WE ARE NOT AFRAID: I woke up this morning to a flood in the bedroom of my new apartment. There are two leaks, with water gushing in from under the carpet and running down the wall. We had torrential rains from the remains of hurricanes Cindy and Dennis. They've ripped up the carpet and my place is a construction zone. I've completely disassociated from reality, because if not I'd have killed myself by now. In August, I'm moving again. I'll be in the same building, but on the top floor. The thought of moving again makes me want to slice my wrists all the way to my elbow, but I've not felt comfortable in the new apartment. I hate the ground floor (even more so now) and I need to get to a place where I can be at peace.
Of course, my little drama is put into perspective by what happened in London. There are now 52 dead and the recovery work continues. What I love about Londoners, and the British in general, is their spirit. They have gone back to work, they are riding the tube, they are giving the big middle finger to the motherfuckers who did this.
Over the last few days a brilliant website called We're Not Afraid has been created showing images of people, pets or London landmarks, all with the added message that "We are not afraid." By 10 a.m. today, four days after the blasts, about 3,500 images had been submitted and more than 1,000 posted on the site. Getting to the site has been hard because thousands are trying to access it. The site has has over 250,000 hits in just a couple of days. Be patient and check it out. Or check out the story on CNN, which has some images from the site.
This has been a year of personal challenges because of all sorts of circumstances: deaths, family illnesses, work, my writing career, the move that nearly killed me. But this morning, sitting in the middle of my flooded apartment, I just had to laugh. It's really all you can do. Life is short, and although I believe in reincarnation, I want to live this current one without fear. I was in Paris during a high alert and just before the bombing of the Saint-Michel metro station in 1995. During that same trip, the Eurostar passed over a bomb that failed to detonate on the tracks. I flew into London in 1996 the day of the IRA bombing of a London bus in the West End. I'll be going back o London soon. I'll get on the trains, tubes and on the buses. And I won't be afraid.
UPDATE: The news is rife this evening about a secret memo leaked to a London newspaper about the UK's plans to pull troops out of Iraq and redeploy them to Afghanistan. That same memo also talked about the US pulling thousands of troops out of Iraq early in 2006 and handing security over to what is now supposed to be a free country. Hmmm...interesting timing. Just in time for the presidential candidates to start making their intentions known. Watch this closely folks. Just a few months ago, Dubya was saying we're staying until the job is done and now there's plans to cut and run in six months.
Also, Dubya's favorite butt boy, Karl Rove, has been identified as the mouth who revealed that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative to a journalist. Dubya said he would fire whoever the culprit turned out to be. Oh...really? I can't wait to see if the prez will leave his main man twirling in the wind.
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica in Bosnia, where more than 7,000 Muslim boys and men were massacred by Bosnia Serbs. This kind of ethnic cleansing continues today in many places, such as Darfur, with little intervention by other countries, including the G8.
Of course, my little drama is put into perspective by what happened in London. There are now 52 dead and the recovery work continues. What I love about Londoners, and the British in general, is their spirit. They have gone back to work, they are riding the tube, they are giving the big middle finger to the motherfuckers who did this.
Over the last few days a brilliant website called We're Not Afraid has been created showing images of people, pets or London landmarks, all with the added message that "We are not afraid." By 10 a.m. today, four days after the blasts, about 3,500 images had been submitted and more than 1,000 posted on the site. Getting to the site has been hard because thousands are trying to access it. The site has has over 250,000 hits in just a couple of days. Be patient and check it out. Or check out the story on CNN, which has some images from the site.
This has been a year of personal challenges because of all sorts of circumstances: deaths, family illnesses, work, my writing career, the move that nearly killed me. But this morning, sitting in the middle of my flooded apartment, I just had to laugh. It's really all you can do. Life is short, and although I believe in reincarnation, I want to live this current one without fear. I was in Paris during a high alert and just before the bombing of the Saint-Michel metro station in 1995. During that same trip, the Eurostar passed over a bomb that failed to detonate on the tracks. I flew into London in 1996 the day of the IRA bombing of a London bus in the West End. I'll be going back o London soon. I'll get on the trains, tubes and on the buses. And I won't be afraid.
UPDATE: The news is rife this evening about a secret memo leaked to a London newspaper about the UK's plans to pull troops out of Iraq and redeploy them to Afghanistan. That same memo also talked about the US pulling thousands of troops out of Iraq early in 2006 and handing security over to what is now supposed to be a free country. Hmmm...interesting timing. Just in time for the presidential candidates to start making their intentions known. Watch this closely folks. Just a few months ago, Dubya was saying we're staying until the job is done and now there's plans to cut and run in six months.
Also, Dubya's favorite butt boy, Karl Rove, has been identified as the mouth who revealed that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative to a journalist. Dubya said he would fire whoever the culprit turned out to be. Oh...really? I can't wait to see if the prez will leave his main man twirling in the wind.
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica in Bosnia, where more than 7,000 Muslim boys and men were massacred by Bosnia Serbs. This kind of ethnic cleansing continues today in many places, such as Darfur, with little intervention by other countries, including the G8.
Comments
GAV