Remembering

Two years ago on this day, many people died at the hands of a group of desperate people--people who, I wrote a couple of weeks ago, shared similar traits to the suicide kamikaze of WWII. I didn't mean to "revise" the image of kamikaze as desperately battling the cultural encroachment by and hegemony of the West; neither did I intend to equate the actions of kamikaze pilots on military targets with terrorists on non-military ones. But I do believe that desperate people resort to extreme measures to accomplish their goals. It is frightening and more than a little sad...

On a lighter note on this solemn day, I would like to tell you that there seems to be an affinity between disasters and me sitting on the can. As I mentioned earlier this week, I was sitting down, doing my business when the '89 SF earthquake hit, and fearing my body would be discovered under undignified circumstances. Well, two years ago on 9/11, I was again reading the newspaper in my favorite place when Musubi-chan pounded on the door to hand me the telephone receiver--damn, these cordless phones! It was my sister and she was screaming at me.

"Oh my gawd. It's horrible!"

"Huh? Calm down, what's up?" I said, half jokingly.

"Haven't you heard? You're ALWAYS on the toilet. A plane crashed into the World Trade Center."

I was frozen in horror because my sister worked right across the street from the WTC. But I immediately calmed down as I remembered that she just happend to be in LA taking care of our mother.

"Gawd, Onigiriman." No, she doesn't really call me this. "There was a crash at the Pentagon, too. Didn't you hear? Isn't your school near the Pentagon? Do you LIVE in the bathroom?!?"

"..........."

I don't mean to make light of today's significance. But this is pretty much how it unfolded for me that day. It is now a standing joke in our house that I spend far too much time in my special room, and whenever I'm there, there's always the possibility of a disaster. Musubi-chan yaps about my time there, and my sister always tells me she's glad we have extra bathrooms. Whenever they start talking like this, I grab the most recent issue of SI or Newsweek and head to the... uh, you-know-where.

For a more intimate description of the events of that day, read caffeinenicotine. He was near ground zero and his account is vivid and moving.