Tuesday was going to be a ridiculously busy day (Brit Lit paper due, hadn’t done it yet), so I had set my alarm for early – 8 am (ok, college-early). When it went off I snoozed (after all, it was college-early). Finally I pushed myself out of bed and wandered off to my laptop, my first stop in the morning routine.
J from Brit Lit class had left a message on my AIM a minute before – “Check the news now.”
I turned on my mini TV on the dresser and flipped until I came across one of those educational channels and found they were doing a review of the book we were supposed to review ourselves for the paper due; nice one J.
I sleepily typed back, “Good one,” to which he replied immediately, “What? Check CNN.”
What. The. Fuck.
And that was it. Life was over, life was starting.
A plane had hit the World Trade Center, and that was weird. My eyes were glued for ten minutes before I saw, in real time, a second plane hit the second tower.
My eyes were glued to the TV for 3 hours after that;
glued eyes,
dead brain,
salty cheeks,
and then – the Anger.
Back then – I was an RA, I had students to take care of, one of whom had a father there. My own father had been in NJ that day for a meeting.
Soon after that – I became a TA for 500 students in a September 11th reactionary class called, War & Terrorism.
Today – I am still Angry.
Whadya got: