After a day of watching CNN, I was sick of it. Today I sat and watched more, the aftermath, the investigations, and tears for the first time came to my eyes. I sat and thought a lot about what I had seen and heard and how I would react to it if I had to make the decisions. I came to no real conclusions.

Enough is enough. I decided that I had to do something with my day. My studies have been shot over the last two days and I figure I’ll just catch up on the weekend. Meanwhile, I need something to lighten the atmosphere and distract me. So we play Monopoly, which is a good distraction, although I did very badly at it, possibly due to the other things on my mind. Later there was a floor meeting where we continued to talk about the attacks and US response, but this just depressed me so I left – I don’t want to discuss this with anyone. Various people had various petitions, I just signed what I was given so as not to cause any arguments – I really am not in the mood right now.

I chose today to rearrange my room, to put the desk on the other side, and Robin helped me move the desk and bed over. This felt good – I felt like I was accomplishing something and I am happy with the new arrangement because everything is much cleaner. We are all coping in our own ways. Len is joining causes – blood drives, petitions, etc. Other people are ignoring the whole thing, some are chatting with friends, some of us played board games or went to Boston. I rearranged my room, but it was not enough. At 2 am I was still up, still upset. So I decided I needed some mind-numbing television.

After some fiddling I was able to get the TiVo working again and was actually able to get the darn thing to dial in, so now I’ll have all my directory info and my shows will be recorded again. I watched an old episode of Farscape that it had recorded before I left. It was just what I needed. Crichton goes into a coma, and to fight for his survivual he is transported into this subconscious state that he tries to control. He makes everything into Looney Tunes cartoons to deal with his problems. It has to be one of the funniest TV shows I’ve seen in a long time. Now it is 3 am and, although I’m not really tired, I figure I have to give it a rest, go to bed, and shut off my monitor to be nice to Len, who I’m sure isn’t in the happiest slumber right now as I type away. Tomorrow I’ll have to wake up, attend classes, go on with life. It sucks, because I’m not ready.

I don’t know anyone who was killed, I don’t have relatives in New York, I am not personally affected by this tragedy, yet I feel it deeply. I’m scared of lots of things: biological and chemical attack, nuclear weapons, the destruction of privacy, of free speech. The takeover of government by corporations. Now add to the list the fear that we will do something wrong, that we will spur still more terrorism, that more innocent people, both in the US and abroad, will die. It is almost too much for one to handle. So with that, I’m off to my fitful slumber. Perhaps tomorrow will bring better tidings. Good night, alas, a thousand times good night.