Sunday, 07 October 2001 | Broadcast

I set up my clock-radio next to the sink so I could listen to NPR while washing dishes, so I could listen to what's been prepared for me. I still don't feel like I know much of anything, even though the radio and TV were on all day. All day I drifted in and out, sometimes listening closely, sometimes just letting it wash over me as I thought about other things, allowing the information to seep in my head osmotically. At one point—I think it was when Donald Rumsfeld was speaking—both the radio and TV were broadcasting the same words by the same voice but with a split-second delay between them. Standing in between the two felt like being caught in an echo, making everything feel more surreal than it already did, making me feel like I had woken up in the world depicted in Bladerunner. I don't know what to think. I feel like the hope that welled up in me as a teenager has been filed down into an ugly, imperfect bead of cynicism. I'm afraid of losing the little bit of hope I have left.

Tomorrow I expect to get a flood of tacky inter-office e-mails, the kind with airbrushed eagles whose talons are clutching shredded turbans, or something of the sort. They're always worse than I imagine, not unlike the titles for the "operations." Such a sterile word for death.

On a related note, Ingo told me that "God Bless America" was stamped into the ground beef he bought at the grocery store. I laughed when he told me that, but it's worn off by now.