Just a Geek

The World Has Turned

WE WERE IN LAS VEGAS from September 4th until September 10th. The day after we came home, the joy I’d felt just 24 hours before was replaced by shock, horror, and confusion.

13 SEPTEMBER, 2001

He didn’t know what to do. But he’d think of something.

I wasn’t going to talk about this, because it’s all anyone is talking about. I mean, I turn on TLC to get away from it and they’re just running a feed of FOX News. Same for Discovery. Even ESPN has a ticker with updates scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

So since I can’t get away from it, I give in. I will write about it. Because I am scared. I am distraught. I am upset. I am depressed. I am angry. Mostly, I don’t know what to do and I’m not quite sure how to feel. It reminds me of when my friend hanged himself. How helpless I felt, how angry, sad, and scared.

My wife woke me up Tuesday, much earlier than we normally get up, because my mom had called and told her about the attack on the WTC. So I sat up, turned on the TV and watched in horror as that plane crashed into the tower, over and over and over and over.

I felt like I was watching a bad Steven Segal movie. I mean, this just doesn’t happen in real life, right?

But here’s the deal: I can’t cry. I really want to. I feel it well up in my chest, but the tears won’t come. And that is the hardest thing, so far. That and the fear.

I was walking Ferris last night and I kept getting this completely irrational fear that something awful was going to happen while I was away from the house. Didn’t help that she kept stopping and looking behind us, like there was something there.

Here I find myself, at an uncommon loss for words. I don’t think I really have much to add, so that’s it for tonight.

Hrm. Worst. Entry. Ever.

Like much of the world, I spent the rest of September in a daze. I’ve never been a big fan of flying, and my thoughts often drifted to the passengers on those planes. I wondered what they did, how they felt, when they knew they were going to die. I had grown accustomed to feeling depressed about Hollywood, but 9/11 made my frustrations about work feel petty, and proving to everyone that quitting Star Trek wasn’t a mistake seemed pretty goddamned unimportant.