Where were you?

I'm gonna steal an idea I saw on a friend's blog today and talk a little bit about 9/11.

Where was I?

I was at home, in Rhode Island. I was going into my freshman year of college, at Northeastern, but NU didn't require us to come up until the 15th, so I was enjoying an extended summer at my mom's house.

Naturally, I didn't get up all that early in those days, and when I did, I didn't exactly flip it onto the news. But the news was on. In my early morning haze, it looked like they were concentrating on some big fire (didn't stay on it long enough to realize it was the fire at the Pentagon.) I don't remember what brought me back to the news a few minutes later, but I ended up flipping on the Today show. And I don't think I left it for the next 8 hours.

About 2 minutes after I landed on the channel, watching Katie and Matt catch me up, the second tower (the first one that went down) collapsed. I remember they didn't notice right away and I yelped, audibly, even though I was the only one home. I couldn't believe I just watched an entire building crumble.

After that I went into a little bit of panic mode, I called my mom at school. She said people were watching and she knew what was going on. I called my then-boyfriend who was already at school at Boston University. He didn't answer.

I called my best friend Andrew, who was going to school in D.C. He didn't answer. That was very stressful for me, as there was a reporter there who kept screaming because because he thought he heard a plane. Does anyone else remember that? That guy, perhaps understandably, was not keeping it together.

So I sat at home and stared, watched in silence like everyone else. Finally, my boyfriend called. I was furious they hadn't dismissed his class -- and that he hadn't called me despite the fact that he saw what was happening before he left. 

About this time was when they thought some of the terrorists were in a Boston hotel. Santino (that was his name) decided it might be a good idea to go down there and check out the commotion. I was not into that idea at all.

Finally, I got in touch with Andrew in D.C. (This would be a good time to admit I had, until that point, thought the Pentagon was in England. I have no idea why. I also thought to myself, "This is definitely Russia right? Russia is bombing the US!!" Until Santino told me, no, there are terrorists in the middle east, including this one called Bin Laden who sort of hates us. Once I realized how wrong I was, and how little I knew about basic government, I decided to become a political science minor at NU. I never wanted to be that embarrassed by my lack of knowledge again). Thankfully, Andrew was OK, not worried, per usual.

Eventually, I had to go to work. I kept waiting for them to call me off, to tell me I didn't have to come in. They didn't. It was a little Italian restaurant with a Dels counter. It was a slow night so I got to watch a good deal of TV. Around 6:30, my old boss who worked at the tuxedo shop across the plaza, who I was still friendly with, came in with his 4 year old daughter to get a lemonade. I kept trying to strike up a conversation about the day's events by giving him, "Can you believe it?" eyes. He didn't bite. I realized later, he probably didn't want to talk about it in front of his daughter.

Doesn't quite feel like seven years yet.