Well, it's been a while. It still smells like smoke, not regular smoke, I shudder to think of what I'm smelling, breathing, eating. Everything.
Chronology of events, before I forget.
Stayed in Williamsburg last night, Denyse had to be at work early and I had a volleyball game, so I had to come to Park Slope to get my gear. Got home at around 8:15am.
Instead of getting ready for work, I fucked around on the computer for a while, making this page.
Denyse called me at 9, saying a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I pictured a Cessna nicking the tower, a tragedy, but not enough to get me out of my chair. 10 minutes later, I heard a boom; sounded like a huge thunder clap. I ran halfway down the hall, then ran back and grabbed my camera and binoculars and went up to the roof.
When I got up there I think my first words were, as they were for many, "Holy shit". Both towers were billowing smoke, there was a mushroom cloud over the second tower. Through the binoculars I could see the fires raging. I snapped some photos.
The guy on the rooftop next to mine had a video camera. He said another plane had hit the tower. I said it had to be intentional. He seemed to have not thought of that until then.
I watched for a while and then went down to see the news.
They were talking about the crashes, still saying it could be air traffic mistakes, ridiculously. It was horrible, but seemed under control to a degree. I mean, I guess that's in retrospect. At the time it was mass confusion. People were leaping out of windows.
Andy called from work and as we were talking, I saw the message flash across the bottom of the screen that the Pentagon had been hit. "What the fuck is going on?!?" The people on TV were saying that the police thought another plane was coming, and were trying to get everyone to move back one block at a time. Just as I saw the Pentagon message, the first tower fell. I just saw smoke, dust cloud, billowing through the streets like a Hollywood special effect. It couldn't be real. Snaking through the concrete canyons like a monster, overtaking people with lightning speed. I told Andy the tower fell.
At that point I was running back and forth between my room to talk to people on IM and email, the living room to watch TV, and the roof to watch real life. The entire city was blocked out by a huge cloud of yellowy-brown smoke, it drifted right towards Brooklyn, directly over my building. Scraps of paper were flitting in the wind, as fighter jets screamed through the clouds. Where am I?
I went to Methodist Hospital to donate blood but they asked me to come back tomorrow, they were jammed with volunteers. There were hundreds of people in the streets, most not smiling. The kids were laughing and joking.. they're kids.
Denyse made it here at around 4, thank god, and we watched TV and talked. We went on the roof and had a beer. I met some of my neighbors, but I've forgotten all of their names. I wrote a topic project post, an email, lots of IMs.
I have no more energy. Leen just called, and now I'm just spent. Goodnight.
