Where were you

September 11th is a day I don't like to think about. Very much like one other September day. My son was in preschool in Arlington, VA. My husband was a contractor at the Pentagon. I worked as a contractor at the FCC in DC after we got married and moved from our beach life in Florida to the snooty confines of DC for work. Despite the challenges of having a child like my (our) son (K adopted him - thus the funny name)... we thought having a child of our own was in order. I was 8 months pregnant with her on Sept. 11, 2001.

We didn't have TV's in our office at the FCC and it was before the age of streaming news. We had just bought a house in southern Maryland for my mom. She hadn't moved in yet. I heard about the first plane crash into the towers and thought it was a mistake. An accident. Then my desk phone rang. It was my mom.

"Go home! Go home now!" What? I metroed in, as usual. I'd have to metro home. The office was buzzing with news of the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center, but at that point, we thought it was an accident, not intentional. "That's New York," I replied, "Nothing is happening here." She told me about the second plane and that one had also crashed into the Pentagon. WHAT?!

I frantically tried to pull up CNN on my computer, but the site wasn't responding. My boss had a TV in his office, and most of our group gathered around it, but I didn't want to leave my phone. I tried calling my husband, but couldn't get through. I left a voicemail. By then we knew it was a terrorist attack. Despite my mom's fears, I was pretty confident the FCC wouldn't be a target, but the government evacuated DC and told us to go home.

A coworker gave me a ride home as I wasn't about to get on the Metro with all the rumors swirling around. We crept through DC - seeing smoke rising from the Pentagon across the river. People were out walking across bridges. The whole sight was surreal. I kept trying to reach my husband, who I thought had said he'd be at a satellite office but actually was in the Pentagon when the plane hit.

Two posts in one day!

Will wonders never cease?!

I used to be a pretty darn good writer. But somewhere along the way, I think I became too "me" focused. Actually, I was always that way, but it worked for me. It no longer does. Partially because I take sniping and criticism to heart (despite advising others to be ducks and let it roll off their backs). I've also apparently lost passion for what I write about. Topics used to come easy to me. I could read one quote and riff an entire post off it. Now, I can go days before anything sparks my interest to take to the keyboard. And now I get paid for it... so I fret over if it's "good enough" for the media site and obsess over word counts (something unheard of before).

Something happened that sparked that passion again and I wrote probably one of my best pieces (on my personal blog, not the media site). Still, it was a little too "me" focused and maybe I should have left that out. I was trying to paint a picture of how the person I was writing about wasn't like his peers in the press box, not make it my horror at not being his best friend. I think I missed the mark there. What I was trying to convey was that the image he presents is not all it appears, but oh well.

I had information he did not. He clearly misspoke and then lashed out at people who "had no information". Which I had. And he didn't. I was enraged. He lashed out against someone he covers day to day who is a national star. It was wrong. So I took him down.

And now I'm regretting it. I'm not one to get negative normally in my writing. I'm not negative in person. But now I feel like a "bad person". I want the good passion back. I don't want to get angered in order to write well (and then worry about showing my face in the press box ever again since it appears this guy will not get fired for his clearly wrong embarrassing remarks). Huh.

So now I'm considering quitting something I've loved and enjoyed for the past 5 years over a single event where I was for once in my life very opinionated. Silly? I don't know. Just when I achieved my goals of getting hired by a major media outlet to write, not be a sysadmin. Maybe I can retrain myself to write with a new style, but my honesty and views are what I've done well. Ho hum, what a conundrum.

I still stand by what I wrote :P

The other side to this is the deeper in I get, the more I see the sniping between (and behind backs of) other writers. I see the lies and misinformation fed to the media. It's lost its shine. That childlike innocence and craving curiosity I possessed that led me to this point has been killed.

I'm a big chicken

I never contacted anyone. I learned the boy died in a motorcycle accident after he skidded off a California highway into a utility pole at high speed. He was in the military and at the base in Lompoc. While discovering his death resurfaced some of my pain, the family has now had 4 years to heal and I decided there's no need to re-open two wounds for them. My heart breaks for the girl, however. In her short life she's lost both parents and her brother. Maybe when my son is older, I'll tell him he has a half sister and how to find her. Next month will mark 13 years since "the event" I still don't like to think about.

In other news, I think it's time to give up wine before dinner. Not the blog (which clearly I don't update enough), but the actual practice!