InCas_ of Emergency

Revision of my memories of 9/11/01 as written on Sep. 11th, 2006 on LiveJournal

On this day, September 11, 2006, everyone seems to be asking the question: “Where were you on 9/11?” For a while, I have wanted to write down my memories of that day and today seems like an appropriate day. I just wish I had written my memories down sooner, while my recollections were clearer and not as clouded by analysis and hindsight.

( The summer before )


On Tuesday, September 11, I got up that morning as usual, got ready for class, and as it was customary for me to do so, got on Yahoo! to read the news. I guess to make sure I had enough time before I got to class, so I looked at my alarm clock. If I am not mistaken, it read 8:45. As I took a quick glace at the Yahoo! headlines, the news of the attacks had not yet reached the online realm. I thought to myself non-chalantly, “Same old news….” How very wrong I was. Feeling optimistic on that early fall morning, I headed off to class.


The class I was taking was an excellent class on Japanese post-war history, with an excellent professor. When I got to class, there was the usual pre-class chatter amongst the students. Then, I heard someone say that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. My first thought was that it must have been a relatively minor incident involving a small jet plane. My memory has begun to get hazy when remembering this, but there were murmurings of it being a commercial airliner and that perhaps it had been a result of terrorists. But we were interrupted by our professor who was about to begin class. Looking back, I’m surprised nobody brought up the news with him or asked him about it. But class went on as usual and I tried to push what I just heard to the back of my head. The class was scheduled to meet again that Thursday in one of the library’s media viewing rooms to watch a movie documentation of the effects of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
.

After class, I walked to the library to work my one hour shift as a student assistant at the circulation desk. The day still seemed like any other and the weather was absolutely beautiful, but as I walked through campus, I remembered the disturbing news I had heard in class and again tried to push it away from my thoughts. As I entered the staff area of the circulation desk, my supervisor turned to me and said, “Did you hear? The World Trade Center and the Pentagon have been hit by planes.” That’s when I became shocked. At that moment, I turned to see one of regular staff members sitting by one of the staff computer terminals looking at the Yahoo! news page. She was in tears. I looked over her shoulder and saw that image that has become so familiar in everyone’s mind: the tremendous amount of smoke billowing up from the towers shortly before crashing down. I asked her anxiously, “So both towers crashed down?” “Yes,” she said, “They’re gone.” My supervisor went on to tell me other details: that a plane had crashed in Pennsylvania and (what we now know to have been a rumor) that one or two planes that had been “unaccounted for” and could potentially hit other targets. At that point, people weren’t sure what would happen next. I tried as best I could to concentrate on my job, but since it mostly required sitting by the security gate, my mind kept racing. The patrons seemed to be conducting themselves as usual and no one said anything about the attacks. Then, my professor from the class I just had came up to me and said, “Did you hear?” He seemed to be in a lot of shock. He told me that he was leaving town so he had cancelled that afternoon’s viewing of the post-atomic documentary, the subject now having taken an even darker tone. “I can’t deal with that right now,” he said, “I have to get home to my family in Princeton. If I had known what had happened before class started, I wouldn’t have been able to go through with my lecture.”


When my shift was finally over, I left the circulation desk and walked to the commons right by the library entrance. Everyone there was crowded around the TV. If I remember correctly, I had another class I had to get to so I couldn’t stay. As I walked through the regular mid-day crowd on my way to that class, I ran into my sister. We were both in shock so all we could say was, “So…did you hear?” Yeah….can you believe it?” I don’t remember much about that class, except that, if I remember correctly, the professor briefly acknowledged the news but said she was carrying on the class as usual. [2026 Note: It's been 25 years and it finally dawns on me that her reasons for carrying on with class were quite possibly political, and that's all I'll say about it for now] After that class, I believe I went back to my dorm. Once I got to my room, I turned on the news (I had a TV tuner card installed that allowed me to watch TV on my computer) and I checked my Instant Messenger. Everyone’s away messages expressed shock at what had happened. I saved them all…but now I realize that I can’t find them. [2026 Note: I thought I had saved screenshots of these away messages but in the years since, all I have been able to find are text files of away messages that I must have copied and pasted. While not in their original format, it’s better than nothing and it was rather fortuitous that I saved these texts in a long-lasting file format.] 


Then it really hit me that people’s loved ones were in those Towers and in those planes. Immediately, I remembered how only a month ago, K’s friend had proudly mentioned that his father worked in the World Trade Center. I started to panic. I tried desperately to reach him on Instant Messenger. I managed to reach K and asked him if he had heard anything about his friend’s father. Apparently he had and thankfully he was fine but apparently he had been on the train on the way to Manhattan (the same PATH train route we had taken in July!), and he might have even seen everything take place from the train as it crossed the bridge towards New York. I also remember receiving calls from family members to make sure everything was ok.


I had previously made plans to meet on that very day with two of my friends from my trip to Paris that summer. So around lunch time, we met up at a nearby restaurant. We made either little or no mention of news. We tried to make pleasant conversation. Looking back, I think the news was very much on our minds, I know it was on mine, but we tried to press on as best we could. I remember we got on the subject of plane ticket prices. I either thought to myself or said aloud that with “what had happened” who knew what would happen to ticket prices. On any other day, I would have really enjoyed their company, but after meeting with them, I couldn’t wait to get back to my dorm to catch the latest developments of the news. [2026 Note: Sadly, I have no other memory of meeting up with these friends after this day. It's quite possible that I never saw them again.]

Back in my dorm room, I kept communicating with people on IM. Then I heard that classes had been cancelled and that there was going to be a school-wide vigil at [what was then called] the Mall. Unfortunately, it was going to be during my evening shift at the library. I was so frustrated. I felt that I had to go....I needed to go. I need to reach out to other people and feel that I wasn’t alone in my fear and uncertainty. I would have never done this under other circumstances, but when I got to the library for my shift, I asked my supervisor if I could take off for a few minutes to attend the vigil. I don’t know if she sensed my need to go but she said I could. When I got to the vigil, there was a huge crowd…many people held candles. Some of the leaders of the school’s religious groups were giving talks about the day’s events. I felt so emotional, and also felt a sense of relief that we were all in this together. Unfortunately, I didn’t want to get in trouble with my supervisor so I didn’t stay long. I know now that she would have let me stay as long as I wanted….and that I shouldn’t have been so worried about what she would have thought.

( UD 9/11 Memorial )

After work, I went back to my dorm and settled in for the night. There were more Instant Messenger away messages. And I also remember getting “IM chains”, where you received a message about the attacks and then you were supposed to “forward” that message to someone else. I never came across an “IM chain” after that day. I guess as I fell asleep that night, I just remember feeling worried and uncertain about what would happen next. 
I think for those who look back on that time, the days afterwards were surrounded by a sort of “haze”, where we tried to be “unified” as a country, to honor those who had died, and mentally come to terms with what had happened. I remember the flags going up everywhere, the yellow ribbons at our school, the impromptu “vigils” being held….Yes, I even remember my group of friends holding one at the apartment being shared by four of our friends. 
I won’t go into the subsequent events that came as a result of 9/11 or how the government has handled things since, but no matter what one’s political beliefs are, it cannot be denied that that day was a turning point for us as a country. I think we all sensed on that day that things would change, but at the same time, we had no idea just how much.

Yesterday I got an automated email from LiveJournal congratulating me on the "achievement" of my LiveJournal's 20th anniversary. Turns out that TODAY is the anniversary. My first entry was September 2, 2005! So I figured I would write a commemorative post.

Yes, I still have my LiveJournal up on their site and have NOT deleted it like I said I would (probably should). While I have posted exclusively on Dreamwidth since March 2018, I did port over everything I had written on my LJ before then and consider my Dreamwidth journal a continuation of that LJ that I started...20 years ago??

I know the phrase has become cliche, but it's hard to believe it's been 20 years since I started this journal. At the same time it feels so long ago because my life was so much different back then. I was working at the public library in my hometown and was looking to apply to library school. For a long time, I used this LJ to meaningfully connect with my friends. We would write entries, sharing what was going on in our lives and we would respond to each other's posts with thoughtful comments. None of this "thumbs up" button...!

I really love having this Dreamwidth journal and continuing to write on it...even if it's very seldom. But honestly, with pretty much all my friends having long abandoned their journals, it's not the same. We have succumbed to the social media platform and trying to go against that is like trying to swim against a whitewater current. I have written about my frustrations with the Peach platform but at this point, the connections I've made on Peach are the closest thing to the connections I created in the early years of my LiveJournal.

Personally, so much has changed: I was so excited and optimistic about the career I was embarking on and now I feel so burnt out. But as I write this, I am reminded to be grateful that I made something of myself and got out of my hometown. I embarked on not just a career but a whole new life in Pittsburgh that I love. I will always treasure the many entries in that first year or two that detailed all the adventures in moving to Pittsburgh and going to grad school.

20 years later I feel so tired but outside of work, I love my life. I just need to figure out the career stuff (or just stagnate and moulder in this job...I guess either one). Either way, I want to remain motivated and optimistic.

So on Friday I got in touch with the person who organizes the class. She told me that no one had signed up for the ceramics class so it was being cancelled as well. She offered me a spot in a tapestry class being held on Saturday but 1) I had no interest and 2) I already had plans, so she basically said to let her know if there was a class I wanted to take in the future. I felt a bit uneasy about this informal arrangement but I figured that there was a text trail to remind her of it if necessary.

Well, later in the afternoon I get a text from her letting me know that two people had signed up for the ceramics class at the last minute so it was still on. I was exhausted at the end of the work day, but I went to the class anyway. Turned out that only one other person besides me showed up, but this person was very friendly so I had a good time talking to them. In previous classes with this instructor, I got to make mugs, and I got to make plates. But for this class, we got to make planters. This was my 3rd class with the instructor and I hoped she didn't think it weird, but before long I felt at ease with the three of us chatting. It was past 10 pm by the time I got home and I was super tired, but in a good way, because I felt accomplished and because the next day was Saturday so I could sleep in.

On Saturday, R and I went to our friend's house for an early Fall Equinox celebration in which our friend burns a bunch of dried sage in his fire pit. His parties can get pretty big and noisy but this was a chill affair.

Yesterday (Sunday), I went to the Polish Hill Arts Fest for the first time in a few years. I wouldn't have known about it if another friend at the hadn't mentioned it. The arts fest was smaller than I have remembered it to be in years past, but what I like about it is that the vendors aren't usually the ones you find at every other market/fair in the the city. There's a bit of a "punk" vibe to it and in years past, there would be groups of "gutter punks" who would hang out at the event. I've always liked the Polish Hill neighborhood (just as the name suggests, it was a neighborhood inhabited mostly by Polish immigrants) and always feel relaxed when I'm there.

Afterwards, I drove to Oakland, where R and his friend Sam were busking on a street corner, where Sam's friend, who owns a local bookstore, had a table set up with books for sale. As always, it was nice to hang out and listen to their music. But the highlight was getting boba tea at a nearby boba tea place. I got a black tea/oatmilk/brown sugar concoction. I think part of the reason I liked it so much was because I was just really thirsty. But another part of me is saying, "I *must* go back..."

1) If you want to read my "Where were you on 9/11?" story, which I wrote on the 5th anniversary of 9/11, you can read it here.

2) At this point, I'm accumulating pouches the way I was accumulating notebooks several years ago.

3) I remember learning about people who would play podcasts at 2X or 2.5X speed in order to "binge" podcast content. I thought it despicable and sad that people would do that, but then I found myself doing that very thing to get through 1-2 hour Ted Lasso recap podcast episodes.

4) I went and signed up for a woodworking class tomorrow. I'll be building a triangle-shaped shelf. It's a bit awkward because my husband has a whole woodworking workshop in the garage. I love him but...I need someone else to teach me the basics and no, I am not planning on making woodworking my hobby...I just want to build a cool-looking shelf. Anyway, when I told him, he seemed to understand and told me I should let him know how we construct the shelf in class so he can try making one himself.

So today I had two good ideas for topics to write about. One would (maybe) be short and sweet and the other one more involved. Unfortunately, I forgot the topic of the short and sweet one. I could start writing about the more involved one but it's time for dinner soon.

I woke up this morning and since it's Saturday, I was leisurely eating breakfast and browsing the Internet between 8:45 and 9am. My mind flashed back to the moment almost exactly 20 years ago: in my dorm room, getting ready for class, a quick check of the news on the Internet (via my heavy desktop computer) and not seeing anything of interest to me, unaware of what was going on.

I didn't have a television in my dorm room, but I had proudly installed a "TV card" on my computer that allowed me to watch TV on my computer. This is how I followed the news on that day and in the days following the September 11th attacks.

This morning, after cleaning up and getting dressed, I looked down at my smartwatch. Could the me of 20 years ago have imagined I would be looking at a computerized watch 20 years later...or a computerized phone? Could we of 20 years ago have imagined all of what was to come?

There are many for whom this day does not stop being painful, for many, many reasons.

Already there is a generation of people who were born after or were too young to remember 9/11. I imagine that as the years go by, there will be fewer and fewer of us who remember that day.

For more detailed recollections of that day, read the post I wrote exactly 15 years ago.

I first heard of Rae Dunn when about two months ago, when my dad sent me a link to an article about Rae Dunn pottery. ( The Rae Dunn Craze )

It reminded me a LOT of my experience with the Field Notes brand. ( How Field Notes compares to Rae Dunn )

It was an obsession that could have easily become an addiction for me.

And in case anyone thinks these obsessions with brands are something that happens to only women: there were both men and women among the collectors of Field Notes, and the majority seemed to be men. So it shows that this kind of obsessive behavior is also apparent in men. Besides, anyone heard of Supreme?

So needless to say I had no interest in buying any Rae Dunn products.

So fast forward to this past Memorial Day weekend when R and I rented a house in WV with some friends. The rental house had a fully equipped kitchen and in one of the cupboards were two Rae Dunn mugs. One said "Relax" and the other "Enjoy." I totally did NOT expect to be seeing Rae Dunn products in person. Nevertheless I found it rather amusing to see them. It wasn't until our last day there that I drank some tea from one of the mugs. The mugs were large and had uneven yet smooth edges. And surprisingly...they felt really good to hold and to sip from. I decided right then and there that I would go to TJ Maxx and buy a Rae Dunn mug with words that hopefully weren't too cringeworthy.

( My experience buying a Rae Dunn mug )...I'm really happy with what I got. I daresay...the mug sparks joy (at least for now).

And since my mug purchase, I can see how one can easily get sucked into the RD craze (or any brand craze for that matter). ( My take on Rae Dunn and why people get obsessed with a brand )

I admit, I think my Rae Dunn mug is pretty cute and I really like it. But I realize that all Rae Dunn mugs are basically the same mug, but with different things written on them. Buying more of them would not make me enjoy these mugs better. Besides, I don't have room in my house for extra china cabinets...let alone a lot of mugs! And if I were surrounded by a wall of Rae Dunn ceramics, they would stop being cute. I prefer a variety of dishware and kitchenware.

Anyway, that's my rambling meditation on Rae Dunn, brand obsessions, and shopping addictions. And well...That's All, Yolks!

....I'll see myself out ;-)

I've loved photography as a hobby most of my life. But recently, in my slow-going efforts to declutter and minimize my things, I've started to re-examine my relationship to photography and what photography means to me.

There are two things I did this weekend that have helped me clarify things about how I approach photography. The first thing was going through my old college photos and the second thing was going to an exhibit of Frida Kahlo's collection of photographs.

So one of the things I brought back with me from my mom's house was two boxes full of photo prints. I wanted to go through them and decide which ones to keep and which ones to donate to the Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse. Turns out that they were almost all the pictures I had taken during my college years. There were a TON of landscape pictures and pictures of flowers, etc. that I put in the donate pile. Many of those pictures were well taken but...flowers and clouds looked the same in 2000 as they do today in 2021. To be frank, those pictures were boring. But the true learning experience was what I decided to keep. What I kept were pictures of people that are still very important in my life, of course, but also of people who I never saw again after college, but I remember very fondly. I tried to keep pictures of things that were indicative of the time the picture was taken or pictures of rooms and dorms where I stayed in that bring up a lot of memories. I kept a lot of pictures from my time in Kobe in 2000. A lot of the people in the pictures I never saw again after college but I have such fond memories of the experiences I shared with them in Japan.

Then today, I went to an exhibit at The Frick of pictures of Frida Kahlo and the people in her life, taken from her photograph collection that was discovered in her home (which is now a museum dedicated to her art) a few years ago. The photographs chronicled all the various aspects of her life, especially her relationship with Diego Rivera. The text accompanying the photos discuss the themes behind what she chose to keep/collect. According to the text, she kept photographs as a way to feel connected to the people she loved in times of isolation due to her health. She kept photographs that alluded to the good times in her life as well as the painful times in her life. The exhibit really spoke to me, especially on the value of photography as a tool to chronicle one's life (and times) and the power of photography to evoke memories. Photography for the sake of documenting as opposed to photography for the sake of art (Frida's art, for one, lay outside photography).

I guess what I want to say is that I hope these two experiences this weekend can guide the way I approach my photography in the future. But it is easier said than done. It is so tempting to take a picture of every beautiful thing you see (especially now that it's spring!), but sometimes those things are best experienced "in the moment." Unlike photographs of people, you may be able to capture the image, but you can't capture the unique moment in which you took in the sight or the feelings it evoked in you.

So...I'm waiting for an MS Office update to install and trying to avoid websites that sell things so here I am.

My No-Buy April has been going well. I've been able to avoid buying unnecessary things but boy have I've been tempted a LOT. It has made me deal with those super-uncomfortable feelings and thoughts I get around not buying something that seems urgent at the moment. And sometimes those feelings are STRONG.

For example, last Saturday R and I went to an outdoor brunch get-together. It had been a while since I had been able to socialize with a group of people and...it felt great! I got talking to this one person who I hadn't seen in over a year and was really enjoying the conversation. I was really having a great time. Then I noticed that she was wearing this hoodie with a cute palm print on it. I asked her where she got it and she told me. After I got home, I went to the website and I just had this URGE to buy it. Had it not been for No-Buy April, I would have bought it right away. But no, I had to deal with that painful feeling of not getting it. My thought was: "This will be the *perfect* hoodie...just what you've been looking for! It's such a fun print! It'll liven up your plain wardrobe." So it got me thinking what it was that made me want that hoodie. And I think it's that I associated that hoodie with the good time I was having socializing and being out in the warm weather. The person who was wearing it has a fun personality and I guess I felt that wearing the hoodie would make me like her.

There are a bunch of other things that I've come across that I've gotten the urge to buy...

Anyway, the update is complete...that's all for now!

So I got a year-long subscription to Flickr Pro. I’m using it as a way to store my photos now that my employer-sponsored Box account is being phased out in favor of Microsoft Drive. I had been using Box to store my app-based photos, my digital toy camera photos, and my film scans.

As much as people were pissed off that Flickr Pro prices increased recently (not to mention the free unlimited/1 TB? storage was pulled from under us!), it’s still a pretty good deal compared to other comparable services. There truly aren’t a lot of choices when it comes to photo storage and sharing. I considered iCloud Photos but it has limited functionality and it’s not very strong on the sharing part. I’m already using it as backup for my iPhone photos so I may use it as secondary storage for the hobby/artsy photos I’ll be posting to Flickr.

Which reminds me... I probably should get a paid Dreamwidth account, huh?