Thoughts on Septemeber 11, 2010

I've tried to avoid this. I really have tried, but I've decided that with respect to those who were killed and injured and their families; it is best to join the national throng and just remember, respect, and reflect.

On September 11, 2001, I was home, in bed, sick. I received a call from my son who was in high school.

"Mom," BB said, "Did you see?"

"See what?" I mumbled, barely awake.

"The Twin Towers have been bombed."

"What?!"

"Turn on the TV."

"OK," I responded and turned on the TV in my bedroom.

Every news station was reporting the up-to-the minute reports of the first airplane strike on the Twin Towers.

"BB," I asked, "Are you OK?"

"Yeah," he whispered.

"You sure?"

"What's going on, Mom?" he asked, "Are we OK?"

"That's in New York, BB. We're here. We're OK. Why are you calling?"

"They said we could call home if we wanted to, so I did. They said if we wanted to go home that we could go."

"Oh. What are you doing at school?"

"They've got the TVs on in all the classrooms. Everywhere you go it's on the TV."

"Do you want to come home?"

"No. Not really."

"OK then. I'm just here in bed. Guess I'll be watching ... HOLY SHIT!"

"WHAT?!"

"A second plane just hit the other tower. Oh my God, BB. LIVE. I just saw it LIVE. Damn. OK. Listen. We're fine. If the TV gets to be too much or you want to come home, call me. I'll pick you up. We're fine, BB. This is taking place on the East Coast. Let me know if you want to walk home or want to be picked up when school's done, OK?"

"OK. I'm going to get back to class. Mom?"

"Yeah."

"I love you."

"Love you, too, Sweetie."

We hung up and for the rest of the day, I watched the coverage from my bed still sick. I thought about my daughter out in California and wondered how she was doing. I called her house and left a message. I ate some Chicken Soup. I slept and woke up to more reports. I talked to my girlfriend, and we discussed the school's decision to have the TV on all day in all classrooms. We weren't too happy with that decision. I couldn't get the image of the second plane hitting the second tower simply because I was standing less than a foot away from the screen when I saw it. Guess I'll never forget it.

That was my 911.

In the coming days everyone was nicer. American flags flew from houses, cars, trucks, fire trucks, and were just about everywhere a person looked. People were nicer, more courteous, more appreciative. The country pulled together. Neighbors that I hadn't talked to in years said hello to me. It seemed like for a moment in time everyone forgot about their petty differences and became the best humans that they could be. I knew it wouldn't last and started to time it. How long til everything reverts back to the way it was before or gets worse.

It didn't take long for reports of Muslims being attacked by their "Fellow Americans." It didn't take long at all.

One of my favorite people in the world was attacked after the September 11, 2001 attacks. She was walking down the street in her California town with her four children. Some people started throwing rocks at her and her family. Three of them ended up in the Emergency Room as a result.

My daughter called me back from California and gave me a full report on the weirdness of the events out there and how open the freeways were. Nobody was really supposed to be out on the roads, as I recall; but being true to her youthful, adventurous self, my daughter found a friend, and they drove from Pasadena to Venice Beach just to see. She reported seeing sights in-person that I saw on TV. She seemed fine. She was a bit nervous, but she was fine.

BB and I went about our lives. We just went about our lives and talked about stuff. We were shaken, but OK.

I got together with my best friend, and as we talked we came up with one of the funniest and most irreverent movies ideas that I've ever had the pleasure of being a part of, "If Blonds Ruled the World." It was prompted by a story about her sister, who was in the Navy and blond. We knew we were coping with stuff in our way and figured we were headed straight to Hell for our thoughts, but it was just too funny to us. Basically, I was the President of the United States, and she was "Second-In-Command" because she hated the term, "Vice President." We made her sister the Secretary of Defense. Everyone in our Cabinet had to be blond. The more ideas we came up with the more we built a completely absurd, fictional world where we were the anti-hero heroines. It was a misfit world where everything is NOT PC and goes hilariously wrong culminating in my "Second-IN-Command" taking control of the country by threatening to let go of my wheelchair in one of the Twin Towers stairwells during the evacuation during the September 11, 2001 attack because, let's face it, I, the President, was a total Fuck-Up. Having revealed this much of our irreverence ... and because you had to be there and be us to really appreciate the humor, I'll leave out all the other irreverent things we plotted, what specific costumes were and who we cast in what roles. We laughed until we cried. We got it all out, I think. (It might help if you're an Emergency Room medical professional or have a healthy gallows humor to really understand how such thoughts can come to some people)

The other thing that I remember about that time is that my downstairs neighbor's birthday was on September 14th, and she had a party that she said she felt guilty about having. I encouraged her to have a good time and not be guilty. I'll never forget her birthday, either.

A blog that I follow suggested looking up the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks and picking one to remember today and every year. I just did that. Sonia Ortiz was a janitor and elevator operator. The link below beautifully tells her story. You can also access other stories of victims on this site.

http://wuzzadem.typepad.com/wuz/2006/09/2996_i_remember.html

So now, my only request is that somehow we could get back to being nicerrrrrrrrr. Not everything has to be blow up, you know.