Sunday, September 16, 2001

I have just spent an hour on the phone with a very close friend in New York, and then two hours online chatting. I was not at all prepared for his aggression towards me, of all people. But I guess I have to accept it. In 11 days I am going to New York if my plane is flying. That city will be packed with people who will be in shock and using moral outrage and patriotism as ways to deal with this horrible, impossible thing they have just experienced. When a person who I know really cares about me can get that upset over me not sharing his immediate feelings and opinions, I guess I should start practicing right away: nodding, and making sympathetic neutral noices.

OK, so I get sarcastic about this, but it makes me apprehensive. I have been to cities which have been hit by bombs before, been evacuated in bomb-threats, walked through a rail-way station just minutes before a bomb exploded and killed people... and I never was this worried about how I would be treated by the people on the street.

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