9/11

What's your 9/11 memory. I remember growing up in a world without war. The children of my generation where allow a peaceful life. Sure we saw then ends of the cold war, we watched on tv as the wall came down, but were too young to understand it. We didn't have to live through Vietnam like our parents or world wars like our grandparents. We've seen bomb shelters, but didn't understand them. We grew up before the internet, and world connections. We were suppose to be the generation with no war. We felt safe, very little to protest. Being a yippee was more about music and smoking pot than having a way of life to protest against. Then the impossible happened, we were attacked on our own soil. Our way of life changed, and that of our children. 9/11 happen. I remember my boyfriend at the time driving me to school and hearing the new on the radio. It was confused and I didn't understand what was going on. The news on the radio was not something I'd grown up equipped to understand. My initial understand was that we were under attack and a plane landed at the pentagon. I couldn't understand in all my 21 years, what was going on. To me it seemed like the impossible happened. I didn't understand at all that planes had been hijacked and flown into the world trade center. I went to class being scared and confused. Until sitting in my economic anthropology class, and later my philosophy where I finally figured out what happened. Or as much of what happened as I'll ever understand. Then they closed the University of Minnesota, and I remember wandering around campus not really sure what to do next. This world I lived in seemed to come crashing down around me. I went to work next because it wasn't far from where I lived, and the just watched everything unfold on tv over and over again. Now the generation that gre w up with out any understand of war, besides what we learned in school, had come smack in the face with a global reality. It wasn't the case that there were no wars being fought while we grew up, just that we never were forced to be a part of it. Here we were in our mid and early 20ies forced to deal with the idea that there were people out there who hated us, solely based on where/how we grew up.

Such a shocking transition to the lives we look back on in our 30ies where friends and family have fought and died for our safety. That fateful day ten years ago still seems much like a bad dream. All the details come back like flashbacks in a movie, every moment playing in slow motion. Our world was forever changed that day, and that of our children. Our children don't get to grow up in a world with out war. They have to be strong enough to watch their mothers and fathers fight for them. I don't really know which is a better world thinking back, I do know that I'm eternally both grateful and proud of all those who fought to try and make this world a safer place. In this ten year anniversary of 9/11. To remember all that was lost, and to say thank you for the strength and courage of the american military. Ten years ago tomorrow I learn what it really meant to say, All gave some and some gave all. For that I thank you.....

The bitch is back

I'm not going to lie the title really has nothing to do with the following post. I feel like I should contextualize that on the off chance that anyone actually reads this which I'm sure will not be the case. I do have some quite bitchy things to say but if you don't like it I suggest you stop here because as we well know once we get started its kind of hard to stop So here we go, don't say I didn't warn you...

What I'm really feeling five days a week, is that I totally might kill someone. Not in my normal I always kind of want to kill someone way, but in I actually physically might kill someone. The reason for this is that I've recently moved to a store out west, and driving through the northwest side is pretty much enough to make an sane person crazy, and I've never professed myself to be said sane person. First this street I drive down seems to me to be the only street in the city with a posted speed limit. It's not that I'm inherently against speed limits, but I'm inherently against speed limits that only exist to make me crazier than I already am. I mean solely that when you go the posted speed limit you are guarantied to hit every red light no matter what time of day.

My problem is that 95% of the people on said street seem determined to go the speed limit or below, and block anyone from moving around them. I've come to the determination that they do this because they must be afraid of getting deported back to their country of origin.

Now this might sound a bit racist, but I assure you that the people I'm speaking of are likely from eastern Europe,and not south of the border as you might have suspected.

As I try to move around set vehicles I find my problem compounded by the guy selling roses at all hours of the day by the highway. Not really sure how this is a wise way to spend ones time, because who really buys roses from some guy selling them in the street, but he must make some sort of living this way because he is there every freaking day. Also there is about 5 regular homeless people with their plastic cups begging for change at one of the 900 street lights I'm forced to stop at on my trek to work. One of which I almost ran over in frustration to get around a line of aforementioned slow future deportees.

Then there is the endless construction signs when mention lane closures where there are none, no signs where there is, and then just random portions of the pavement missing is large blocks for no reason. All of which make for a very stressful drive to and from work. Forcing me to grid the hell out of my teeth.

The bigger problem is I'm not entirely sure the brakes in the front half of my car work. A fact which I've yet to mention to my dad for fear that he might actually murder me for driving with them, and for asking him to fix them (I kid my parents are both awesome). This however means that when I try really hard to move around stupid ass people I'm not entirely sure my car will stop at will. Maybe it will stop at it's own will, but not mine, and lets none even bring up the idea of stopping on a dime.

Bottom line is the drive too and from work has become nothing less then an adventure, one I'm not in love with, and really want no part of. So if I'm calling you at all hours of the night looking for bail money for having run someone over, worry not, just call some folks and get the money together.