Diana's Diary

2001-09-11 - 9:59 p.m.

9-11

9:59 PM 9/11/01

The Longest Day

I'm keeping the phone line open for now, so who knows when this will actually be uploaded. For the record, it is currently 10:01 PM PDT on Tuesday, 11 September 2001.

Jesus Christ.

This is one of those days that I can only remember in snapshots.

7:12 AM PDT: I wake up, feeling like it is going to be one of those days where I should just stay in bed. I reset my alarm for 7:30, feeling like I need that extra 15 minutes of sleep. In the back of my mind, I wonder why Jasmine is playing her television so loudly.

7:24 AM PDT: I get up and go about my morning routine.

7:47 AM PDT: I go downstairs on my way out. Jasmine asks me if I've heard what happened--that three planes have crashed, toppling both towers of the World Trade Center and one side of the Pentagon. I am dumbfounded, shocked. I leave for work, dropping Jasmine and her husband off at the bus stop on the way.

7:57 AM PDT: I open the door to the office. The only person there was Kim, who was mightily freaked out. As soon as she heard the door open, she called out, "Who is that?" in this scared voice, like she was afraid of looters. When I walked around the corner to where I could see her, she had this wide-eyed stare. She was not dealing well.

We had two people who were on their way to Washington DC for a meeting this morning. Fortunately, they shut down the airport before they got on the plane, and they were able to cancel the three-day meeting. Three engineers who were flying into DC for that meeting from overseas were diverted, and we haven't been able to contact them. We assume they are in Canada.

Kim and I don't really accomplish anything, we just sit there and listen to the radio until someone (I don't know who) took it away.

9:00 AM PDT: Martine and I try to get on our scheduled Board call. It takes us three tries to get through. Only 6 people made it onto the call--Martine and me, Ebie, a guy in Colorado, a guy in Tokyo, and a guy in Berlin. We decide to reschedule the call.

This is where time gets fuzzier.

9:45 (ish) AM PDT: I call Sprint Conferencing to reschedule the conference call. The woman I talk to is very shaken, and makes a point of asking me where I'm calling from and if my family is okay. I think she must have been closer to the action. Normally when I call Sprint, it's very impersonal, but this call was very...human, for lack of a better word.

10:30 (ish) AM PDT: One of the company's owners announces over email that the company is taking everyone out to lunch today. (That's a benefit of working for a small company--they can do stuff like that.)

I send an email to Soshe, because her boyfriend lives in Manhattan. I figure it will be days before I hear from her. I search the news sites--Excite, MSNBC, CNN, AP, Reuters.

11:45 AM PDT: 11 of my coworkers and I leave for lunch at Chili's. The television in the bar plays the news very loudly. I see footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center for the first time, along with the very disturbing footage of some people who chose to jump out of the burning 110-story building (screaming, oh God, you could hear them screaming on the video).

1:39 PM PDT: I return from lunch and check my email. Soshe is okay, her family is okay, Max (her boyfriend) is okay, Max's mother is okay, but Max's father is unaccounted for. Max's father works in Manhattan.

I spent more time scouring the news sites.

2:15 (ish) PM PDT: The mail arrives, including my passport. Damn skippy, the first thing I want to do now is jump on a plane and fly to another country. And yes, I'm being sarcastic.

2:45 PM PDT: I walk over to Martine's office to give her a copy of the new conference call details. She has her radio playing. We start talking about this--and the Taliban and the reaction of Arafat vs. the rest of the people on the Gaza strip. Jesus Christ.

3:15 (ish) PM PDT: Val comes into Martine's office and tells us that her husband just called and told her that there were missiles being dropped in Afghanistan. We all huddle around the radio.

Fuck television. Listen to the radio.

Debate ensues. Would the U.S. bomb Afghanistan without proof? Some said no way, others said nothing, but looked like they were thinking, "Maybe." We hear that it may be Afghanistanis attacking their own Taliban government.

3:30 (ish) PM PDT: One of the owners of the company tells us we can go home.

3:45 (ish) PM PDT: I head over to Uno's with a 5 coworkers. The drinking begins. I've never wanted a cigarette so badly in my life, and I don't smoke. I was enjoying Val's second-hand smoke.

5:00 (ish) PM PDT: The pity party breaks up, and I walk over to Rite-Aid and buy laundry detergent. The store is nearly deserted, and the radio news is played over the loudspeaker. The clerk doesn't say a word to me.

5:15 (ish) PM PDT: I get home. Selena meets me in the garage, and we rehash everthing where we stand.

5:45 (ish) PM PDT: I go up to my room and turn on the TV. I proceed to channel-surf through the different news stations. None of them says anything new.

6:05 PM PDT: JB calls and invites me out to dinner (Chili's again) with her and Cam and one of Cam's friends.

shortly before 7:00 PM PDT: I arrive at Chili's. The others are already there. We rehash our days, and where we were when various things happened.

8:15 (ish) PM PDT: We leave Chili's and head to my mom's house, because she was going to give a couple of lamps to Cam.

8:25 (ish) PM PDT: We arrive at Mom's. She's not home. I call Aunt and Uncle Co--she's at their place. Mom says she's on her way home.

8:35 (ish) PM PDT: Mom arrives home. Cam chooses which lamp he wants, and takes my dad's old bike at the same time. My mother is pleased to give them to someone who can use them. As we're all standing around in the driveway, JB sees a plane fly overhead. All commercial and private flights were grounded. It must have been military. It was headed for the ocean.

9:15 (ish) PM PDT: I get home. Selena, Holden, Jasmine and her husband are all huddled around the television. It is still not saying anything new. I sit and watch with them for a while.

9:40 PM PDT: I go upstairs and take a shower.

9:59 PM PDT: I start writing this journal entry.

It is now 10:55 PM PDT. I've been half-watching the news as I type.

Good Lord.

How do one hijack a place with a box-cutter? How many hijackers were there? What kind of person volunteers to go on a suicide bombing? What the fuck is wrong with all of those people in the Gaza Strip that they were celebrating American suffering by shooting off guns and throwing candy in the streets?

I keep telling myself that their malice in based in ignorance. They see the "America is evil" propaganda, and don't care that it was innocent people who were killed. Thousands. Good Lord.

The fact that this malice (from Palestinians and Iraqis) is based in ignorance doesn't make me feel better. It just makes me sad.

How can one enjoy the suffering of innocents?

One of my coworkers was telling me about how her six-year-old daughter had asked her that morning why someone would want to be so mean to so many people. My coworker said she didn't really have a response.

I have a response: "Good fucking question." Not quite appropriate for a six-year-old, though.

I'm going to bed now.

-Diana, signing off.

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2003-12-16 - Ow! My Nose!
2003-12-15 - 'Tis the Season...For Moving
2003-11-17 - Rush, Rush
2003-11-03 - Apartment Hunting Sucks
2003-10-22 - Apparently, "nauseated" is a good look for me.

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