this is depressing, i dont know why i am writing this...

so...for some reason i completely forgot that song 'tearjerker' by rhcp existed....i dont know how i forgot about it...i used to listen to it on loop. its just one of those songs you can listen to over and over and it never gets annoying - its completely sad, of course, but sort of soothing. anyway...it brrings me back to high school-era ish...
not that i particularly -

ok, sorry - literary detour. im watching this documentary on the second plane hitting the tower and they keep showing this footage over and over...all those different angles with all those newscasters gasping. all those futile 'oh my gods' and all of that dawning realization that the first plane was the introduction to some sick orchestration....six years now. that footage still takes my breath away...that weird tilt of that plane full of lives and those people on phones to their families. they are talking to this old man...undoubtedly a world war II vet. part of that stoic 'greatest generation' that tom brokaw talks about...

his son was on the plane, talking to him on the phone...saying 'dont worry dad, when it happens it will be quick'...and repeating that is the only time that the old father gets choked up and its sadder than any sobbing hysteria could be...i wonder how many times that man has let himself cry. then he talks about watching the tv while on the phone and hearing his son say 'oh my god oh my god' and hearing a woman scream and then nothing, just as the crash happens in all of its surreal vividness on tv. he watched his son die.

3000 miles away i was sitting in the spot i am now watching too...my mom had woken me up to watch the weirdness of the first building burning...we were all so stupid....we were all (newscasters included....charlie gibson, katie couric, diane sawyer, matt lauer) all of us like hmm wonder if its a cessna....hmm wonder how it managed to make that mistake...hm, hm hm.

there was a helicopter hovering nearby and then this explosion that either from the angle or the speed of it did not register necessarily as a plane crash. and people on the today show are going whoa, whoa whoa was that a plane? and matt is like no no its just a helicopter flying around it...see there it is...and everyones like no, the explosion that was a plane.

meanwhile im sitting here on the floor going that was a fucking, fucking plane holy fucking shit - cause none of us had seen the footage yet of the first one and i cant even think of a movie actually where ive seen a plane fly into a building like that. and of course now my mom is in the shower, my dad is making coffee and i start hollering...

i dont holler...i dont think ive ever hollered before....but i hollered with that constriction i seem to get in my throat when something bad happens....im not even sure what i said besides mom dad look at the fucking tv, holy shit....i dont think i could even say what happened.

but even then, horrified as i was, i wasnt scared til the pentagon crash....i guess because that was in an entirely different place and it was like...um, ok where next. i remember them grounding the planes and helicopters ALL over the country and none of us were comfortable even a few days later when helicopters were allowed to fly again.

somehow we relocated to the breakfast room, i dont remember if i had gotten dressed for school yet or anything like that....i cant imagine ripping myself from the tv, but there was some gap of time...i just remember sitting with my mom and dad...i dont know where my brother or sister were. and saying 'does the building look crooked to you?' at basically the exact same moment matt lauer is like 'uh the tower seems to be listing'...

that was i think one of the more amazing things about that day....every single viewer was peicing everything together at the same time and every realization was occuring simultaneously for an entire country....its actually remarkable, isnt it? millions of people thinking the same thing at the same time...it must create some sort of psychic energy...how could it not?

anyway, withing moments of us all saying that, our brows furrowed, heads tilted trying to appraise the strangeness of the building...i dont think we were sure it was listing...i think we were still debating it in our heads....and then it just. went. and everyone cried out.

that was the worst moment of the day....watching that building rush to the ground and that thick cloud of debris taking over what seemed to be the whole city...that was the worst, because it had already been so horrifying but now this was thousands of people instead of hundreds.

anyway, that was when i fiiiiiiinally started to cry. not a lot....but it took all that time before my brain understood it enough to know i had to cry about it. my mom was right there with me, my dad too.

so yes we all screamed. and we knew there was no way the other one would stay up...at least i think we knew, but who knows....

i cant stress it enough...it was all these slow dawning realizations....no instant thoughts. it was like we were trying to compute in a thick, muddy, haze of brain function....it was slow. and it was one thing after another...as soon as we were starting to process the last thing we witnessed, the next wave would happen. it was relentless.

for some reason i went to school, as did my sister. it was ridiculous....none of us, teachers included, were going to do ANYTHING but sit glued to the television. being a catholic school we did take time out to have an assembly/prayer service. some people cried, mostly though the room felt numb. i know i was. i remember just showing up to school was so weird....like, you didnt even really say hi to your friends you just sorta....meandered on up to them and stood their together silent. i mean really what do you say 'hi, how are you? fucking awful, you? about the same...hey did you do that english homework last night?' you almost couldnt even look people in the eye....it was so so weird. but it wasnt like we were taking comfort in each other or anything like that either....we didnt run up to one another and hug....well actually i think some people did.

but i happened to be friends with people who, much like myself, feel awkward about that kind of thing so we just all kinda stood there lamely.

anyway, at the assembly our formerly always composed principal could barely get through his speech to us and then sort of diverged, talking about how his generation had failed us kids and he was so sorry and now it was up to us.

something like that...anyway, it was disturbing to watch his face crumble and hear his voice crack.

then we were all in class together when the news broke about the plane in pennsylvania...and then there was the false report of another plane. and of course all the big cities are like FUCK we are sooooo screwed...the most RETARDED thoughts went through my head as i tried to peice together where they might crash a plane in LA....the hollywood sign? no. a movie studio? ehh.....disneyland! of course! the happiest place on fucking earth! thats the one thats the next target...ive peiced together the pattern and cracked the code!

eventually i realized how deluded my thinking was but at the time that seemed to make the most sense to me. cause i's smart.

anyway:

pretty soon there after i was like fuck this im going home and i collected my sister, called my dad from the payphone and he came and got us.

by now people are surrounding the area, holding up pictures of people they havent accepted that they will never ever see again. news reporters are going through the crowds, getting descriptions from people...and all the hospitals were ready, waiting for victims...

i think we somehow thought it would be like oklahoma...a lot of people would die but there would also be a lot of survivors and over course they are going to need a lot of blood which we were prepared to give (except my dad....he had been in england the year before for too long and so he couldnt donate blood in case of mad fucking cow disease of all things).

the creepiest thing was when they finally said please DONT donate blood....we dont need it, there arent any people.

a few days later, my grandfather died and we flew back east to new jersey...the airport was a disaster of course and they confiscated my moms $35 tweezers which i had put in a carry on bag. i think my mother almost strangled me....and she told the airport lady who took them not to throw them away, to take them home with her. random.

at any rate, as we landed we looked over the gaping wound that was once the world trade center....there was still a cloud of debris hovering...we went on a walk around our hotel and at all the parks there were soggy pictures of people who didnt exist anymore, and flowers and candles. some of the posters still wondered 'have you seen me', while others said 'missing'.

this was the backdrop to my grandfathers death. it was the strangest time.

on that walk i remember reaching up to a tree branch and pulling off a leaf. i regretted it instantly.