mourning

i can't stop watching the damn tv. they don't know anything new, of course, but i can't turn it off. i think it's the noise. i just need the noise. or maybe some part of me is waiting for the "breaking news" that this is all just a dream.

last night we had tickets to see the harlem globetrotters, so we went ahead to the compaq center for the show. they held a moment of silence, which was nice. afterward, i headed over to chris and edgar's apartment. yesterday was edgar's birthday, and they had already been planning a party. yesterday's events only strengthened our desire to be together, i think. we ate cake and ice cream, we drank some beer, we played a massive 20-person game of cranium and laughed. most of all, we didn't talk about work, and for those couple hours, i forgot about the awfulness of the rest of the day.

i came home and couldn't sleep. i turned on the damn tv again. cnn showed video of a patch lying in the grass, and then of a helmet, sitting in the middle of a field. just a helmet. god, a helmet. the image haunted me for another hour before i finally fell asleep out of exhaustion around 2 a.m. i was worried i would have nightmares, but i guess i was too tired.

i am sort of dreading going to work tomorrow. well, not sort of, i am dreading work tomorrow. i haven't driven by site yet, though i can see the flag at half-staff from my living room window. i told ron last night as he drove me home that i don't think it's really sunk in yet. going to work means i have to acknowledge it. going to work means i have to walk the halls and look at the faces of people just as or more devastated than i am.

but i'll go to work, despite my fears. not because it's my job, but because i want to. we'll get through this.