originally posted september 29, 2001

pause

It has been 18 days since the unthinkable happened, and I am home in New York.

I flew here.

Had you asked me what I thought of airports before recent events, I would have said that I liked them very much. For various reasons, I had always liked the concept of a place where everything is nicely ordered and everyone always has something to do. Everyone has a place to go, a shop to tend, a floor to clean, or a loved one to either wish farewell or welcome back. Had you asked me what I thought of hospitals, on the other hand, I would not have been so eager to respond. To me, hospitals are places where people always fear the worst as they hope for the best. Even routine operations have potentially grave complications that, however rare, stick in the minds of many.

To me, hospitals and airports are effectively one and the same now.

It was 8:30 AM when my day formally began on September 11. I first met with a professor about a project, then I had to run to a lecture at 9:00 AM. I don't have to go to this lecture for the class, since I'm only a TA, but I go anyway. It helps me establish more face time with students. I haven't missed a class yet. I always bill the hours, of course. Lecture ends at 10:20 AM. I field some questions from students about the homework assignment due the next night. They thank me for my time. That's what I'm paid for.

I need a pad. I always run out of paper early in the semester, while I'm conscious enough to take notes.

No problem: they sell pads in the University Shoppe located not too far away. Maybe I'll pick up something to eat elsewhere in the University Center. I have 90 minutes to kill before my next class. As I walk towards the soundproof revolving doors, I notice many people gathered in the Kirr Commons, an area usually occupied by about 20-30 people catching some sleep or checking e-mail on their laptops. A technical demo? A vendor handing out free stuff?

A television set.

As I pass through the revolving doors, I am immediately accosted with the sound of Dan Rather's voice attempting to explain what has just happened. My watch reads "10:25 AM." The on-screen graphic reads "CBS NEWS SPECIAL REPORT - NEW YORK." Dan Rather manages to say, "Words cannot express the horror that has just happened." He later adds, "The losses... will be high."

The screen, save for the title at the bottom, is filled with smoke. The camera zooms out to reveal New York harbor and the Statue of Liberty.

The towers are gone.

Forget the pad. I don't need paper right now. I just stand there, mere inches from the TV as hundreds of people watch, with mouth agape. Few details are offered, as the news anchor is himself still in shock. Seconds later, a student who had been watching before I arrived offered an explanation: "Two planes filled with explosives hit the towers."

As people continue to swarm the Kirr Commons, a custodian announces that the 400-plus-seat McConomy Auditorium is now open. I go there. I need to sit down. It is there where I learn of the attack against the Pentagon, and later the plane crash 80 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. Many students, including myself, wince once again in horror as Pittsburgh is mentioned amidst the horror. Was this quiet city of 400,000 also a target?

My father works in Manhattan, up on Park Avenue. After watching the coverage for what seems like hours, I get up and walk briskly to the pay phones right outside the auditorium. It's now about 10:45 AM. I try a couple of prepaid phone cards I have. They're all expired or invalid. Fuck. I should clean my wallet out more often. Since I work at the Information Desk nearby, I decide to call in a favor. I walk up to the desk, where an office staffer is standing by. She looks at me and instantly senses how unnerved I am. I don't even let her speak.

"I need to make a phone call. Now."

A supervisor lets me in. I throw my backpack down and run to the nearest phone capable of dialing long-distance. My fingers can't even dial the number correctly until about the third try. I take a couple of years off of the phone's life with frenzied pounding and slamming. Nothing. The fast busy-signal tone means that I can't even route my call. Nothing to Manhattan works. I try to call my mom, on Long Island. The call doesn't go through. Calling home, also on Long Island. Same effect.

My dad has a mobile phone to which I can send e-mail. I find the nearest computer, type in a quick note to his phone's e-mail address, and hit Command-M as hard as I've ever hit it.

Dad - hope you got out of NYC - call 412-862-2831 immediately

Message sent. I thank the desk workers for their time and head home. As I'm on my way out, I overhear a desk employee say that he can't make it to his shift today. "I just don't want to be here," he says.

Home is about five minutes away. I enter my suite at about 11:15 AM to hear my phone ringing. I jump to it, answer it, and cut off the answering machine. It's my dad. He's at work. He's fine. (As I later found out, he turned his mobile phone off and didn't get my message until he turned it back on at 3:30 PM that day. He just called at that time as a matter of coincidence.)

I learned that all classes have been cancelled, a virtually unheard-of thing at Carnegie Mellon. This has been a virtually unheard-of day. As I talk to my dad, a suitemate of mine asks if classes have really been cancelled. "Yes," I reply, cupping my hand over the receiver. "All cancelled."

"Woo hoo!" replies Tommy.

No. Thousands of people are dead. Two 110-story buildings are now two five-story piles of rubble. This is not "Woo hoo." Get some fucking dignity, I think to myself. I go back to talking to my dad. I mean no offense to Tommy here, as he's not the only one who saw the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history as an opportunity to miss lecture. It sank in not too long after that. Maybe he wasn't aware why classes were cancelled, on some level or another.

Classes slowly move on the next morning, although attendance is sparse. My first class is the recitation I teach. Rotten luck. I briefly address the students telling them that first of all, their homework has been extended a day, and secondly to "please be sensitive" to those touched by the tragedy. There will be no "woo hoo"s in my class for some time.

Wednesday continues in a very somber mood. One of my professors offers that we are the "lucky ones," as we were not targetted directly by the attacks. Nobody is lucky. Hell, even the terrorists themselves died in the attack. They're not lucky either.

I thought about writing a story not entirely unlike this one two weeks ago, while it was still fresh in my mind. I tried. However, when my text editor came up, I could do nothing but replay the troubling TV footage that I will remember until the day I die. Dan Rather was right. No words could have described it.

Instead, I fired up my instant messenger program. Friends from high school, people I hadn't talked with in as long as two and a half years, start to message me asking if things are all right. Some are living in California, and as such had just woken up at 12:00 PM Eastern on Tuesday. I don't know what to make of things.

Security is tight at the airport today, but not oppressively so. I allotted two extra hours, cancelling all my classes and short-term work obligations today, at the recommendation of US Airways. It's a pain to carry my carry-on luggage everywhere I go, but it will probably be taken away and hand-inspected if I leave it in a public area. I don't look like a terrorist, but apparently neither did the people who hijacked those four planes.

Getting back to business has been the hardest part of the whole ordeal. Although classes have been back in session for two solid weeks, there are still times when I lose concentration in the middle of class and cannot see anything but the horrifying images of the 11th of September. Time is tight. I can't maintain a 30-hour professional work week between two jobs, plus an estimated 45-hour schoolwork commitment, on this sort of pressure. I got sick recently. I missed one of my desk shifts entirely, which would have gotten me fired immediately had I not accrued a year of solid reliability up until that point. This stuff is hard enough to do with a clear mind, much less with so much going on.

Even the web has been hesitant to return to normalcy. While some sites like Slashdot and Everything2 managed to return to their usual grind after about a week, the artifacts still linger. Meanwhile, on flame-heavy newsgroups like cmu.misc.market on campus and the Yahoo! Quizbowl club (a message board intended for discussion of academic competition tournaments) world affairs has stolen the spotlight. I posted a brief plea for people to return to the topic on the Yahoo! Club, but received little more than personal attacks from known trolls in return. Fortunately, I now know who to block in my e-mail preferences.

Saturday is my brother's Bar Mitzvah. For his reception's theme, he chose "Warhammer 40,000," a strategy game which is a detailed simulation of war. Decorations are modeled after pieces from the game, which include soldiers, tanks, and other forms of artillery. It's obviously far too late to change all of that in light of the current situation, so I only hope that people won't complain too loudly. Maybe I'll have fun, too.

See you next month. Classes are hard, blah blah blah, stuff.

Back to September 2001, or to the year 2001.