9-11-01

damn you, i told everyone about talking to hugh grant. don't i feel embarrassed now.

 

I was unemployed at the time, so I was awakened around 8:30 that morning ... not by a roommate screaming at me to come look at the TV, but by the phone being in the room next to my roommate. Strike one. She then woke me up because it was a phone call for me. Strike two. It was a bill collector from the credit card company. Strike three. Out of the inning. As soon as I hung up the phone, I yelled at her, "don't ever wake me up again unless it's an emergency." Oops.

A few minutes later, she and one of my apartment mates were out in the living room and I could hear them talking. I couldn't make out what, though. When I got out to the living room, it looked like some movie was on TV, but it was our real TV stations reporting. I go, "what happened?" Said roommate and apartment mate go, "should we tell him?" Then one of them told me about the attack. I think my next words were, "oh my God."

A few minutes later, my other Dad calls to see if I'm OK and what's going on. Then my paternal grandmother calls. In THAT conversation, I asked her how this attack compared to Pearl Harbor because the roommates and I were talking about Pearl Harbor. She told me this attack was much worse.

I also remember that day was supposed to be my weekly appointment with a counselor (yes, I went to see a shrink to deal with problems). I was too scared to ride the Metro down there, so he and I did a phoner. At that point, I decided it was time to end my appointments with the shrink.

To this day, I can still remember being awakened by the phone, my roommate telling me to pick up the phone, screaming at her for doing that without realizing that a REAL emergency was about to happen, then having that real emergency happen. I can remember my heart sinking as the second tower began to crumble to the ground and I saw it happen on live TV.

I remember writing a poem about a year or so later after seeing an artist rendering of two angels trying to comfort a firefighter with his head in his hands. I called it "Even The Angels Cried." I don't know if anyone will EVER forget.

 

I slept until noon that day, hit Taco Bell and walked into the newsroom about 1:30 p.m.

 

Was sitting at my desk, doing regular stuff, when an ad saleswoman comes over and asks to change the TV set to CNN because a plane crashed into the WTC. A handful of curious people gathered around the TV, and when the second plane hit, nobody could believe it. I remember thinking, "What. The. Fuck. Is. Happening?"

I couldn't stop watching the TV the rest of the morning, watching the updates, and the WTC collapsing live, was as surreal of anything I've ever seen. I remember calling my wife (then my fiance) to make sure she was OK. Strange ... as far as I was from the tragedy, I couldn't help but think of my loved ones and hoping all was well with them.

 

I was three weeks into my first job gap during the last eight years -- this one and the only that was strictly voluntary. I had an interview for a shit job that I knew I didn't want, but I had to at least examine because my freelancing hadn't been bringing in the dough.

I was walking down the steps of my townhome, getting ready to put on my tie and leave for the 9:45 interview. That's when I heard the TV show (can't remember if it was GMA or Today) talk about the horrific accident at the WTC. I turned to watch the TV and saw the second plane come crashing through.

The interview was shit -- neither I nor the guy interviewing me really felt like talking about the job. The company had a bunch of people in NYC and that's where the guy's head was at the time.

That night was probably the scariest in my adult life. All the anger over the attacks. All the uncertainty over the economy and whether I could find a job. I hope and pray I never have an experience like that and that no one else does either.

 

Sound asleep. The wife called around 10:30 EDT or so and told me about the whole thing.

My response: "You're shitting me."

Turned on CNN and sat there slack jawed for nearly two hours until it suddenly popped into my head that I worked at a newspaper and needed to hustle my ass down there.

 

I was in college. I slept in until about 10 minutes before a 9:30 central class. When I got there, we had a test and as the professor was passing it out he said something about how he understands if some of us don't do so well what with the state of the world this morning, which really confused me. So I asked the girl next to me what he was talking about and she told me the Trade Centers had been bombed again.

So I rushed through the test and ran back to my dorm to watch CNN. Fastest test I ever took.

 

I did the same thing.. called in and asked if they needed help. Ended up writing a couple of news features, then heard them bitch when I put in for a 13-hour day

 

Home watching it on TV, and updating the news on our Web site, before I went into work that afternoon still not knowing if the friend I'd sat next to at a football game the previous Sunday was okay.

He checked in on our site the next day:

 

As an assistant sports editor, I was in early and transfixed by the one tower having been hit by the "small airplane"

Then, my life was never the same.

 

I was sleeping, rolled over to see my brother's name on the caller ID and went back to sleep. Woke up three hours later and watched the news. Got a call from my boss, I was working at Southwest Airlines, telling me I didn't have to come in that day.

 

I was sleeping. That day was deadline day at my weeklies. Just about every game was cancelled. I called one cross-country coach for a preview and felt like the biggest jerk in the world.