Still pretty numb this morning.
I’m going to talk about the basement now, not because I’m an insensitive, uncaring asshole, but because I’m trying to continue on with my life, as I think everybody in this country is beginning to do. I think that it’s important to move on and not give into these morons. And also because I don’t know what else to do.
Last night I put the b/w TV on in the basement and sanded my brains out while listening to the coverage. I got the box under the stairs edged and mudded, the window edged and mudded, and the closet sanded and mudded. Pretty much everything has one coat of mud and is sanded at least once; I’m going to get up in the stairwell and sand that whole thing tonight and try to get it finished- it’s a hateful place to work because it’s hot and sweaty.
12:54 AM – Pretty numb about everything. No new news; just people talking about how to deal with everything. Depressing.
5:19 PM – Contemplating the talk that’s going around today about “measured response” and “retaliatory action”. I’ve been thinking about the draft; about being called in to serve the country and getting put on a ship and being sent to some hot, sandy nation to obliterate some poor scared guy who knows just as much as I do and wants just as badly to go home. Been thinking that World War I was started by one guy with a pistol killing an archduke (whatever that is) and how events spiraled out of control from there. Been praying that our government does something smart, decisive, and quickly. Been thinking that I’m pissed, I want to kick some butt, and that I’d go, but I hope and I pray that the military leadership of this country isn’t as inept, bumbling, and incompetent as I believe it is.
10:44 PM – And, as if to verify all my fears, doubts and uncertainty, I saw some file footage of Dubya talking (no, more like struggling to convey emotion) to the rescue personnel at the Pentagon. Does anybody else see how absolutely wooden and phony this guy is? I’m supposed to rally around this puppethead? He couldn’t even complete a full sentence, let alone rally these tired, exhausted people into helping him. He sounded weak, confused, and incoherent, and it seemed to me that somebody was piping in half-completed sentences for him to mouth through his Secret Service earpiece. I can’t believe he’s the leader of this nation. Clinton was a liar, but at least I believed that he felt some kind of emotion.
I got the email about the candlelight vigil at 7:00 tomorrow; I’m going to definitely bring a few Dietz lamps and fire them up. I also want to find a big American flag and hang that sucker right on the front of my house.
12:44 AM – Just in case you thought I was going to sleep feeling all righteously indignant, I just read a list of writings by some notable people, gathered by a smarter woman than I, who all say what our country’s leadership should have said about 30 years ago: We’re reaping what we’ve sown. We’ve been very, very lucky up until Tuesday, and somebody finally had the cajones enough to pop the comfortable little bubble we’ve been living in these past 400 years. We as a society conveniently forget, or choose to ignore, what our government does in its spare time, out of sight and under the radar: Central America, Southeast Asia, Cuba, blah blah blah. Today I got schooled by a friend’s father for forwarding a pretty jingoistic reply to a pretty jingoistic email (I’ll omit the details) and pretty much learned to shut my big trap. but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m mad at somebody, and I want some retribution. One thing that does work, based on my limited 30-year study of human nature, is that an overwhelming show of force scares the hell out of a lot of people. We’re a different country now. Things have changed. That will be hard to swallow for a lot of people. But it’s time to rattle the big saber and remind some folks that we are still the preeminent power on this planet, we have the will, and we do not like it when you drive planes into our buildings.
None of this is going to bring any of the innocent people from the WTC or the Pentagon or those planes back. And I’m not advocating what happened in the least. I’m just amazed it hadn’t happened earlier. Now I’m going to bed.