Terror

I just finished watching the National Geographics Channel's "Inside 9/11." Tonight was the second of two parts, and it mostly covered the events of September 11th, 2001, in a minute-by-minute timeline. I spent most of the time watching it with a horrified look on my face -- like slackjawed, cringing and squinting -- and my head in my hands. It's still really difficult to watch. I had an especially visceral reaction to the faces of the hijackers (shown incessantly), which are still being presented via the same grainy photos that we've seen since we first identified who they were. How is it that we can learn all of this intelligence about exactly what happened on these aircraft that crashed with no survivors, yet we can't seem to find one more picture of Mohammed Atta?

Revisiting that whole time surrounding September 11th just generally makes me uneasy. We were living in Monroe (shudder), I was working with assholes, the country was still newly under the rule of an idiot... just really not the highlight of my years. Of course, on the other hand, Brett was on the way so our lives were going to be changed forever eventually anyway.

Observation: This documentary, the televised 9/11 documentary that was aired on CBS on the one-year anniversary of the tragedy, and Fahrenheit 9/11 -- all excellent -- all use that damned abbreviated convention that I wish had never permeated the lexicon. Oh, well.