(no subject)

so tired. going to sleep soon. i think i'm only still awake because i've propped myself up on the vertical.

i watched silly movies this evening. Chocolat (which worked overtime to be "charming" and had great clothes, but a totally predictable plot) and Josie and the Pussycats (which was funny and satirical, better than I expected, but suffered from a weak ending). i needed the distraction. it helped a lot to be able to laugh. i can't help anyone else. (it looks like i won't even be able to give blood; they're sketchy on the chronic fatigue bit, but also apparently discouraging people who have had tattoos or piercings within the last year.)

my college didn't even close today. they were like the only school in the state that stayed open. national and statewide state of emergency was declared, threatcon delta code red etc, highway patrol was saying to stay off the roads unless in an emergency. but no, we're open... and don't worry! the guys who write out the parking tickets are on alert! it's enough to make one want to repeatedly bang one's own head on some nearby hard surface.

(no subject)

I want to crawl in bed for a week and not hear news anymore. People are talking reprisals, retaliations, etc. Stupid "prophecy" posts are everywhere. Prophecy is bullshit, and I don't want a war. What, more people get to die for this? Get to the perpetrators, not the people who live in countries where they may be staying. And not MORE Americans.

"We" (Americans) don't need revenge, we need time and answers and to stop the organizers of things like this (without massacre-ing any civillians who happen to stand in the way). There is no reason to get all "patriotic" - most of the nation didn't do anything useful yesterday, we sat at home and watched TV instead, though a lot of us want to do something and will try to help however we can.

The victims are not a "we". This is approximately one fuckload of individual people who got killed. People who have names and families. People who may themselves not have been "American" (tons of foreign companies had offices in the WTC). People who, if all were Americans, would comprise less than 1% of the national population (while still being 100% more than should be dead). There is no "Us" and no "Them", in these terms. There are (very likely) multinational people who did something horrible and multinational people who died as a result. Nationalism is an enemy to rational thought.

Anyway, all the hoaxes, all the racist statements, all the opinions, are wearing me out. Not so much among my immediate LJ friends as among people in other forums.

I got a good night's sleep. I have a bit of a sore throat. My head hurts. Yesterday my eyes hurt and I kept holding a cloth over them. My hands shook all day. I'm obviously feeling more stressed than my manner would admit.

I was accosted this evening by one of my mother's profs and asked (IE, pressured) to be on my college's Brain Bowl team. We'll see. I don't plan to be there for the full year, so... I don't know.

New SOTW up later. This is actually the SOTW I wanted to put up last week, but delayed by the ultra-cute song I chose instead. So don't read too much meaning into the lyrics... there are no hidden messages from me, no ironic commentary (the closest I've come to that is "I guess the Pentagon is looking more quadralinear than... pentagonal... today", which wasn't meant to be funny, really).

I rented Memento yesterday and it's due to be returned tomorrow morning, but alas I have not yet had the chance to watch it. I'll probably do that tomorrow afternoon.