Two weekends ago was my birthday. My parents came to visit, and we went out to dinner at the Columbia Restaurant with Mike’s family. I had never been there before, and I really liked it. I can’t decide if the food was really as delicious as it seemed, or if the cool atmosphere made it seem that way. Either way, I had a good time and I got to eat churros dipped in guava jelly as my birthday dessert, which was the highlight for sure.

The next day, my friend Jessica and I had a joint birthday party. Everyone went canoeing on the river first, and then we had a cookout in the park near my house. It was a really good day. A perfect birthday. My parents even got me a canoe as a birthday present, which was a total surprise and something I will definitely put to good use! Thanks, guys!

Today, I leave for Israel! I am up early this morning, getting some last minute things together. When I come home, I’ll share lots of pictures on here, but until then I leave you with my favorite song about traveling with the one you love. I have often listened to this song and hoped that one day Mike and I could go on a big trip together, and now we finally get to do it. I will see you all in a couple weeks!

This website is just one item on the extremely long list of things I have totally neglected lately. Working six days a week has forced me to re-prioritize, and I have had no choice but to abandon all frivolous pursuits, including housekeeping, car maintenance, baking, most socializing, and of course, blog posting. Really, the only things I do outside of work these days are sleeping, eating dinner with Mike, going running some times, going to church, grocery shopping, and laundry. I suppose that means that these are my true priorities in life. I am getting by all right with my abbreviated lifestyle, and I have come to think of a two day weekend as some kind of long, luxurious vacation that only the extremely wealthy and lucky can enjoy. It only hurts my feelings slightly when I realize that everyone else is actually at home doing whatever they want on Saturdays. I try not to think about it. I really do love my job, and I am lucky to have it.

I do have Sundays free, and I have been doing some good things with my Sundays. I also took a Saturday off not too long ago to visit my family in Ft. Lauderdale, as a final send-off for Greg before he moved up to Brooklyn. While I was there, we went to a Panthers game, which is one of my all-time favorite activities.

I sure wish I could have been at the Panthers game on Sunday night! They are in the playoffs for the first time in over a decade, and if they win tomorrow night’s game, they eliminate the Devils and go on to the next level! It is very exciting! I went home for the day this past weekend and watched the game with my parents, and it was awesome!

I also took a couple hours off at the end of the day one Saturday so that I could go to a wedding. I don’t even know the couple getting married (Mike does, of course), but it was fun. I got to dress up in an outfit that has never been spit up on! I got to hang out with friends! I got to drink alcoholic beverages on the beach! It was very relaxing.

They also had the best wedding cake I have ever experienced, because it was made out of Rice Krispy treats. I hate the light, frosted, birthday-and-wedding type of cake, so dessert at weddings is always a disappointment. Until this one! Nice work, people I don’t know. Thank you for letting me come to your wedding and eat a disproportionately large amount of your Rice Krispy Treats cake.

The wedding was down in Treasure Island, which is about an hour away from us, so we all stayed in a hotel room on the beach afterwards. There were only two beds for about ten people, so obviously we were all forced, against our will, to drink heavily in order to make the accommodations more comfortable. Here is the scene from the next morning:

And you know, since my last post, these are the only really notable things i have done. But exciting things are coming up! My birthday is fast approaching, and I am looking forward to that- and after that, I start working every other Saturday instead of every Saturday, so I will become part of the leisured class of two-day-weekend folks, for at least half the time, in just a few weeks! AND BEST OF ALL: I am going to Israel with Mike’s family in the end of May! I am SO EXCITED.

Okay, well, this is the longest amount of time I have spent sitting at the computer in weeks and weeks, so I must get ready for work now. But don’t abandon me as I have abandoned you, dear readers… hopefully more updates will come soon, as more interesting things happen!

When Mike and I first looked at the house that was to become our house, one of my favorite things about it was the front porch. It is more like a finished room, but the wall facing the street is all screen, and beyond that is a small garden with a brick wall around it. It also has a hot tub that the previous owner left behind, because it is broken and, possibly, because there doesn’t appear to be any way to get it out of there. I am not a big hot tub fan, though, so that didn’t excite me. I envisioned it as being our outdoor living room, so that we would never have to sit inside on a nice day. Even to veg on the couch, we could still be outside!

In practice, though, the room turned out to be a lot more like junk storage.

We also realized that our pretty garden was actually just a huge dumpsterlike depository for leaves, which then became dirt, which filled up over time until even a small rainstorm would cause the whole thing to flood. The only way to fix it would be to dig the level of the entire garden area down a few feet, which would be an enormous job, and then continue to dig leaves out of it on a regular basis for the rest of our lives.

And the whole thing was just nasty–there was indoor carpet laid on the ground, which of course became rotten and disgusting. The screens needed to be replaced, and the paint was peeling off the walls. Our house was a fixer upper anyway, and bonus front porch was definitely not high on the long list of fix-up priorities. So, for our first year here, no one ever went out there, except for one time we let the dogs play there and bust out the old screens. (And Kelly hula hooped.)

But as this winter approached, I started to wish I had that wonderful outside living room that had so enticed me when I saw the house the first time. And also, Greg was leaving Boston.

Greg, as you may know, had lived in Boston for five years and had decided it was time to move on. He planned to take a long time to travel around on his way to Florida around Christmastime. He has done a lot of building and handyman type work in his life, and I thought that perhaps he would want to come do some work on our house. That would help him have some income while he was on the road, and it might give him the incentive to stay in Tampa for a while longer than he would have originally planned. You see, Greg has a nomadic life to lead (as I myself would, had I not been enticed to settle down by a certain man you might know), but I hope that when he reaches the end of that road, he will decide to live in Tampa or wherever I am settled at the time. We have always been good friends, and I miss him.

So anyway, I offered the job to Greg, and he accepted. Hooray!

First he came to stay for just a week or two, and he fixed up our super ugly spare bathroom, another thing that was low on our initial repair list.

(Don’t worry. The purple will make more sense in there with the yellow and green when I get finished decorating.)

Then he left to do some more traveling and working, and returned to Florida in time to go on the canoe trip. He was here until last week, and I say with sincerity that life can surely not get much better than it was during those weeks. A lot of things are going well for me right now, but having Greg here was just really, really awesome. I am sad that he’s gone, and I hope it isn’t too long before his travels bring him back again.

And anyway, he fixed the porch.

It looks fantastic! The hot tub still doesn’t work, but someday it might (and, I predict, we will use it exactly two times and then not use it again, ever, because seriously who is going to sit in a hot tub?), and it makes a good plant stand anyway. And yeah, we will have to shovel leaves out of that dang garden for the rest of our lives, but Greg dug a ton of dirt out of there, and now it doesn’t flood when it rains anymore! Mike also got me some new plants for Valentine’s Day, and maybe we can fill the whole thing up and make it a spectacular jungle of some kind!

It is a good place to grill. A good place to eat food outside. A good place to sit and talk or play darts or hang out.

Thank you, Greg! I love it!

We are having some issues with the floor paint bubbling up, but it is the fault of the shoddy paint we bought and we will get that sorted out eventually. Either way, it is awesome out there! It is the room I dreamed of all along! Hooray! And it is nice to have something Greg made, instead of something we hired some stranger to do. Even if it would have come out looking the same either way, it has much more personality now.

So hey, come on over to our house some time and hang out on our sweet new porch!

Well, faithful readers, my blog is back after a while of technical difficulties. And it’s also 2012. I rang in the new year on the Hillsborough River with some good friends, watching the city downtown fireworks display.

My friend Jessica recently started working for the health department, helping tuberculosis patients. T.B. (or consumption, as it was called, due to the weight loss and physical wasting away that sufferers experienced) is a common theme in old blues songs, so I told her I’d make her a T.B. mix cd. Here are the tracks I put on the cd, with a little backstory, too. You can (hopefully!) click on the links below to hear the songs.

Tuberculosis has been around for centuries, and was so common that in the 19th century it was the leading disease-based cause of death in the United States. You are probably familiar with lots of famous people from the 19th century (and some from the early 20th century, too) who either had the disease at some point in their lives or–mostly–who died from it. Wikipedia tells me that the list includes at least two of the Bronte sisters, Charles Bukowski, Camus, Stephen Crane, Dashiell Hammett, Washington Irving, Kafka, Keats, George Orwell, Thoreau, Thomas Wolfe, Vivien Leigh, Frederic Chopin, Stephen Foster, Igor Stravinsky, Eleanor Roosevelt, Alexander Graham Bell, Florence Nightingale, John C. Calhoun, James Monroe, and Ringo Starr.

Before germs were discovered and understood to be the way diseases were spread, people thought that consumption was something that ocurred spontaneously in people with weak constitutions, or that was inherited from one’s parents. Some have speculated that the idea of vampires was inspired by people with TB, as they were often pale and coughing up blood. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that for a time in the 19th century, it was considered fashionable to try and look like you had TB by trying to make the skin very pale and appearing generally weak and sickly. Many wealthy people, and many famous people (including the many writers and musicians listed above) had the disease, so it became sort of chic, and women especially valued the idea that the disease might indicate to others how naturally delicate and feminine they were. Of course, the disease affected people from all walks of life, so it was never realistic to think of it as a disease of the wealthy–and it was also incorrect to think of it as a disease of poor black women, as would become the case in the decades between the Civil War and World War II. But if the Tea Party movement has taught us anything, it is that the things people think do not necessarily need to have any connection with reality, as long as they have a connection with the feelings a group of people have.

In the late 1800s, germs began to be understood–in large part by studying diseases like TB. Though it took time for the concept of germs to be accepted by the general public, eventually people came to understand that their own habits of cleanliness, as well as their exposure to other people, was the cause of these diseases. This was frightening for people, especially because at this time, more and more people were moving to cities, and thus were exposed to crowds of possibly-infected strangers more and more often.

This also coincided with another event: the emancipation of slaves. Former slaves moved in large numbers to urban areas, and women especially took on jobs as domestic servants, working for white families. Black women already had the cultural stigma of being “jezebels” who were to blame for seducing men and passing along venereal diseases, so it was not a big leap to begin thinking that they–newly released into the world and assumed by many white Southerners to be incapable of basic tasks like personal hygiene without white supervision–were the cause of tuberculosis as well. There was not a significant increase in the disease at this time as far as I know, and it was also clear that the disease affected all races and classes fairly equally. People were simply unfamiliar with and afraid of these newly-discovered germs, and needed a way to help themselves feel safe and place the blame for their spreading on someone else.

The discovery of germs also resulted in the formations of public health organizations that worked to educate people and help poor people who were afflicted by T.B. and other diseases. By the time World War I rolled around, the stigma against black women was fading.

Still, all this indicates that T.B. was an extremely common disease, and a majority of those who got it eventually died from it. Blues musicians in the early 20th century wrote songs about the circumstances of their daily lives and about stories of the lives of others, and thus there were many songs sung about T.B. By the time people took interest in recording the music of African Americans, some of these songs had become well-known standards, which is why many of the recordings I’ve found are variations of each other, despite being recorded by different artists at different places and times.

But all of the songs are very, very sad. It must have been very lonely to die of tuberculosis. People were so afraid of contracting the disease themselves (and rightfully so, I think) that they avoided friends and relatives who had it, leaving them to die (slowly, often over the course of years) by themselves in hospitals and sanitariums.

Here are two songs recorded by Victoria Spivey in the 1920s. The second song is just a slight variation on the first.

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Here’s a modern version of the song by Nina Van Horn, which shows that these songs have remained part of America’s standard blues catalog even as the disease itself has become less and less prevalent.

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The next four songs are all called “T.B. Blues,” but all are different. The first one is a third song by Victoria Spivey, who did not have tuberculosis herself, from what I can tell, but who must have been close to someone who did (a common thing at the turn of the 20th century, of course).

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Leadbelly’s version is a little different, but still has the same plaintive chorus of how it’s “too late, too late, too late.”

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Otis Spann, a Chicago blues pianist from the 1960s, does a completely different song called “T.B. Blues.”

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I think that the best-known “T.B. Blues” might be by the famous yodeler, Jimmie Rodgers.

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Jimmie Rodgers also recorded the optimistic song, “Whippin’ that Old T.B.”, but this recording was made in 1933, the same year that he died of the disease. He was only 35.

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The song I knew best before starting on this music project was John Lee Hooker’s song “T.B. is Killing Me.”

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A recent song about T.B. is Van Morrison’s “T.B. Sheets,” which at 9.5 minutes was longer than my website will allow me to post, but here is a Youtube video of the song. The song tells the story of him sitting in the room of a friend who is dying of tuberculosis. Unlike the other songs here, “T.B. Sheets” is more about the suffocating feeling one gets in a hospital room where a loved one is dying than about the experience of having the disease itself.

This, I think, could be the most depressing mix of music I have ever compiled, but I like it, too. Music is at it’s best when it tells the stories of what really happens in people’s lives. Medical advancements, germ theory, and vaccines are allowing us to live in a world that would be fundamentally different than the world our ancestors of a hundred years ago lived in– if only because this kind of disease is becoming less and less common. Luckily, those people who DO get them can be helped out by good people like my friend Jessica, who I hope enjoyed this blog post!

Yesterday, November 8, was the 40th anniversary of the release of Led Zeppelin IV. What can be said about Led Zeppelin IV? I am probably one among millions who really became a music fan in my own right the first time I heard that album. Without question, it has had a bigger influence on my life than any other single album. And also, in the whole scope of all music ever made, I think it could be easily argued that no more perfect set of songs was ever created. Led Zeppelin IV! I would not be me without Led Zeppelin IV. I would be some other person all together.

When I was growing up, there was always a lot of music being played in my house. My dad played the guitar, and when I was very small, he would sit on the bathroom counter and play and sing Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival and Joni Mitchell songs on the guitar while my brother and I were in the bathtub. We listened to recorded albums, too, but my main memories are of my dad playing the songs for us himself.

One day, when I was in middle school, I was watching VH1 (back in the day when the internet was young and you would watch music videos on TV) and happened to see a clip of Led Zeppelin performing Whole Lotta Love (which is from Led Zeppelin II). I knew the song, I had heard it a thousand times, but something about that day was different. Maybe I had never seen the band perform before. Maybe I had never really listened to it on my own before. Either way, I was mesmerized and excited and knew instantly that that was just the coolest SOUNDING, coolest LOOKING thing EVER. This is not the clip I saw, but it will do. I tell you what: I am still just as excited about it as I was back in middle school. In my mind, everything that is cool is judged against this.

I was so excited about it that I remember trying to bring up the song or the band in conversations with my best friend at the time, Jennifer, and she, frustratingly, had no interest whatsoever.

In my memory, it was within the next few days that my dad, always looking for duets for us to play together (as we were both flute players), suggested that we learn the beginning of Stairway to Heaven. To help me learn it, he lent me his Led Zeppelin IV CD. I ended up listening to the whole thing (and how could I not, when the opening track is one of the greatest opening tracks of all time? )

…After that, I was hooked for life. Instead of just listening to music, I was suddenly a FAN of music, I wanted to listen to every album they had, I wanted to listen to other bands they were associated with, I wanted to seek out other great bands, I wanted to go to concerts to see bands perform–I thus embarked upon a life of music fandom that not only was the way I made it through being an insecure and socially awkward teenager, but that also informed my whole life to follow. Most of my friendships have hinged upon similar musical tastes, many of my greatest experiences have taken place at concerts, and all of my significant life phases and experiences have been soundtracked by music I came to love as a direct result of loving one band– Led Zeppelin, of course.

Zeppelin IV itself had an enormous influence on me in non-music-related ways. For one, the band’s love of and use of traditional American blues songs (in songs like When The Levee Breaks)…

…was the reason I became interested in listening to old country blues. My subsequent interest in learning about musicians like Son House and Howlin’ Wolf and others like them is the precise reason why I became interested in studying the Southern US– I’d enjoyed American History before, but the area I chose to specialize in was, you could say, because of Led Zeppelin.

I think it was Chris Rock who said that whatever music you are listening to when you first become interested in sex is the music you’ll like for the rest of your life. I don’t really remember my exact progression that well, but I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to think that the point in my life when I went from thinking that sex was a frightening and repulsive act that I hoped to avoid forever, to becoming suddenly interested, could not have been too far removed from the day I became a Led Zeppelin fan. I ask you yet again: How could I not?

I, being a shy and awkward teenager, did not get to put any of it to use for a long, long time, but I think I still owe mostly everything I know about sex to Led Zeppelin. I pity the poor souls who were listening to N*SYNC and the Backstreet Boys during their developmental years. They must have an awful time.

Strangely, considering the widespread belief that Zeppelin lyrics are loaded with Satanic messages and the fact that the band lived a sex-drugs-and-partying lifestyle so intense that my favorite band, Jethro Tull, refused to tour with them, Led Zeppelin is the reason that I was never an atheist. It sounds weird, but whenever I really thought about whether I believed in God–even when I believed that Christianity just could not be possible–I would listen to Led Zeppelin IV and know, just know, that there had to be a higher power, because music like that could not come from humans alone. I wrote about those feelings often as a teenager, and theologically dubious as it may be, it honestly is the reason why I never could convince myself that there was no God.

On a related note, many Zeppelin songs– especially songs like Four Sticks and The Battle of Evermore from Led Zeppelin IV–

…reference or tell stories of The Lord of the Rings and other Tolkien stories. My dad had given me a copy of The Hobbit when I was 9 years old, and I was crazy about that book. I had read it many times by the time I became a Zeppelin fan, but they then inspired me to read Tolkien’s other books, and I went through a huge period of time where I was deeply involved learning about J.R.R. Tolkien and his life and influences, and the fantasy world he created. I learned that he and his good friend and fellow fantasy-world-creating author, C.S. Lewis, were both strongly influenced by their Christian faith. After meaning to for years, I finally read some of Lewis’s books on Christian apologetics, and those books are one of the main things that helped me realize that I did believe in Christianity after all. So–though it is a long road from one to the other I suppose–Led Zeppelin is also, in a way, why I am a religious person, too.

It would be impossible to really capture the huge influence that this one album has had on my life in a single blog post, but suffice it to say that it would be hard to name any thing in my life that could not somehow be connected to Led Zeppelin IV. I’m glad it stood the test of time. I hope in another 40 years, after all the Katy Perrys and Rihannas and whoever else is long gone, we’ll still have Led Zeppelin. I know I will be doing my part to keep it around!

For today I thought I’d post my journal entries from September 11th, 2001. I have kept journals pretty consistently throughout my life starting from about six years old, and while most of them from my teenage years are your typical entries about insecurities and boys, I’m glad that I captured some reflections on things that turned out to be major events. One of the areas I focused on in college was the way average people experienced major events rather than just the way ‘important’ people like generals and presidents and statesmen experienced them. My story is probably pretty identical to your own reflections of that time, but I think that it has some historical value anyway. In September of 2001, I was 16 and had just started the 11th grade. I will start with the journal entry from the day before just for context. It seemed appropriate.

9/10/11

Today, I walked out of school and I didn’t feel the usual cloak of humidity upon me. It was hot, yeah, but walking along to my car, I felt perhaps a hint of cool breeze blowing along somewhere. Could it be a first sign that autumn is approaching? I hope so. I’m eager for sweater weather, and a life themed by the string of year-end holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

I want a simple life like that: to watch the sun rise in the morning, to watch the stars at night, to feel good in my skin, to know that today is September 10– to be conscious of the fact that today is September 10, 2001, and God made today, and everything about it is gorgeous. [A friend of mine] doesn’t believe in God. How can you have a night like tonight-where you look up and realize that today the sky is crystal clear and there are a thousand stars–and not?

I’m very material, though. I like to have things, and things make me happy. … Eventually I should get over this, but… I’m not going to worry myself over it. Well, it’s late, so I’m going to bed now before I start another topic (trust me, there’s many) and end up awake all night.

Adios– Emily

9/11/01

I walked out of my math class at around 9:45 or 9:50 today, and Mr. Asher [our principal] came on over the loudspeaker. “I’m sure you’ve all been watching… TV…terrible tragedy…don’t panic.” I assumed it was just another indecipherable announcement, but “don’t panic” got me wondering. Nobody knew what was going on. I heard snippets of information as I walked to photography, and when I got there I went straight to the television, around which three or four others who’d beat me into class were crowded. I saw the hazy New York skyline and smoke billowing from the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Two planes had crashed into the Center, the Pentagon had been bombed, the White House had been evacuated. I sat down, aghast. My upset photography teacher first expressed her anger at the students joking about the situation in the halls, then said that it would be best to get on with our work, and she would leave the TV on. While I worked on my pinhole camera project, another plane went down in Virginia, and the World Trade Center collapsed. The school was abuzz with talk about the incident all day, and we spent the last half hour of English watching the TV as well. After school activities were cancelled, West Palm Beach schools were closed. By the time I got home from school, half the country was shut down and not a plane was in the air.

Here is what happened, as I understand it: Just before 9am, a hijacked plane crashed into one of the WTC towers. Both buildings were evacuated quickly- though many were trapped in the building. No one knew what had happened. I’d assume they thought it was a freak accident. But 50,000 people work in the WTC, and the second plane crashed into the second tower only a few minutes later. People- law enforcement, firemen, and rescue workers- came to get people out and put out the fires. Many people were trapped above the planes, and the worst video that’s been shown on TV are the people hanging out of windows trying to get air or make themselves known to rescuers. Later, people simply jumped out of the buildings. Within an hour or so, the WTC simply collapsed. Another hijacked jet crashed into the pentagon between the initial crashes and the buildings’ collapse. Dad said that tens of thousands may have died. Planes were rerouted to Canada, nearly everything was closed, major cities were evacuated. Later, another hijacked planes crashed into the Pennsylvania woods. I’ve seen the WTC second crash and the buildings’ collapse from every angle. I’ve seen New York pedestrians racing down the streets pursued by huge clouds of dust… I’ve seen video of rescue missions through tremendous piles of twisted rubble and thick floods of dust. I’ve heard dozens of eyewitness stories. On the news now, stern angry military men are making statements. “This is indeed the most tragic hour in American history,” a senator, John Warner, just said. My favorite subject, American history, and I just lived a huge moment in it.

Another building, 46 stories, next to the remains of the WTC, has just collapsed as a result of the earlier collapses. No one will give an estimate of the casualties, but we know 266 died just in the planes alone. That’s nothing. President Bush is arriving at the White House now (6:55 pm). Everyone’s comparing this to Pearl Harbor.

Don’t go to war. Used to be, I’d be excited by a big event, by America doing something more important than looking at Britney Spears. But not now. I just want to have a simple introspective life like I talked about last night. I don’t want to think about this. I really don’t. I have to, though. No escaping it! I’m just not thinking about the people- innocent civilians like me, thousands who died today. I acknowledge that fact but I won’t think hard on it. I hate this! We better not go to war.

9/12/11

Well, it’s Day 2. The FBI is in Vero right now [so much for living in safe old Zero Beach) investigating three homes. It's something to do with Flight Safety, the pilot's training school, that is here.

I'm... I want to say I'm mad. Yesterday morning I was happily thinking that I was finally feeling good and in-control and I had just been happy and eagerly anticipating the holiday season. But now this has occurred, and taken over my (and everyone's) life! Why? The terrorists were expressing hatred for something- capitalism, our government, I don't know. But I'm not involved in any of that in the slightest! I'm the same person regardless of which country I live in. Now some total stranger gets to upset my whole life because of- because of what? I don't want to deal with this and I shouldn't have to!

So suppose we go to war. You know, I didn't even know we were helping to protect any people in the Middle East? Call me ignorant of current events, but I don't know which countries we're against or which we are for. People keep mentioning the Gulf War, but I don't know what that was about either! So why should my life be changed over something I don't even know about? Over something that I really am not affected by?

If we go to war, more people- more civilians- are going to die, and it will go on until somebody wins or loses, but after all that, do I have any more involvement in the original cause for war than I do now? No! It's like in the world there is this elite class of politicians who organize their little soap opera and then when the game goes wrong, all the bad stuff happens to us unsuspecting peons. I want to go to the Middle East and find some other high school kid and be like, "Hey, do you know what's going on? No? ME either. Well, you seem to be okay, want to go live on a remote island until everybody finishes blowing themselves up?" This is the stupidest thing that ever happened to me.

9/13/01

For those of us who didn't lose anyone on Tuesday, the past two days have been a kind of psychological nightmare. I have felt every emotion, and I have felt numb, all at the same time, meanwhile trying not to feel anything. Too afraid to sit and think about anything, I was left with this jumble of unsettled emotions... like I was feeling really stressed and weird and different than I ever have. You can't life a normal life, it [becomes?] a part of every thought yo have. You see a sitcom on TV and you think, they’re so happy and carefree. I wish I could do that. I find myself wishing all I had to worry about was boys and school. I feel like a very old person wanting youth back. Three days ago, I had no idea. I found I wasn’t the only one up in the middle of the night thinking I heard airplanes. Airplanes are scary now.

It isn’t over. I just didn’t think about it today. The news I heard was of people being miraculously saved from beneath the rubble. Today was a good day emotions-wise for me. We got all our class ring order stuff. I found out that [a boy I had just met in school] not only looks like [another boy who I had a crush on], the nice Zeppelin-loving guy in my writing class who sadly has a girlfriend… he also has a really good voice and hangs out in my English class all the time. Well… gonna go now… bye!

9/14/01

People always discuss whether people are naturally good or naturally bad. But I don’t think there is an answer to that question. Does Osama bin Laden have any good in him? I don’t know. Most would be inclined to quickly say “no,” but that isn’t fair. He might. But supposing bin Laden is a naturally bad guy… People can be good or bad and probably both. But I think that most people are more good than bad.

So, it is believed that one of the WTC pilots not only trained at Flight Safety, but lived in Vero up until a couple weeks ago. Two other residents were proved to be involved. Terrorists and their families have been living practically within walking distance from me! I’ve probably seen these people personally on more than one occasion. Plus, the four guys who were arrested in an airport somewhere else had Flight Safety stuff on them. When we first heard about the attack, we were all like, Thank God we live in Vero Beach, where nothing ever happens. And look! It should scare me I guess but it doesn’t. Perhaps I haven’t fully realized the full possibility of what that means, but for now I’m just like- hey! Terrorists! [note: I am not sure whether this really happened or whether it was just a rumor around town. I think that most towns with flight schools probably had this rumor circulating, and I'm not sure whether anything came of it or not.]

Involved people have been found not only in the US but also in the Philippines and other countries. This was a huge thing. This IS a huge thing. I’m not thinking too hard on it, so that doesn’t scare me right now either. We’re going to war, I can tell you that. Dad says that it could be a huge war, if it comes to that, and I think war is stupid but if people are going to kill ten thousand people all of the sudden… you can’t just hold peace talks and compromise. Even if you tried, the problem would only come back. So something must be done. But I wish it didn’t have to be now.

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That is my last entry in that journal before I moved on to another book. Anyway, I hope my reflections from those days have been at least sorta interesting on some level.