thursday.september.13.2001.a little after eleven pm.

today i was entirely detatched from everything. i walked around with a glaze over my eyes - my whole face really - and was just out of it.

i'm trying really hard to avoid the news and talking about this whole thing. i mean, i want to be updated, i should know what's going on, and i care very, very much, but i just want to try to get on with everything else. getting away from it is a virtual impossibility though.

there were snipers on top of the boston public library yesterday. (it's in copley square, apparently at a good angle to the westin hotel, which is where autorities believed suspects or explosives or something else entirely too dangerous to be so close to everything i know to be.) the bpl has this little courtyard with a beautiful fountain that i would go to to read and to find some sense of peace in the middle of the city. i'm not sure i'll ever be able to have that feeling there again.

when i was going home from work today, as i was waiting to cross summer street to get to south station, three motorcycle cops were circling the station, on the sidewalks and everything. once i got inside, there were cops everywhere. i took this as both a good thing and a bad thing. good because there's a sense of protection with that many cops around, albeit a false one...i mean, if a plane came crashing through south station, lots of well trained guys with .45s aren't going to do anything. and bad because obviously, it makes you remember that there's something to be protected from.

i'm supposed to visit columbus, ohio in eight days. my flight leaves from logan airport, of course. i'm thinking that this might be the safest place to fly from by then, if there would be any danger of flying at all by then. i mean, i doubt that whoever is behind this would take the same course of action. honestly, if this isn't the end (personally i think it's just a beginning) i doubt america is the next target. i'm willing to bet somewhere in asia, especially japan, would be.

i'm going to boston common tomorrow night at 7 to light my candle. i'm wearing red, white, and blue (all-inclusive in a tommy hilfiger dress) to work tomorrow. i'm giving blood when i can. my mom put an american flag on our door.

i see victims' and missing persons' family members on tv, and i can't deal. i really have to change the channel or block it out as best i can when i see them talking about their lost loved ones. if i didn't, i'd start bawling and who knows when i'd stop. putting faces to all the names, just seeing all the names, everything, everything...it's all too much to take in.

i would say 'enough about all that, there are other, happier things to talk about', if anything else was actually going through my mind.

today was better, in a sense, than yesterday. hopefully this will be a trend. that's as positive as i can get.