Well. Here I am, last in the columnist rotation. For the first time in my Dartmouth career I've read all the Op-Eds of the past two weeks. Even when overcome with an overwhelming desire to vomit.
Why bother? Why not just spare myself the trouble and maintain some peace of mind?
I guess it's because I feel it would be somewhat negligent for me to fail to mention the recent terrorist attacks. So I've read other Op-Eds to get a grasp on how other people are dealing with them in their columns -- so that I might better write my own. Yes, I know, "The D" has been inundated with a multitude of opinions, well-informed or otherwise. You probably don't want to read yet another student opinion.
Too bad. Three facts conspire against you. Fact 1: I am not (for the most part) writing an Op-Ed of the opinionated sort (aren't you lucky?). Fact 2: My column is usually a humor column but there really isn't anything to make fun of (except, perhaps, the '05s, whom I will save for another time). Fact 3: I'm not in the mood to make fun.
I had hoped my first column of the term to be about my miraculous and life-changing first time attending a fashion runway show. I had hoped to write an in-depth description of all the doings of the highly talented, albeit under-appreciated, B-list actresses who were sure to attend. Over interim, I worked at a fashion corporation and spent three weeks involuntarily getting trapped in elevators with herds of giraffe-like models (as supercilious in real life as they appear in fashion spreads).
That morning I was on the train to Manhattan by nine. It wasn't until I was on my commute that they realized the attacks had been deliberate, so when the train crawled past the Towers, I assumed it had been an accident. A bunch of people in the car (subway car, that is) scurried to one side to get a better look.
This is awkward.
A friend says the reason I'm having such difficulty writing this article is because I'm trying to be earnest when really, I've spent the last 19 years of my life cultivating cynicism as a defense mechanism. This is true.
Maybe I'll make a list. Maybe if I write using the second person I'll be able to distance myself.
1.You wake up and think, as the mellifluous rapper, Snoop Dogg, might put it, "this day is the shiznit."
2.On the train you nod in and out of sleep until suddenly people are gathered on one side of the car and are pointing at the Twin Towers.
3.You see through the throng (Some people are taking pictures. You think: "What sick bastards.") that the Twin Towers are billowing with smoke.
4.People talk about a plane accidentally flying into one of the Towers and your mind wanders back to '93. You assume the Towers will stand and the vast majority of people have survived the crash or whatever it was. Actually, you don't assume the Towers will stand -- the thought never even crosses your mind.
5.You don't notice anything out of the ordinary until you arrive at work and everyone is hysterical. They say things like, "New York is under terrorist attack!" and "Nancy, you are so not going to be able to get back home."
6.You beg to differ. You bounce the hell out of there. You hope they run the trains long enough for you get home.
- They don't. All service is down.
8.You are stuck in Manhattan and you want to go home and the cell phones aren't working and you don't carry coins. You worry. A lot. You can't help imagining -- yes, you are morbid -- the nose of a plane screaming down from the sky to obliterate you. Maybe you are a little megalomaniacal.
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By now, you've heard "the news" and while your feet blister, you fume about fundamentalism -- of any sort.
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You join the mass exodus making its way across the 59th Street Bridge. Flatbed trucks stop. Construction workers run to climb on, then turn to help businesswomen in knee-length skirts climb up.
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On the 59th Street Bridge you look across the water. The Twin Towers are not there. Jesus. They are really not there.
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You reach Queens and get into a van with complete strangers. This is called hitchhiking. No one hitchhikes in NYC. They drive an hour, maybe two, out of their way, and drop you off by your house. It took five hours to get home when normally it is a one-hour commute. You can't believe you just hitchhiked and you can't believe how nice they were. Complete strangers.
You have no T.V. because apparently, all your channels broadcasted off the Towers, except Channel 2 (which doesn't work on your T.V.). The radio doesn't talk about the jumpers. You refuse to buy a newspaper because you hear people talking about buying the papers and trying to keep them in "mint condition." You think that is bullshit. This is not something you keep a souvenir of. Plus, there are no papers to buy because everyone is buying them as souvenirs. You don't see images of the tragedy until much later.
Two weeks go by. You return to Dartmouth. For the first time, you are grateful for the bubble, read everyone's Op-Eds, fail to use sarcasm, and, for a while at least, you are earnest.
