I think I knew this back in Wyoming

I'm trying to sell my computer on half.com so I can buy a laptop. so I can leave town. some of the furniture I'll trash, the rest I'll leave in my parents' basement. I'll get my car checked out at the new mechanic, the one in Pleasantville just off the Saw Mill. i have the doctor's appointment on October 4th. I'll get innoculated for smallpox. I'll stock up on Evian and prescription drugs. I'll point the car west. I'll see where it takes me.

the Henson job will pay me wherever I am, around Thanksgiving they said. I can get by till then. well, as much as any of us can. Till then. planning for the future, and it's weird now, because, heh! who knows. heh.

I never wanted to be here anyway. all I need to do is pay the cell phone bill. Keep the cell phone. that's something I'll need to have. wherever I am.

it's getting cold in New York already, I had to close the windows. that and anthrax. I don't know, guess I want to get out of here before snowfall.

and Jo, jo, i'll find you wherever and whenever you are.

anger, now

I sent a letter to the editor, over at MSNBC.com. I said:

Bush's promise for a "lengthy engagement," his insistence that he's a "patient man," and that he won't rest until the world is rid of terrorism is all fine and good for HIM, the first president to have to use the anti-nuke bunker ever. Sure, he's not afraid for his own life, so he's in a very peculiar position to make decisions for the rest of us.

I'm in New York, and like a lot of people, I'm scared. I'll tell you, if I were flanked with secret service men, if I could fly with an armed escort and F-16s at my side, I think I might have exactly the same idiotic perspective our president has -- this doesn't affect him, this is just a game, he can come off tough and proud and haughty and militant and hell, maybe he'll even get re-elected, if there's anyone left alive to vote for him.

But we're told the rest of us are expected to make sacrifices. And I don't think he means just the military. I think he's calculating, over there in his protected crazy brains, just how many more civilians we're prepared to lose that'll still allow him to win re-election. How many cities is that, George? Do we need to finish New York? Chicago and LA too? What about middle America? Well, they're nice and spread out and they always liked you anyhow. So let's do away with the big liberal urban centers, that'll lock up re-election for sure.

So I'm not prepared to support any of this, not any more loss of life or any more fear or sacrifice unless I'm convinced the President's got the same fear for his life that I've got. That we've got. Giuliani stood up for his city, but that was because he was scared, he knew it could have been him too.

And as far as I can tell, that's the only thing that separates us from the suicide pilots and the trained kamikazes of the Taliban -- we've got a will to live. But knowing that when the attacks come my president's gonna be holed up in a bunker somewhere makes me very loathe to rally behind his call to arms. And, yeah, reminds me why this country didn't really vote for him the first time around either.

the big chill

I'm not leaving, not yet anyway. I still need to put things in order, to figure out these crazy brains. and I'm not going anywhere until I go down to Jersey to see G. and Helen too. and I'm not going anywhere until I see all the doctors, and figure out my income, and I'm not going anywhere until I get to make these decisions, as Jae says, in daylight.

I'm just scared, that's all. all I am, right now, is scared.

you know that thing? that party game, what groups do you identify with most? and I used to say "smart people" first, and then maybe "jewish people" and then maybe "New Yorkers" or "women" or "democrats" or "hollywood types." "Fans," I'd say. "media junkies." "artists," I'd say.

"scared," I say now. card-carrying member of scared.

when Jo went to buy tickets to travel here this winter they said, "we'll see" and they said "traveling to the United States is unadvisable." the way they used to tell us not to go to Israel, or Belfast, or Cuba. hot zones, they'd say, warzones. Places of unsafe.

I really never thought I'd see the day when Here was a place of unsafe.