We sent half of our tax prebate to Amazon’s Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. When I started this posting, there was $2.4 million, there is now over $3 million. Reloading this page and watching the numbers climb makes me feel better. It’s been rising by $10,000 every five minutes. Knowing $300 of that was ours makes me feel a little bit less useless. Still, $3 million is nothing.

Mayor Giuliani deserves a new degree of respect. I have generally disagreed with him on most policy issues but always respected his conviction. Even more so now. He has demonstrated historic leadership, humanity, humility and grace. Salon has a moving article which mirrors my views pretty well.

I pointed my webcam towards where the World Trade Center was. The cloud of smoke has been visible since, it’s about 2.5km (2 miles) behind the large bulding in the foreground. Last night the wind shifted and we were woken by the smell of acrid smoke. A haze of smoke is filling our neighborhood and many people are walking around with dust masks and handkerchiefs on their faces.

I seem to have developed something of a stock response when asked about all of this. It’s something like, “we’re fine. Our apartment is about two miles north, I heard the second plane hit. I could see the flames. I can’t believe it either.” It’s personally disappointing to repeat myself so much, but wordless is the best word I’ve come up with to describe how I feel.

I’ve read stories about the bombing of London or Hiroshima and the siege of Berlin. I thought I had some sense of sympathy or could imagine how it might have felt to survive those events. Now I know I had no idea, I still have no idea.

Little things mean a lot right now. Church bells ringing at 7:00, people gathering in restaurants. Yesterday mail was delivered even though our neighborhood was closed. Nothing important, a catalog from Pottery Barn and some subscription thing from MacAddict, opening that box, as I do everyday, and finding anything was surprisingly moving.

Thanks and gratitude for the Fire and Police departments can not be adequately conveyed. There are plenty of other ordinary people also helping life go on. The mailmen and women, waiters, waitresses and cooks, checkers and stockers at the markets, delivery men keeping the food in the stores, the phone company for doing their best to re-route the system, the technicians at Time Warner for keeping the cable system running, the Department of Sanitation and all the volunteers from fire and police departments who drove here from other parts of the country.

My brother Ben Maller posted his thoughts. He works at Fox Sports Radio in LA and spent the 11th reading news updates about the World Trade Center attack.