Have I ever mentioned how much I love passing kidney stones? It’s become one of my most treasured hobbies.
On that note, I may either blog here copiously over the next few days or I may be a guest of HCA. You never know.
Regardless, I’m so tempted to not follow blogs at all on Tuesday. I just don’t know that I’m up for the whole thing. Besides, I’ve already figured out what it’ll pretty much look like. And since I’m supposed to increase my fluid intake, I figured I’d come up with a drinking game. (In my case it’ll be swigs of water, but you feel free to choose your own poison.)
- “Where I was=In Boise” Take a big swig if the person had no concrete ties to anyone directly affected, but goes on as though they lost their entire family in the Twin Towers
- “So Easy A Caveman Could Do It” Two big swigs if the post mentions how we haven’t found Bin Laden yet.
- “Heart Of Glass” A big swig if the post mentions nuking any desert countries.
- “I Think My Sepllchck Is Borken” A swig and a half if the post uses the word “Dhimmicrat” or “Rethuglican”
- “Math Is Hard” Drink a half litre if the post talks about how we’ve lost X many more soldiers in since 9/11 than civilians who died on 9/11. Drink the other half-litre if the post uses the phrase War on Terror. Yet another half-litre if they put War On Terror in snide-quotes.
- “When Life Gives You Lemons” Make up a nice batch of Crystal Light Lemonade to keep on hand for when the post talks about Good Things Happening In Iraq.
- “On The Rocks” Have you a cold glass when the post sarcastically mentions yellow ribbon magnets. Have another half-glass if the post mentions that the magnets were probably made in China.
- “All The Tea In” Make up a nice batch of sweet tea for when a post mentions that we’re kidding ourselves about the war on terror if we can’t even protect our food supply from China.
- “No Mixing” Straight up water for every mention of how we’re supposed to be fighting for oil but gas prices are going up.
- “Heartless Bitch” Drink whatever you want whenever someone proposes turning 9/11 memories into a drinking game.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
Get out of my brain.
But Katherine! This year, 9/11 is on the very same day of the week as it was when we were attacked! That is very significant.
Nicely done. By the looks of it, I’m going to be totally shnozzled by this time tomorrow.
What’s the rule for any instance of “Let’s Roll?”
Can people in New York drink twice any time someone claims special insight into 9/11 because they live anywhere within the geographic boundaries of the state? How about swapping drinks with the person next to you every time someone says that 9/11 changed everything?
Um, I hope the kidney stone has a happy outcome. So to speak. As to the rest of it, well.
See, nm, you’re one of the people who was directly seriously affected.
Look, I know we were ALL affected that day one way or another. But to me it cheapens the pain of the people directly suffering for folks like me who were not there to go on about it.
No, no, I don’t feel that I was directly affected. I wasn’t in the buildings, I didn’t work anywhere on World Trade Plaza, and I didn’t live in Battery Park City. Those are the people who were truly directly affected, them and I guess the immediate families of those who died; everyone else (fortunately) was at a bit of a remove. I still find it all painful, but I don’t think there’s some absolute dividing line that separates those who get to suffer from those who don’t. Although I guess I don’t want to hear about the suffering experience of those with no personal connection to the place or the people involved, if they have reflections that aren’t all about their own sensitivity those reflections might be worthwhile. Or not, of course.
The thing that bothers me is this idea of not talking about it if you weren’t personally tragically affected. Kat, I think you meant to comment more on overly dramatic/political takes, but it does seem to be one of those things where people want to tell their story, where they were, how they felt, on a day when nobody was quite sure what was going on or where/when it would stop. They don’t all have to be more academic reflections, but many people will want to tell their kids, as they work through their history books, “This is what we thought on that day,” and I think the worth of that is in the storytelling, the oral history, a way of sharing an experience on a larger scale than usual, and that doesn’t have to be some Big Serious Academic perspective.
Rachel, do you really want to hear my story about where I was and how I felt when John Kennedy was shot? I can tell you how confusing it was, and as my friend maybe you’ll care. But if I’m running around telling the world about it every November, unless I’m one of his kids maybe it’s time for me to get over myself. Not get over the event, but over my own self-importance. This, I think, is what Kat means.
nm, sure I do. I love to be told a story, and the Kennedy assassination is exactly the sort of the comparison I had in mind. I don’t think you need to tell everybody every single November, but I’m just thinking that maybe some people haven’t told their stories yet, and want to record it somewhere that might be their blog, and if this is the year they feel like doing so, fine. I guess I just don’t want people to feel like, “Hey, you missed the boat, you don’t get to talk about this anymore.” I do get what Kat is saying, though.
The oral and written record of personal experiences from 9/11 has been abundantly collected, both in the immediate aftermath (as the contribution that historians could make in a time of profound national grief) and in subsequent iterations (people who work with the invention, manipulation, and deployment of public memory have been very interested in watching how private commemorations and nostalgic utterances have morphed over time and how they are used to launch other kinds of political/civic claims). It’s probably the best-studied and best-collected event in US history at the moment.
For whatever that’s worth.
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