:: Venting Insanity ::

:: Friday, August 29, 2003 ::

sentence for the day
I hate allergies.

I feel like crap today. I'm congested, my throat is sore from coughing, I feel like I'm having an asthma attack...

Plus...

I.

Am.

So.

Bored.

please don't ever forget: my own 9-11 transcript
Transcripts from the September 11th attacks were released today after a lawsuit was filed by The New York Times. Reading this article brought back everything that hit me that day. I was lucky enough to have changed my mind about going into the city that morning. There had been a job fair a few blocks from Penn Station that I had been planning on attending. I woke up and just felt like not going.

Who knows why, but I remember the phone ringing off the hook all morning. I finally got up and answered it about 9 am.

"TURN ON THE TV!" It was Dad. He was on his way to work, stuck in the usual morning rush hour traffic, and had heard what happened on the radio. He could see the smoke from as far east as the Nassau/Suffolk border.

"What channel?" I asked.

"Any channel... you won't miss it."

"What happened?"

"A plane hit the Twin Towers."

"Serious?"

"Yes, go turn on the TV."

"Was it on purpose?"

"There were two planes... one in each tower. Go turn on the TV!"

"That wasn't an accident." I was still half asleep. It was taking a while for things to register. It just didn't sound real. I don't remember if we even said goodbye before hanging up. I went downstairs, not really believing it, and flipped on the TV. StarSight gathers channel guide information overnight and resets the TV and cable box for channel 13. Public television. No news on there. It was some strange British sitcom. I flipped one channel down... Long Island News Channel 12.

I nearly fell off the couch.

Sure enough, clouds of thick black smoke were pouring from the upper floors of the Twin Towers. I have tears in my eyes as I write this, remembering the images on that television screen. I flipped to another channel. Same thing, different angle. Another channel. Again, there it was. Some had different footage of the various events of the day. Someone said a plane hit the Pentagon. The screen split, showing both buildings burning.

The Pentagon? Holy shit. What the hell was going on?

Another plane lost... no one knew where it was.

Then... the first tower fell. At that point, I had been on my feet again, debating leaving the room for something to eat. All I could do was sink to my knees. The top tilted ever so slightly, then collapsed in on itself, disappearing into the smoke. The rest of the building peeled away like a banana skin, rolling outwards from itself in a greyish brown cloud of dust and debris. It started slow, like a movie, and then accelerated until there was nothing but a cloud left behind.

"All those people..." I remember saying out loud. "Oh God, those people..." I started crying.

The phone rings again. I can hear the answering machine beeping that there were already a few messages on it. I picked up the phone.

"Jessi! Did you see the news?" Nana asked.

"Yeah... Dad called me."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm okay... All those people, though. They're dead."

"I know, honey. I know."

"The tower fell."

"It what?"

"It fell. It's gone. One of the towers is gone!"

"But... I didn't see..." We sit in silence as the news reporter on NBC is hysterically repeating that Tower Two... or was it One? No one was sure at that point... it had fallen. The replay. "Oh God... Jessi... I can't believe it."

"All those people..." I tried to keep my voice from breaking so Nana wouldn't worry about me too much. We were both home alone. Mom and Auntie Lyn were at work... Dad was on his way in... MOM! "What about the IRS?!" I said quickly. "That's not exactly a secret location, you know!"

"I think they'll be okay," Nana said. "I'm sure they'll evacuate."

"They have to, right? I mean, they wouldn't keep them there after this... it's an attack!" Was that another replay? I blinked. Nana said something, but I wasn't sure what. "OHMYGOD, OHMYGOD!!!"

"What?"

"The other Tower!" Nana just gasped. "Oh my God! All those people!" I couldn't cry... I had no tears left from the first one. I just couldn't cry...

"We'll call each other after they get home."

"Okay..."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah... are you?"

"I think so."

"I love you, Nana."

"I love you, too, sweatheart." We said goodbye and hung up. I forced myself from the TV and played the messages on the machine. Dad yelling for me to wake up. Nana asking if I was there and I was okay...

"Please call me," she said. Dad again. A hang up... probably Dad or Nana.

A while later, Mom came home. We checked in with Nana and Auntie Lyn again. Mom said they evacuated the building. She said the whole place was in a fog. People actually left the parking lot in an orderly fashion instead of the normal "get out of my way, I'm getting out of here first" attitude they normally held at the shift change. The gate would go up and a car would go. It would come down. The gate would go up and a car would go. It would come down. Every other car at intersections. No rushing... no beeping horns... no yelling and flailing of arms and fingers.

We hugged. I cancelled my physical therapy appointment for that evening.

Dad called again. Mom got the phone this time. I don't remember the whole conversation.

"Come home... please," she said. "Just come home." He did. We went away. We turned off the TV. We locked up the house. We got in the truck. Dad took us out to the club. He borrowed a key and we took one of the golf carts around the property. It was so quiet. But, as we sat on the lake's western damn, looking west along the Peconic River and over county land, towards New York City, I couldn't help but see those two towers burning... and falling... again and again and again... Mere shadows in my mind's eye, hovering just over the trees. We were in the middle of nowhere, the only sounds were buzzing insects and birds. Not even planes from the nearby old Grumman place. They were downed by the Government, sky diving classes cancelled. Yet, even away from anything 'civilized' (save for the stretch of high tension wires running a trace across the island), I could still see the city and those falling towers.

That night, as I weeded through e-mails and offline messages from people who knew I lived in NY and wanted to know if I was okay (Thank you all! I felt so much better seeing those!!! {{hugs}}), Mom came downstairs to where Dad and I were in the basement.

"The fourth plane... the one that crashed in Pennsylvania," she said. She looked like she was going to cry.

"What about it?" Dad asked.

"Joe was on that plane."

"Joe?" I asked.

"From the track. He and Linda were going to San Francisco for her job," Mom said. "They were going to make a vacation of it... They only started dating a few months ago."

"You mean, 'Ray the Cat' Joe?" I asked. "Joe DeLuca?" Mom nodded. My heart sank. "What about Scott?" I said suddenly. "He's in the NYPD."

"I don't know," she said. "I haven't heard from Mrs. Spencer. God... I didn't even think of him."

"I hope for Kristin's sake he wasn't there," I said.

"Me, too," Mom said.

That night, I could still see it happening... My room was dark. The images haunted me. I couldn't get rid of my chills, no matter how much I curled up into a ball under the blanket. Was Scott okay? Had they hurt Joe and Linda before the plane crashed? Who was responsible?

But my biggest question was, "Why?"

I turned my light on so I'd have things to look at. I slept with a light on for almost a month to prevent the images from coming back at me in the night.

I found out a few days afterwards that Scott hadn't been in the city that day. He'd been on sick leave and then had a shift in Queens. He never made it to the Trade Center before they fell.

I found out that Linda had been one of the people on a cell phone. She had called her mother. She said, "We're going to try and take the plane back. We can't let any more people die. I love you, Mom." Later reports suggested Joe had taken one of the serving carts and used it to knock down one of the terrorists. While I don't know if it's true, I'm glad to know that they went down fighting. I'm glad they had the opportunity to strike back and prevent more deaths. Someone from the track stopped by the crash site and placed two flags crossed... one was a checkered flag for racing... the other was an American flag.

I hope they're both in a better place now... and I hope they're together.

My heart aches when I look at that hole in the skyline. I never knew it without those towers downtown. They were finished just before I was born. Dad said he had snuck up there once. He was there for a meeting and was curious just how many floors up above him were done on the inside. You could still see the sunset through them because there were no internal walls yet. The offices weren't sold. He got on one of the elevators and just rode it up as high as it would go... the second lobby. Following the flow, he grabbed another elevator and got off on a random floor. It was completely empty. He could walk an entire circle around the tower and get a 360 degree view of New York.

He told me it was one of the most amazing sights he'd ever seen.

I live two hours away from New York. I never went to Windows on the World or the rooftop prominade. I've never been to the top of the Empire State Building. I've never been to Ellis Island or the Statue of Liberty. I take them for granted. They're right there. I see them everytime I walk past.

"I'll go up next time," I say.

There was no next time.

When I went to the Jewel concert with Aly, Estelle, Cathy, and Nick... I wanted to see it. I had to see it. I had to go down there myself and see where the Trade Center had been. Aly and Estelle were cool with the idea, so we went.

I was too late to see NY from over a hundred stories above. Instead, I saw a heartwrenching hole in the ground surrounded by a 12 foot steel fence. I leaned on the fence and stared.

There's still part of me that can't believe it's gone...

boring day
So, I'm still filling in state fields at work. I'm bored out of my mind. This is not good. I'm getting distracted again. It's harder to concentrate on things that are boring. Any little distraction is a blessing. I play games on my phone, I surf the web... I get mini heart palpatations when someone walks by in case I might get caught doing something I'm not supposed to be doing. I can't believe how this is quickly going back downhill to what it was last year.

light at the end of the tunnel?
Of course, I start school next week. That could be a hidden blessing. There will be days where I just simply can't go to work because of schedule difficulties. Granted, I won't be getting paid as much, but who cares? I won't be sitting there with my brain frying from sheer boredom. I won't be staring out the window in some little dream world, my thoughts scattered to the four winds.

Granted, I can't help that, but I usually can pull myself back if it's something I'm interested in doing. If it's not... forget it... I'm gone.

something new?
And I still have to do something like this in the other database. Yes, there's more than one. O.O;; I'm so dreading this. If I could get someone to do it with me... you know... so I didn't feel so overwhelmed by the sheer size of the task, it probably wouldn't be so damn bad.

But, let me tell you, as of right now, it sucks the big one.

I'm just having a terrible time exercising self-control right now to keep going at one thing to get it finished. I just can't seem to get past it.

My day goes something like this...

Resist the temptation!

Resist the temptation!

Resist the... oh, bloody hell. Screw it.

Then, I start to fall asleep... or I just can't stop yawning because of the lack of air in that building. I have to take walks... I take smoke breaks, but I don't even smoke. My eyes start to bug out. I have state postal codes burned into my retinas like the brand on a horse. I just can't do it.

I just wish I didn't have to.

birthday fun
Today was my psuedo-nephew's 2nd birthday! Yay, Johnny Boo! {{huggles}} He's such a little sweetie. He's got a fancy new haircut, got some fancy new toys, a book, and a dinner set. He was very happy. We had a Scooby Doo cake (he loves Scooby Doo), and that kid was running the whole night. A few short spots where he calmed down, but he was still wide awake when I left at a quarter after 11.

I'm sure he zonked in the car to pick up Daddy, though. He had done that over the weekend. Wide awake at the playground and then, pow! Out like a light.

And yes... I call him my pseudo-nephew. He's the closest thing I've got since I have no siblings. LOL.

snapple "real fact" #116
The largest fish is the whale shark - it can be over 50 feet long and weigh 2 tons.

can you make it stop?
I read a poem today about pain. It asked for someone to make it stop. Unfortunately, some pain doesn't stop unless you make it stop yourself. I learned that the hard way. Sometimes, you just have to suck it up and keep going. I've done it. It's not easy. There were days where I've had to literally drag myself out of bed. It was not, "I want to." It was, "I have to." I would go for weeks at a time like that, just surviving. Knowing the next day would bring more of the same numbness and apathy. The same lack of care for anything that required more than laying in bed staring up at my canopy. And knowing that the next day included more of the same knowledge that the day after that would be just the same again.

How can you get up when you have nothing to look forward to?

For the longest time, I didn't even have the willpower. I almost got kicked out of school because of absences. Teachers dropped me like a hot potato. I dreaded taking certain classes because I knew I'd have the same teacher again and I didn't want to explain what was happening to me. I didn't know how to explain what was happening to me.

What was I going to do? Tell my professor, "I hate coming to school and I never want to do anything ever again." Yeah, that would have looked great. So, I clammed up. Made excuses why I couldn't be there. Family trouble... car trouble... The one time I really had a flat tire, the professor didn't believe me... I'd used the excuse a few too many times, apparently. I wanted to say something like, "I'm paying your salary with the money I could use to get better tires," but I decided against it. Especially since only one out of the however many times it was that I used the flat tire excuse was actually true...

Besides, he was pissed off at me enough already. First day of class the second time I had him, he asked to see me in his office after class. Asked me if I was going to be serious about it this time. I just plastered on my plastic smile and nodded at him. He scolded me like a five year old. I tried not to cry. I walked out, hating everything that much more, wanting to come back to class that much less. I didn't finish that semester, either.

Why does everyone think it's up to someone else to get them through tough times? Why can't anyone actually do it for themselves anymore? Have we become that dependant of a society? Have we become that reliant on social acceptance that a rejection makes everyone feel like the whole world is out to get them?

I'm not even going to get into how many people I feel like I've talked the razor blade out of their hands. I want to know why no one did that for me. Was I really that good at acting like everything was fine? Did I really clam up that much about how I was feeling? or the lack of feeling? Was I so afraid of looking like I was weak that no one noticed I was?

And, yet, here I am, right? Here I am, alive and well, somewhat well... {{shrugs}} alive. I'm writing. I'm trying to communicate. It isn't easy. After depression, nothing's easy. I still have times where it's a struggle just to get out of bed and go downstairs to watch TV. I'm not even talking about having breakfast, getting dressed, or going out. That's a whole other level of difficulty.

But, you know what? I never asked anyone to take my pain away. I never asked anyone to help me. I was too scared to. Frankly, I didn't think anyone would care. I was afraid of rejection. I was afraid they didn't want me around if I wasn't happy. So, I forced myself to be happy. Apparently, it worked, because I was never talked out of doing something rash to myself. I never gave the signs that I needed to be.

I didn't want the pity.

I didn't want to be kicked while I was down.

I didn't want people to mock how I felt... or the fact that I didn't feel.

I didn't want things to get worse.

So, I pretended everything was fine. Even my parents didn't catch on. They just thought I was going through some sort of isolationist phase or something. I rarely talked to them. And I live with them.

And what now? People come to me wanting me to stop their pain for them? At the risk of sounding callous, do it your own damn self. I'm living proof it can be done. Just try it. Screw the world and do your own thing. While it never completely goes away, you can learn to live around it and start doing things again. But you have to do it on your own. No one can do it for you.

:: Thursday, August 28, 2003 ::

blah
Okay, they found work for me. Of course, I'm sitting here making sure all the state fields have states in them so Billy can send the leads to the appropriate salesmen without having to manually click through all the records. O.O;;; God help me. This is the part of doing work I don't like... the drudge work. The other stuff was fun and rather easy... this is just plain mind-boggling-ly boring...

Is that a word?

It is now.

Anyway, before I go too insane, it's time to head for lunch...

:: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 ::

boring day
I did more straight data entry today. I think they're starting to run out of things to give me to do. That's not a good sign. It means I probably won't be there much longer. I just hope they use this thing and make all this time worth it.

meeting
I have a meeting tomorrow night. Billy's taking Dad home after work and I'm going to Farmingdale again for the meeting. I wish they would have it somewhere closer to out here once in a while. Farmingdale isn't easy for me. Of course, I'm the only one that lives in East Bumblefucked... {{shrugs}}

snapple "real fact" #112
At birth, a Dalmation is always pure white.

:: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 ::

long weekend
So... the party went really good! We got everyone in the kitchen because Donna had a lot more stuff than she did last time, and we needed the kitchen table to display it on. We had a lot of fun, too. My dad's mom and sister came, so did my mom's mom and sister. Erin brought her mom, and Estelle came, too. Cathy wasn't there, but I'm not sure why. Michelle had Stacy's baby shower (O.O;;) that day... We still had a really good turn out of people, and I think everyone had a good time.

that was only the beginning
After the party, Estelle asked me if I wanted to come over. Johnny was spending the weekend at Paul's because he was helping Paul and his mom with the car show. Estelle needed some company for the weekend. Erin was staying over since Jason was going to be doing inventory all night at work and then had squad, so I tagged along as well. We watched a few movies, had some wine and cookie dough, and then somehow managed to fit all three of us on the bed. O.O;;

{{watches guys fall over from influx of mental images}}

Anyway, we slept... (pervs...)

sunday
We headed over to Erin's apartment after she got Jay. It's the first time I've seen it. It still needs a lot of work. But, the apartment is a good size for two people just starting out like they are.

Of course, the woman upstairs (the landlady) had a problem with all of us being there. It turns out there isn't supposed to be an apartment down there. Apparently, the neighbors are picky about things, and the landlady doesn't want to raise any eyebrows. That sucks. Erin and Jason have a big family (and people they consider family, too...). There's no way that there isn't going to be a lot of people coming in and out of that place.

Anyway, the landlady decided that she wants to do the clean up work on the apartment herself now to avoid having the neighbors take notice.

Erin and Jay are now not so sure they want to move in after all. We'll see how it goes.

sleeping in
Of course, I didn't realize just how allergic to Buddy I am. Combine that with the fact that Estelle is packing things up for her and Johnny to move out of the house, and I had an allergy attack all weekend. O.O;; I hadn't expected it. Usually, it's not so bad in the summer because the dog's outside all the time, but, ever since the landlord took the fence down, they've had the dog inside. I guess that's what really triggered it. I was still feeling crappy this morning, so, rather than aggrevate it by being in that airless office, I stayed home today. I guess I'm playing it safe. I've had problems in the past where, after a nasty allergy attack, I get sick. I think it wears down my immune system or something and leaves me open for getting sick. I'm allergic to Auntie Lyn's dog, so it happens a lot when I'm there, too.

sleeping too hard?
Of course, by staying home and sleeping it off, I missed a phone call this morning and wasn't ready when the window guy came by to measure our windows for new screens. O.O;;; Oops. We got them measured, tho', and he's going to call Dad back with the price later.

Dad wants to get full window screens so we can open the top half of the windows when it rains and not have to worry about water coming in. The upstairs windows have to be closed when it rains because the water splashes off the sill and comes in. We won't have that problem if we can open the top half of the window. The only thing is, our screens don't go all the way up and seal on the top like they do on the bottom. So, all the bugs will get in. With full window screens, that will save us the trouble.

And, we don't have to worry about air conditioners because our heat pump has central air in it. Yay!

sigh
No Snapple "Real Fact" today. I didn't get any Snapples.