what an unreal twenty four hours it’s been. first off, i want to say again how overwhelmed i am by all your emails and messages - not only from those of you with whom i’ve maintained some kind of correspondence but also from those i’ve never spoken to at all. i’m amazed that i merit this level of concern (over three hundred emails as i write this), and i have to admit i feel a little undeserving. that said, all of you have my gratitude; it’s done wonders for my emotional state during the past day to know that so many of you care.

things have settled down considerably since yesterday morning. the sky out my window today is blue, instead of dark and yellow with dust from the wasteland of lower manhattan. however, instead of commercial planes on their way to jfk, there are just a few military aircraft up this morning. the subway seems to be running again - i can hear it go by once in a while; the mayor said last night that the city would be open to some degree from fourteenth street uptown but that people should avoid moving around and into the city if at all possible. i think i’ll probably do more or less what i did yesterday - stay home and watch the news.

there’s no official death count yet. just the fact that everyone is unwilling to make an estimate is alone terrifying - the closest it’s come was last night during president bush’s address, when he referred to the “thousands of lives suddenly ended.” thousands. i can’t even comprehend the fact that thousands of people with whom i used to share my city are just not there anymore. i’m immensely grateful of course that everyone i personally know made it out unscathed, but that doesn’t change the fact that so many others didn’t. i didn’t actually see the video of the towers collapsing for the first time until about seven o’clock last night, when i finally managed to get some fuzzy reception on a few channels showing news. it was horrifying. the descriptions provided by the radio reporters on npr just didn’t do it justice; it looked completely unreal, like something out of a bad action movie.

i’m being told this morning that u.s. intelligence has found the names of three of the hijackers involved in the plane crashes, and that opens up another pandora’s box - what happens when there is finally a definite culprit behind all of this death and destruction? are we talking about an impending war here? i don’t know if i even want to think about it.

i’m going to take a shower and ponder all of this some more, i guess - how could i not. my thoughts are with those of you who still haven’t heard from all of your friends and family who may have been affected, and thanks once again to everyone who wrote to ask if i was okay or say they were glad that i am. take care.