No. I haven’t forgotten. It’s something that’s been with me every day for the past two years, except the day my daughter was born. That day in March 2002, the rest of the world ceased to matter. I think about it constantly. Every time a plane flies low over Manhattan. Every time there are a few more sirens than normal. Every time there is an unusually loud noise outside, pausing, waiting for the sirens to follow. Everytime I walk by a fire station. They’ve all got plaques now.

Like last year, I took Lila to the Tompkin’s Square playground. Children are clarity. They’re continuation, hope, sanity. Almost all of our regular morning group were born into the world of September 12th. The planes flew over their mothers and fathers while they were still in the womb.

Lila was puzzled by the church bells. Flight 11, 8:45am. Flight 175, 9:03am. WTC south tower collapses, 10:05am. WTC north tower collapses, 10:28am. News helicopters were buzzing around to the south. Bells change the air.

I walked by the fire station for Ladder 11 and Engine 28 on Second Street again this year. The half-burnt sign from the old truck is now inside and there are six new memorial plaques on the wall outside. Again, there were firefighters in dress blues gathered inside with family. Again I couldn’t say anything to them.

This year I’m not filled with grief. If anything I feel resolute. I understand a lot more. I get the flags, they make me feel proud of being here, proud of my great grandparents for getting on boats and crossing the Atlantic on the rumor things could be better. Here. It took me a long time to come around.

Recently I re-read an article by a professor at the US Naval War College. He was replying to a critical letter about an article he’d written for Esquire. The sentiment has stuck with me.

“I believe life consistently improves for humanity over time, but is does so only because individuals, communities, and even entire countries take it upon themselves not only to imagine a future worth creating but actually to try to build it. I work for the finest government in history, in the greatest country in the world. I am proud to be associated with the best military on the planet. I get up every morning convinced that my job is to change the world, and I remain wholly optimistic that it can be done.”

–Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett

Two years ago I would have bristled at that. Two years ago I was a very different person.

It’s starting again. Today I started receiving notices of messages sent containing the SOBIG.F worm. (Of course I don’t have it and I didn’t send them, these worms spoof return email addresses.) The first batch I got were all sent from French servers.

We got power back at around 7:30pm, people cheered. Water pressure is coming back. The south side of East 14th Street still seem dark.

Update: The East Village and apparently the rest of New York City got power back shortly after 9pm. Walking around I couldn’t stop smiling, appreciating things like streetlights and neon signs and catching bits of stoopside conversations. The guy who runs the pizza place next door has been making pizzas as fast as his oven can handle, and people are lined up out into the street waiting for pies and slices.

If I said, “it’s always something,” would you believe me?

Blackout

I finally realized that the only phone I have which works without being plugged into the wall was the modem in my laptop. The only access number I had was to Lancaster, PA, which Michelle used while on press for some job or another. So I’m sitting on the floor, plugged into a landline, paying long-distance to Pennsylvania, listening to mind-numbing, repetitive news radio coverage about darkness.

After making sure Lila and Michelle were ok, unplugging most everything and turning off the circuit breakers, I spent a few hours helping neighbors get to their apartments. Our building has 18 floors, the stairwells are ventilated with electric fans at the top of the shafts. I went up and down several dozen times, making sure the doors were open, lighting candles, helping people see their keys in the dark and sweating excessively. Our building has emergency lighting, but it’s evacuation lighting and ran out of power after an hour or two.

I really haven’t been able to enjoy the spectacle of this whole thing, partly because I don’t know how long it will last. Also, I can’t get “Let’s Roll” out of my head. This feels like some kind of test, measuring how we’d (I’d) react when something bad happened. So far, so good. I was going to go to the hospital to see if they needed volunteers, but everything is so calm the firemen across the street are hanging out on the sidewalk talking to people.

I tried taking a few photos which I’ll post when the power’s back.

The heat wasn’t that bad today. Highs were in the low 90s, but humidity was low and there was a nice breeze. The news is largely incompetent.

I made some notes earlier:

8:15pm There are some lights visible in Brooklyn, the big Chase tower (I think that’s what it is) is lit up, as is the building in front of it. Beth Israel Hospital and the NY Eye and Ear Infirmary are both lit by emergency generators. For some reason, Beth Israel’s sign is lit up. I wouldn’t consider that emergency-related.

There’s still light in the sky, but it. is. dark.

Tons of people still on the sidewalks.

Our water pressure has dropped to pretty much nothing, faucets are dry and the toilets don’t flush anymore. I’m really unhappy about this. We have lots of bottled water, but no water is going to be hard with Lila.

9:40pm Fireworks over Chinatown. Sidewalks still crowded.

10:04pm Someone, probably on IndyMedia or Democratic Underground, will accuse Bush of orchestrating the blackout as an excuse for why Iraq is such a mess.

Someone, probably a very right conservative, will blame Canada.

At some point in the past hour, one of the buildings in Brooklyn went dark.

I’d really like to see an area come back online, to see if it trickles on like in the movies or just blinks on all at once. But I’m getting really tired, despite the second wind finagling an internet connection gave me.

Eating with kids in New York City:
A dining guide for parents and their junior gourmets.

A small snippet of JavaScript can be included inline following an HTML form to set focus on a specific form field. This has never worked right in Safari.

Initially I assumed I must have done something wrong, but after a lot of testing, I’m convinced this is a bug in Safari/WebCore/JavaScriptCore.

I put up a set of tests to demonstrate the problem: Safari Inline Script Bug.