i twizzlers all day that day because when you're at war, who the hell cares about nutrition!

it's the classic elephant in the room. you can't help but notice it, yet there's nothing to say about it either. 9/11. it's part of our decor. you can talk about where you were when the towers fell or how quiet the world was for those couple days all the planes were grounded and the transport trucks were parked. but there's really nothing new to be said, nor is there any definable progress towards eradicating terrorism or to leveling the inherent unfairness that feeds the fires of misunderstanding, greed, envy, fear, mistrust, hate.

i was in my office, sending emails. it was a fairly typical tuesday until the word started to spread that something very strange and very scary was happening in NYC. i pulled up some headlines, got some scant still photos off the then much more primitive internet news services, pieced together some of what was happening. emails virtually stopped flowing, business was not proceeding as usual. some of us gathered in the fitness center to watch events unfold on the televisions in there. we couldn't really figure it out. later that day i finally received a new email from a co-worker who was recruiting the team for an upcoming corporate 5k race. i could not believe she had the audacity to think about anything so mundane as a corporate 5k race. did she not know the world as we know it had completely ceased to exist?

but of course, it did not. we had that corporate 5k race and since then we have all participated in a lot of events of every imaginable kind, from athletics to concerts to grocery shopping to school to catching fireflies in the backyard. we did not "let the terrorists win". we paused for a moment to be stunned, to give thanks to those whose job is our safety, and to ponder the utter unknowable complexity of the world in which we live. then we got back to the business of living, and dare i say, have nearly completely forgotten the impact of that day as we felt it on that day.

in a few years, the local retailers will all be having "patriot day sales". they're just waiting to determine that enough time has passed for it to be not completely crass. and while not enough time has yet passed for any of them to feel comfortable being the first to do it, mark my words: they will. veterans day sale. labor day sale. martin luther king day sale. memorial day sale. columbus day sale. hell, i was out today doing my part to grease the capitalist wheel, so i can testify to the fact: so was everyone else in this town. it's already happening, save being declared an actual national holiday and having the sales reflected in the newspaper circulars.

they call it "not letting the terrorists win" but it all really begs the question - which guys are the terrorists again?