have barely scratched the population of the country, and barely scratched the physical infrastructure. Though you may have screwed our civilian transportation for a while, yes.

Please, don't let them manage more than that. We need to find these people, we need to deal with this.

This is so scary.

Nonononono.

I'm still in shock. I'm still scared. And my boss wants me to get a plane ticket for next week (Tuesday or Wednesday) and go to a client site in California. It's not that far.

It's a two-hour flight. I don't know that I can. I don't see why the trip is necessary, so I told him how I felt and asked if the trip itself was really necessary.

What we can do.

What can you do when something like this happens? Nothing? Help the search if you're there?

Try to stay rational (skip calm: I won't ask people to lock down their emotions when I cannot mine - but rational actions are a good goal).

Donate blood. It's going to be badly needed.

I need to look into that.

Blood donation.

Okay, it's still useful, but the Red Cross is apparently getting swamped. :) Maybe I'll ty to donate later this week, instead of today - give them a day or two to muster their resources (bags, coolers).

Hate.

No. No.

I don't have any problem understand or accepting people who say they hate the people who did this. I'm not sure hanging onto that hate, if they do, is a good idea.

But please don't hate the people you think might have done this, and all the people like them.

Hating people because of something a small group has done is probably exactly what led to planes flying into the World Trade Center.

I could hate the people who did this. But not the Palestinians, not the Arabs, etc. Whatever they are guilty of (even if it is celebrating the fact that reality has come to knock in the USA), it is not (for most of them) participation in the murder of thousands of civilians.

And frankly, I don't hate them, at this moment. It takes too much energy to hate someone, and it doesn't help much. I'm angry at them (a faceless "them" since I have no sure knowledge of who it is), yes. I'm even furious. And I'm definitely scared.

I refuse to bother with the mono-focus of hate. I hope that they find the people who did this, and I hope that they kill them. That's not hate; it's not going to occupy my thoughts constantly once the immediacy of this dies down.

But I don't want to leave the people who would do this, to do it again. (And I speak, here, of the organizers: obviously the people who actually did it must have died along with the others on those flights.)

We are not without heroes.

This is a public thank you to the emergency personnel in New York and Washington DC, and in all our cities. Today is a horrific, huge example of what they risk facing for our sakes.

They're estimating 200 firefighters and 75 or so police officers died. So far.

They did their jobs: they ran in to help people out. They ran in to evaluate adjacent buildings, to control and help, to evacuate people.

They ran in. And it collapsed.

You can't tell me they didn't know, going in, that that could happen. They may or may not have expected it but they must have seen it. And they stayed, and they kept trying.

In smaller scale, they risk this every day. This is just...the worst example of all they can be asked to do.

Thank you, to everyone who does this. And thank you, also, to the many people who don't do this every day but who, put on the spot, do it during a crisis. I remember a news piece about a maintenance worker who ran back in to retrieve a handicapped man who was stuck.

Thank you. For risking your life, and your health, and your ability to sleep at night.

Thank you, to everyone who cares, to everyone who helps, who reaches out.

I can't decide if this is the triumph or the tragedy of humanity, that we will die for each other, even for strangers.

I think it is both.

How?

I don't know how long this link will be good. I posted it in a comment elsewhere, in response to the question of why/how the towers collapsed, with the location of the impact. Here's the analysis I found (was directed to, by whom I no longer recall), for however long the link works:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/11/collapse_background/index.html