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Estee 57126 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-11-09, 10:04 AM (EST) "Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 -- 9/11/01" They're reading the names. They go on for a while. You look away while the words still ring in your ears, syllables that insist on having meaning. Random letters used to label the terminated existence of a human. And they keep coming. There can't be any more, your heart insists through the ache, this has to end soon, there just can't be any more deaths. And still they read on. I've wondered, sometimes, what would happen if someone stood in front of the Auschwitz gates and read off every name the killers had bothered to record. How long it would take. How many people would need to cycle in and out to keep it going. The number who wouldn't believe a single one of those people had actually died. If the tragedy being read now can hit like this, then... ...but no one will. Our memories of this will dull soon, if they haven't already. The mind weaves fog over pain, insists that it doesn't hurt any more, lies to itself so that it won't. We lessen and dismiss events because some see it as the only way to keep going. And then they read the names... I remember a firefighter on a small, unheralded reality show, fighting to solve a mystery. One week after his triumph aired, he was called to an emergency to do what he could. It's a blessing and curse of humanity, losing the ability to exist only in the now. We remember. Someone has to remember. Until time abraids memory and lives, and there's no one left to know why the names should be read... How long does it take to say each one? A few seconds for the longer ones, a short pause between each. How many days will be used in reminder? Something more or less than all the years they spent as breathing temporary immortals, invulnerable until the moment the universe proved them not? They're reading the names. For now.   Top

Subject     Author     Message Date     ID    *pauses* IceCat 09-11-09 1   Snidget 09-11-09 2  " " kingfish 09-11-09 3  * * * * jbug 09-11-09 4  *moment of silence* Max Headroom 09-11-09 5  *sniff* Sunny_Bunny 09-11-09 6  RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 ... Ahtumbreez 09-11-09 7  " " Riordan 09-11-09 8  RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 ... weltek 09-11-09 9  RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 ... Brownroach 09-11-09 10    RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 ... CTgirl 09-11-09 11  *silence* brvnkrz 09-11-09 12  RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 ... frisky 09-12-09 13    RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 ... moonbaby 09-12-09 14        I watched a documentary on Friday IceCat 09-12-09 16            RE: I watched a documentary on Frid... Starshine 09-12-09 17            RE: I watched a documentary on Frid... jbug 09-12-09 18                RE: I watched a documentary on Frid... frodis 09-12-09 19  RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 ... Puffy 09-12-09 15  RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 ... Molaholic 09-13-09 20

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IceCat 17415 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-11-09, 10:07 AM (EST) 1. "*pauses*"   Top

Snidget 44369 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-11-09, 10:07 AM (EST) 2. " "   Top

kingfish 20752 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-11-09, 10:12 AM (EST) 3. "" "" Nice eulogy.   Top

jbug 17146 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-11-09, 10:23 AM (EST) 4. "* * * * " --   Top

Max Headroom 10069 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-11-09, 10:49 AM (EST) 5. "*moment of silence*"   Top

Sunny_Bunny 5597 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-11-09, 11:12 AM (EST) 6. "*sniff*" --   Top

Ahtumbreez 10456 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-11-09, 11:48 AM (EST) 7. "RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 -- 9/11/01" *bows head   Top

Riordan 634 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Reality Show Commentator" 09-11-09, 11:52 AM (EST) 8. "" "" /   Top

weltek 16936 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-11-09, 12:05 PM (EST) 9. "RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 -- 9/11/01" As I drove to work, a large fire station had their firefighters standing in a long line, at full attention and uniformed. It was a sobering reminder, yet beautiful at the same time. -A Tribetastic Creation   Top

Brownroach 15341 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-11-09, 12:28 PM (EST) 10. "RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 -- 9/11/01" Today is one of the few instances we've had bad weather on the anniversary. I still remember what a surreally beautiful day it was in NYC. Shouldn't we put this thread here? (for posterity)   Top

CTgirl 8013 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-11-09, 01:30 PM (EST) 11. "RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 -- 9/11/01" I too remember what a crystal clear beautiful day it was and the juxtaposition of it with the horror that was going on in NYC. I will never forget that day. Capn's Crop Circle Fest 2009 I never knew there was a September 11 Forum   Top

brvnkrz 20491 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-11-09, 11:42 PM (EST) 12. "*silence*" Tribe made me gay   Top

frisky 11695 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-12-09, 10:30 AM (EST) 13. "RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 -- 9/11/01" Eight years ago this morning, September 12, 2001, I slowly awakened to a new world and immediately slammed my eyes shut again, thinking I could squeeze in one last hour of the escape that sleep brings if I didn't let my consciousness remember too much about what had happened. I'd had several nightmares throughout the night, and each time I awoke I looked around me for signs that the world was still turning. Now that it was daylight, it appeared that life was going to go on after all. For some of us, at least. The guy on the radio was still talking about the plane crashes that happened yesterday morning, and I was relieved that no more planes had fallen from the sky during the night. I wondered where they were going to attack today. What buildings would they bring down. I reluctantly dressed my children, not wanting to let them out into the world. I wasn't sure what would change between this morning and tonight. We still didn't know who the enemy was. Every minute felt like a gift, but left me fearing the next. I was being involuntarily launched ahead in time despite my desire to just hit the brakes and bask in the peace of this quiet, ordinary, uneventful minute. My family spread out across the city - two workplaces, a daycare and a school - and it felt like we were worlds apart. The sky wasn't as blue as it was yesterday, but it was clear of the white sketchings that the planes used to make. I wondered if planes would ever fly again. I knew I didn't want to see a plane today. I stopped at the corner store and picked up my copies of my local paper and the Toronto Star to put in the family "archives" that my late father had started when the Kennedy brothers were killed. I hoped that someday I would find them in a box and run my fingers over the faded pictures and marvel at how long ago that had happened. I wanted the day to be far away in the past, yellowed with age and dust. I wanted it to be over. But I didn't know if it was over; none of us knew. We were supposed to carry on at work as if nothing was happening. New York and Washington were far away, and although Pittsburgh could be considered a city comparable to ours in size, it was in the United States, away from our world. Aside from the numbness, I felt like the only person in the building who felt so beat down and helpless. I didn't know it then, but the nightmares would continue every night for the next three months. I didn't know then that the enemy didn't have a nice, neat geographical boundary. I did know there would be war, but I didn't know who would have to go and how badly we would suffer. Would there be food shortages? Would the fighting be here instead of in some far-off country? Will more planes crash today? September 12 was the first day of waiting. Waiting for planes, bombs and building collapses. The day before, when the third plane had crashed and we were waiting for the fourth, I became suspended in the waiting. I stayed there, suspended, for months. I don't know why the nightmares finally stopped. Maybe because the world carried on, and time propelled me forward whether I liked it or not. The world hasn't found peace and I don't think I have either, at least without medical intervention, but I'm not suspended in fear like I was on September 12, 2001. But I won't forget. I won't forget how I was affected because I know it was just a fraction of the panic and fear held by those who spent September 12, 2001, at the Armory in Lower Manhatten, sobbing and grabbing strangers with shaking hands and thrusting pictures in their faces, unable to make their lips form the words to ask the question. To them, this day is another anniversary, a moment to commemorate, to grieve and remember a time when they were thrust unwillingly and continuously into the next excrutiating moment, and the next.   Top

moonbaby 17120 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-12-09, 10:44 AM (EST) 14. "RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 -- 9/11/01" Will more planes crash today? I ask myself this every day, and when I hear something flying over the city as I'm walking down the street or sitting at my desk I have to look.   Top

IceCat 17415 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-12-09, 04:59 PM (EST) 16. "I watched a documentary on Friday" ... made up entirely of hand held video clips from videographers from all over NYC. There were video cameras held by parents shooting video out their apartment windows while you could hear the parents talking to each other and to their kids. There was video from that guy who ran towards the towers when they were burning and got shots of all the firefighters and cops moving into the first tower and who then had to run for cover into the the second tower as the first one fell. There were videos of people's faces as they looked up to see human beings jumping/falling to escape the flames. I watched it standing up... I happened to be standing in front of the TV flipping channels when the History Channel came up and the images of the first plane impacting appeared. It was just 'there' - the big orange plume of flame and wreckage against a clear blue sky and it is jarring every single time I see it. Then the POV video started and I just stood and watched. When it finally ended, I looked up and it was an almost an hour later and my feet had not moved. If something is that harrowing just from watching it on a TV screen, I don't want to imagine how people felt watching it from the streets of NYC or out their home and office windows.   Top

Starshine 5033 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-12-09, 05:10 PM (EST) 17. "RE: I watched a documentary on Friday" LAST EDITED ON 09-12-09 AT 05:10 PM (EST) Here we had a program on the phone calls that people made from the towers. I'm not sure I want to watch something that personal again.   Top

jbug 17146 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-12-09, 08:19 PM (EST) 18. "RE: I watched a documentary on Friday" I saw that program too. I can't get the firemen out of my mind today. The cameraman commented that they would look up; and he would think they were probably thinking 'I'm going up there with this fire hose; what am I gonna do with this fire hose?' Some of those men didn't come down. It still hurts to see this. I can not imagine how the families and friends get thru this day each year. It still seems so fresh.   Top

frodis 4442 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Jerry Springer Show Guest" 09-12-09, 10:05 PM (EST) 19. "RE: I watched a documentary on Friday" I can not imagine how the families and friends get thru this day each year. It still seems so fresh. I have a friend/co-worker who lost his sister that day. His family goes on vacation together for the few days surrounding the 11th. The sit by the pool, and spend time together and they do not turn on the TV, radio, answer their phones or go online. Part of it was fear in the beginning; his mom wanted everyone together and somepace remote (not a big city) and safe. Part of it was to avoid the media calling them to ask questions. Now I think it's just how they honor her. She was 21, and just three weeks into her first big post-college job. She had called her mom after the first plane hit to say "don't worry, I'm in the other tower and we're evacuating now."   Top

Puffy 6702 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-12-09, 12:34 PM (EST) 15. "RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 -- 9/11/01" Our town had a "Local Heroes" day yesterday that honored our local firemen, policemen, and other heroes. My friend's son was honoroed becasue he donated bone marrow to a dying woman and saved her life.   Top

Molaholic 9015 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 09-13-09, 00:04 AM (EST) 20. "RE: Ángel Luis Juarbe Jr.: 5/1/66 -- 9/11/01" An amazing flood of emotions still -- One memory of that week: We're trying to 'carry on' and our youth football league was once again having practices at the high school. The high school is right under the glide path for incoming flights to LAX (only a few miles away, so the planes are only about 2000 feet up). After a while the noise just becomes background white noise. Until it isn't there. The only word to describe the feeling - 'eerie'. Silence. Eerie silence. Eerie open sky. Eerie sense of a lost innocence. Watching the young players and cheerleaders go through their workouts, thinking they will never know the same 'safe and secure' world that I grew up with - the ability to just go to the airport and hop on a flight someplace at the drop of a hat; knowing that 'foreign' wars would be fought thousands of miles away; simply being able to take your own bottle of water onto a plane... May those who perished find peace. May those who have been left behind find solace. May those who ran into the infernos be remembered as honest.to.God HEROES.   Top

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