9.15.09

I think this project would be more doable in weekly installments. I pick Tuesdays.

• Sometimes you must be brave enough to allow yourself to be completely vulnerable.

• Never underestimate the influence and comfort of friendship.

• I will never stop believing that good things – important things – are worth working hard for.

• Sometimes taking any action is better than analyzing to find the perfect one. Sometimes it's exactly the opposite.

• Two recent techie conventions showed that Macs are actually easier to hack than machines that run on Windows.

• No one is above a lapse in judgment. Even, say, elected officials.

• Dealing with pain often is a matter of mourning the loss of what might have been.

• I was a sophomore in Mrs. Harlow's second-hour psychology class at Jacksonville High School on Sept. 11, 2001. We were studying Pavlov. I started taking notes in my planner when the announcements started coming sporadically over the loudspeaker from the front office. I didn't know why I felt the need to do that. We eventually turned the TV on and gave up on the lesson. It seemed to take everyone awhile to realize that things weren't okay, and when they did, no one wanted to be the first to say it.

We must have continued with the day for a couple more periods or so, but the next thing I remember is sitting at a round cafeteria table in the dark about lunch time. In our naivety, we wondered if the power outage was a result of some kind of attack on our school. In reality, the transformer had blown because there were so many TVs and radios plugged in throughout the building. At a loss of what else to do, the principal came in and announced that we were all free to go home. I got in my best friend Kristy's gold Dodge Intrepid with my boyfriend, Ian, and spent most of the evening curled up on the floor – mostly silent, often crying – watching TV in my family's basement.

For a long time, it was like a game to see how often "Sept. 11" would come up on a daily basis. Then it started to annoy me. I'd wonder, "Why can't we move on? Why can't we let this go? Does everything really have to tie back to it?" I've seen grown adult approach airport personnel, point her finger at another person, and tell a staff member that she didn't want to be on the plane with one of "them." I still wonder where all the hate came from.

Unlike a lot of people, I don't say very much about the people personally involved, nor do I ever speak politically about it. I respect the heroes, and I feel sad for the people who lost loved ones. But part of me has always felt like no amount of an outsider's emotion could be worthy of what happened to those people – it wouldn't be enough. And using such a tragedy as a kind of political hot button or to push an agenda has always seemed disrespectful. I'm fortunate that can't relate to what they've been though, and I can't pretend to understand how they feel. I certainly don't know how to ease that kind of pain, and I'd imagine that if I were in their shoes, I wouldn't want people to try. So I let it be.

I do know that felt very strange that first day; I remember thinking that I was old enough that I should have been able to wrap my head around the importance of what had happened, but I still felt like it was something that I couldn't quite grasp. Thinking back, maybe that feeling was some kind of realization that the world had changed right before our eyes.

• It's illegal to ride a motorcycle without protective eyewear. (Oops ... Does closing your eyes, burying your face, and holding on for dear life count?)