September 11, 2001

tact attacked

Yesterday, I committed one of my biggest faux pas yet: joking about death. For background, read ophie's writeup in September 10, 2001. I made a bad joke connecting the topic "E2 is wearing black today" and HTML bgcolors. I'd like to say that it won't happen again, but I'm afraid my definition of "it" may differ from the reader's.

Communities don't seem to want people who can't instinctively figure out the unwritten rules of the community. If common sense were truly common, it would have been documented better. My problem with "being more careful next time" has always been how can I be more careful if I'm effectively blind? I feel like I'm the only person who makes an honest effort to have tact but fails miserably.

E2 is just one web site out of thousands, but these problems have appeared in any community in which I have attempted to take part. The same thing happened to me all through high school: I broke one rule, got the usual "that's inappropriate, and you should already know what inappropriate means" lecture, got suspended, and never broke my perception of that specific rule again. A month later it was something else. Break one rule, face the consequences, never break that rule again, break another rule, rinse and repeat. The problem I've seen in myself is that what I learn from mistakes is too narrow and literal (e.g. "don't make jokes connecting mourning traditions to their technical implementations"); when I try to compensate by broadening my perception of the rule a bit (to "don't tell any jokes at all when an obituary is in News for Noders; better yet, just shut up"), people who do not understand my autistic difficulty with common sense become somewhat sarcastic towards me. (I have Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism.) I have the support of SEF, SEF's daughter evilrooster, and drummergrrl.

Even mentioning Nintendo's Yoshi's Cookie could potentially offend. (The code name for the game during development was "Hermetica".)

(update 18:31) I have decided to say nothing about the recent World Trade Center terrorism.

Sunny has been the kind of friend that you only have once in a lifetime, if you're lucky. We are women woven from the same fabric, kindred spirits. A friendship that spans more than 12 years.

The best memories I have with her were nights when she would spend the night at my house. We often would go to bed fairly early and read our respective books (she was an avid reader like me). There is something immensely comforting about a friend with whom you can be completely silent and still enjoy each other's company.

Now she has someone else to read (and do other things) with in bed at night. She has found her soul mate and I am so happy for her. Congratulations Sunny and Mike...

I am still not absorbing what happened to one noder. I cannot even begin to understand what happened today

I just found out about the loss of one of our own. Regardless of the circumstances behind his demise, the world is now diminished by 1 more individual. Whatever his reasons, he is now gone and his legacy is left with us- his writings and outpourings. Even those of us who did not know him personally or interact with him are deprived of his presence. Everything seems a little more empty- if it is possible for "everything" to be reduced somehow. For however long his writeups remain on these servers, he will be with us, just a click away.

I've never seriously contemplated suicide- not as an actual or realistic solution to my problems. Intellectually, I've thought about it. The ways, the times, the places, the clean-up crews, the friends left behind, the family, the fear, the lawyers, the State... I'm a fairly responsible person, but not that responsible. If I ever considered suicide as an option I'd feel guilty, first thing, about all the stuff those left behind would have to clean up and take care of for me. Rent, utilities, my computer, stories, porn, clothes... all kinds of stuff just sitting around, no longer in use by me, and left in the hands of others who might ask unanswerable questions. Is a Last Will and Testiment thorough enough to deal with all that stuff once I'm gone? I get new stuff all the time, new responsibilities... I'd have to update my Will at least once a month just to make sure it all got taken care of. From a purely pragmatic and considerate point of view, I just couldn't do that to the people around me. Too many loose ends to tie up, enough for a lifetime of knitting, to let someone else handle it.

I'm not afraid of death. Personally, I believe in an afterlife and I feel that I've been fairly good to those around me. I don't know how my life equates in the Abha Kingdom (Kingdom of God, according to the Baha'is), but I like to think that I've secured a decent seat for myself in the big stadium in the sky- maybe not box seats, but a decent view. From what I believe regarding the next world, it seems like a pretty exciting place- definitely new and different. I'm actually eager to get there, but not that eager. I've got some spiritual limbs in this life that need more growing before I'm ready for the next step. I've got the love thing down, I think, but patience is still nagging at my heels. Inherently I somehow know that by taking my own life, I'd be depriving myself of more spiritual development that might be necessary in the next world- like patience might equate mobility there... I'd hate to have short legs in any plane of existence.

Hearing about the death of another person, whether they've taken their own life or are victims of circumstance, always leaves me feeling... pensive. It's like I sit back and reflect on my own life. Have I done enough? Am I good enough? Am I strong enough? What's left to do that I haven't done yet? Are my dreams just dreams or will they really come true at some point, if I'm patient enough? It's like taking my day into account, just before I go to sleep. Review. A Lifelog, as opposed to a daylog.

Take stock in who you are. How do you want people to remember you? Friend or foe? Heroic or hopeless? Strong or weak? Honored or reviled? This life is a one-shot wonder. Make the best of it and continue to do so if at all possible.

Not every day is going to be the best, but tomorrow is another day. Live to fight another day- if you fight long and hard enough, you'll eventually come out on top. I have exactly one birthday, the rest are anniversaries. After the day I die, the anniversaries will be celebrated by few.

I intend to live long and (so what if it's cliche?) prosper.

Someone had posted his dad's obituary there. The man had been a long time poster in alt.ascii-art and somehow his son looked through his USENET archives and did the math.

He was eulogized for an entire week, with every cartoon he had ever drawn and every witty saying he had ever uttered surfacing during that week.

I was touched, and I hope to be remembered like that too.

I sent Hermetic a /msg telling him that he'd better watch those Godard movies I told him to, or I'd get him sooner or later.

It took me an extra hour to get home from Boston after heading the wrong way on I-95.

I'm trying to squeeze these 3 things together, trying to make sense of my numbness of my sadness, of my love and my joy.

I didn't know Hermetic, I will never have the chance to get to know Adam. I mourn this loss of opportunity.

I've eaten a lot of LSD over the years, and this trip on the surface was no differnet from others... there were the hallucinations, the colors, the higher understanding of music, the feeling of being a part of a larger system... and there were new sensations such as feeling the rotational spin of the planet, watching clouds make love and watching the night eat the day...

I cried, I laughed, I sang, I danced and smoked. I felt guilty and I felt redeemed, I felt whole and healthy...

I'm reminded of a lyric from Black Peter by the Grateful Dead

see here how everything leads up to this day
and it's just like every other day that's ever been

sun goin' up and then the sun it goin' down
Shine through my window and my friends they come around, come around, come around....

The people may know but the people don't care that a man could be as poor as me...
"Take a look at poor Peter he's lyin' there in pain now let's go run and see"

Hermetic.

I'll ask why, because I believe you can hear me ask. I'll not ask why, because I know the answer already.

Because.

Because there are terrible things in this world. Because any person is capable of behaving carelessly, and leaving a long, infected, invisible invisible invisible scar on a child... and the scar never heals completely, but is an effort to continue to treat every day of the rest of your life... and every other careless act inflames and infests it until you have no skin, and only one long, red, angry invisible lump of proud flesh where your soul once existed.

Because your brain is capable of killing the rest of you. Only too capable.

Because emotions are caused by chemical reactions and physical processes, and these can malfunction. Because you have moving parts, and you can break.

I cry for you, not because I knew you. I wish, I WISH I WISH I COULD HAVE KNOWN YOU. You wrote of pulling the trigger, and then remembering to remove the safety... I know the sort of mental categorization that has to take place in order for one part of your brain to find humor while the rest of it is continuing to downslide. You lasted as long as you did.

I can't accept any of it. I cry because I didn't know you, and I won't now. I cry because I am afraid. I cry because I am afraid.

I almost never met A. I love him as though he were a part of myself, as though he were the larger part of myself... and I almost never met him, because he almost did not survive the cruelty of his peers. It's close enough for me to cry. I love him, he is dark and handsome, he is a starling, a beautiful and shining person. He is still damaged, but I don't fear for him anymore... unless something like this happens.

SP was also a taut, lingeringly tormented man. He has someone now, someone to share love with, and I am glad. I am glad that he is sly, and happy, and still an outrageous flirt... I love him, he is a workaholic, he is beautiful and sensual and still not completely aware of it. I am so glad that I don't have to fear for him anymore... unless something like this happens.

T might have died during her school days as well. What am I to think? She is the most individual person; the epitome of confidence. She is heavy-lidded, sexy, relaxed, ribald. I love her, she is melted chocolate in a mug... I met her past the point of needing to fear for her, I almost believe that... unless something like this happens.

And there are SO MANY. The list never ends. And I am among them, but I can never die because I am too busy trying to hold them in my big stony hands... because every moment of my childhood that I felt I wanted to kill myself, it twisted around into the desire to kill those who were hurting me. I am not quite chemically sound, but there is something within me that survives.

Eco Eco, I love you. You, who call yourself fat and socially inept. Every word that falls from your typing fingers into the nodegel is perfect, it shines like a glass droplet, you have a gift with tact and sensitivity and kindness; and you also have a fabulous and undyingly horrible gift of skewering your own beautiful self upon a stake. I need you to be my friend, and I hope you remain so.

Quizro, you have been kind enough to spend some of your colossal intellect upon my paltry node scatterings. You connect me to a sense of belonging here, even though evidence suggests I don't have the dedication or proliferance of words to keep hanging around. Thank you. I will always be happy that you are alive in the world.

dustfromamoth, I love you dearly, though we haven't spoken much. You are our own dear bell-jar girl, you who do not think you are beautiful. I don't know if you ever got the feather or not... but I hope that your books turn out well. I hope you do not purposefully or accidentally slash your wrist. You play with death like a small cat that is fascinated by a butterfly attached to a thread. I fear for you. I know that I can not make you understand why I should care whether or not you die... but your writing is like an insane, wonderful orange dream, and I would be heartbroken to see the source brutally cut off.

And there are so many of you that I have spoken with, and argued with, and gotten advice from... and I love you all, and I don't want any of you to die unless it absolutely has to happen. Even then, I don't want it.

It just happened, and I can't get ahold of Joel. I can't get through the phone lines. He works and lives in Manhattan, and I can't get in touch with him. I can't find Joel. I can't find him. I can't find him. I can't find him.

So many dead.

There is horrible evil in the world. Horrible, horrible evil. I have to stop writing this before I hit twelve pages. I should go to work because Monica has people in New York and is doubtless going out of her mind. I am sick. I don't know what to do. I can't call Joel. The lines are busy.

Please God, no more death today.

I have been more scared today than I have ever been in my life. Today is the only day since the blizzard of 1973 that the college of wooster has been shut down, no classes, no events, no volleyball game tonight. Everyone here has been, and still are, in a panic from the events that have occurred this morning. A flight from Boston to Los Angeles crashed into the World Trade Towers, as did another plane. Another plane crashed into the Pentagon, still another 80 miles southeast of Pittsburg, and a fifth into Camp David. There is also another over Toledo, Ohio as I type; and a sixth plane was grounded at Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland, believed to have a bomb on board. All buildings over 30 stories have been evacuated in Cincinatti (man I hope i spelled that right), and many major building in Cleveland have been evacuated, and almost all of the privately owned ones have been suggested to evacuate as well.

We have taken a lot of things for granted here in the United States, our safety and "untouchability" were probably the top two.

I'm scared for the girl who I don't know who's boyfriend is in Washington D.C.. I'm scared for my fraternity brother, who's older brother (an alum of Wooster and my fraternity) is a captain in the Marines. Most of all I'm scared for my parents, who were supposed to fly from Boston to Chicago tomorrow.

Fear is something that I am not accustomed to. When I first heard about it, from a good friend's girlfriend, it sounded so loudacrous that I thought she was pulling my chain, I just didn't want to believe, why should I have? Then I heard more from another fraternity brother and was terrified that WWIII was going to start, with George W. Bush at the helm...

Yes there has been some mirth and merriment, tho it has been few and far between. I feel that this day can best be summed up as one one which you don't wanna run out of cigarettes. I hope that those responsible for this heinous acts can be punished, tho I fear they are too decentralized for a quick and effective measure (this one of the few times I want to bomb the shit out of a part of this planet). I hope that none of this goes on any longer. Humanity needs to get past this stupid bullshit of ethnicity and relgious difference and come together, not in world peace, because that won't happen. World Coolness is in order.

I just hope that more innocent people, who really have nothing to do with the bastardian acts America has done, won't be hurt any more today, for we all have suffered greatly on this now infamous date.

For all who have lost friends, family, or themselves, I know the men of ΦΔΣ give you all the regards we can, as Americans, as humans, and as people.

Not all of the information appearing above is correct. A fifth plane did not fly into Camp David, although there was much speculation that one had. At the time I wrote this, a great deal of misinformation, as well as a great lack of information, about what had happened had come from everywhere. We're not talking the internet either. Details were reported as they came in, right or wrong. The news reports changed drasticly from the morning to the evening. Only one thing remains clear, this is the greatest tragedy of my generation, if not several generations. I do not wish to change the above text at all, bad spellings included, as I think it preserves the scared, frantic feelings we all had that unfortunate day. May the spirits of those lost rest in peace, may another tragedy of such magnitude never happen again. May the people of Earth, not just America, not Europeans or those who's ancestories can be traced back there, learn from this fateful day. May we not come together, arm in arm, brother and brother, but learn to respect the differences that make humanity beautiful. As they said in a great 80's movie, "Be excellent to each other."

I'm kind of ashamed of my own frivolity but hell, I've written it now so here goes...

I'm going to be on Channel 4 tea time quiz show Countdown. I filmed my appearance yesterday at Yorkshire Television in Leeds; it'll be broadcast at 4:15 on the 27th of September. Originally I was due to film some time around Easter, on the same day as my two brothers, but I was ill at the time.

Richard Whiteley really seems to be about as much of a buffoon in real life as he is on television. At one point he called me Fraser (my real name is Fergus). I waited a bit for him to notice what he'd done, but he just sat blankl