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Sep. 20th, 2001 05:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI guess that, having skipped two days, I should update my journal.
Why haven't I been writing? I've mostly run out of things to say about the World Trade Center bombing - or the energy to say them with. And everything else in my life seems kind of irrelevant.
And I've been sick - just a low-grade bug with fatigue and muscle aches and headaches and nausea. Somehow, knowing that stress is associated with immune suppression and illness does not protect me from experiencing the effect. I thought knowledge was supposed to be power.
I finished the IRB revisions - remember how upset I was about them? Heh. Had a mad rush today to get them in on time, because Lydia was slow in getting her part of the job to me. (I had written the revisions. She wanted to revise what I wrote. She dictated her revisions to me, over the phone, less than one hour before I was supposed to have eighteen variously-collated-and-highlighted copies in the hands of the IRB.) But who cares? It's just paperwork. It's just administration.
Starhelm's Army Reserve unit has given him the option of volunteering to go, or waiting for the whole unit to be called up.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
saoba says he'll probably volunteer. It'll be his third war. Jesus.
Misha told me today that he'd checked to see if he could enlist. (Not at 34, apparently, he can't.) He hadn't told me before because he thought it would worry/upset me. Which of course it would. Does. Part of me wants to be angry with him - how could he even think of putting himself on the front lines? He's not expendable, damn it, I need him! - but that's not fair. Not when there isn't anyone else I could look in the eye and send in his place. Not when I understand, as deeply as I do, his drive to do something to help. Not when he understood my calls to the Red Cross, the American Psychological Association, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, trying to volunteer my psych skills to the survivors and the bereaved. No. I'm disturbed and disquieted, but not angry.
There will be plenty for us to do here, I told him. And there will. I believe that it's going to take damn near everything that most of us have, to keep this country and this world places we want to live. To care for the hurt, to stem the spread of hatred, to promote understanding, to protect our civil liberties and the civil liberties of non-citizens among us. To preserve our safety. To rebuild. There's so much more to be done than vengeance.
Why haven't I been writing? I've mostly run out of things to say about the World Trade Center bombing - or the energy to say them with. And everything else in my life seems kind of irrelevant.
And I've been sick - just a low-grade bug with fatigue and muscle aches and headaches and nausea. Somehow, knowing that stress is associated with immune suppression and illness does not protect me from experiencing the effect. I thought knowledge was supposed to be power.
I finished the IRB revisions - remember how upset I was about them? Heh. Had a mad rush today to get them in on time, because Lydia was slow in getting her part of the job to me. (I had written the revisions. She wanted to revise what I wrote. She dictated her revisions to me, over the phone, less than one hour before I was supposed to have eighteen variously-collated-and-highlighted copies in the hands of the IRB.) But who cares? It's just paperwork. It's just administration.
Starhelm's Army Reserve unit has given him the option of volunteering to go, or waiting for the whole unit to be called up.
saoba says he'll probably volunteer. It'll be his third war. Jesus.Misha told me today that he'd checked to see if he could enlist. (Not at 34, apparently, he can't.) He hadn't told me before because he thought it would worry/upset me. Which of course it would. Does. Part of me wants to be angry with him - how could he even think of putting himself on the front lines? He's not expendable, damn it, I need him! - but that's not fair. Not when there isn't anyone else I could look in the eye and send in his place. Not when I understand, as deeply as I do, his drive to do something to help. Not when he understood my calls to the Red Cross, the American Psychological Association, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, trying to volunteer my psych skills to the survivors and the bereaved. No. I'm disturbed and disquieted, but not angry.
There will be plenty for us to do here, I told him. And there will. I believe that it's going to take damn near everything that most of us have, to keep this country and this world places we want to live. To care for the hurt, to stem the spread of hatred, to promote understanding, to protect our civil liberties and the civil liberties of non-citizens among us. To preserve our safety. To rebuild. There's so much more to be done than vengeance.
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Irrelevant? You mean one of those pachyderms?
Date: 2001-09-20 07:31 pm (UTC)Okay, so maybe it *FEELS* as if everything else in your life is irrelevant, but it isn't. And it's important to acknowledge that. (So sayeth John, oneth again lapething into that funny ac-ethent.)
But back to the irrelevant part... you're right, there's a lot of work to do, and really, the military work is the least of it. It is probably a necessary part of it, but more important is trying to fix 'everything'. And guns and bombs, or the people controlling them, don't do that (well, the people might, but not WHILE controlling the guns or the bombs).
All our little things are important and relevant. (And Chris is *GOING* to do something about my birthday if I have to drop hints until 9/10/2002!) If we're not willing to make them so, we'll have less energy to spend in fixing those big things.
Sigh. I do understand how Misha feels (and I'm sure Chris would understand how you felt). Okay, so, I have age, weight, my tendonitis, and my regular meds keeping me out. But, damn it, if the NSA said they needed a trustworthy computer geek who understood enough higher math to help the math geeks, I'd be there in an instant. (Of course, that would have the side benefit of giving me a non-Worldcom job. And a job worthy of talents. Not necessarily of *MY* talents... I'd settle for a job worthy of any.)
no subject
Date: 2001-09-20 11:24 pm (UTC)Yes. And those who go to fight elsewhere need a home to come back to. I have no interest in enlisting; but making a house into a home, making a country worth fighting for and woth returning to, that I can do. And so can you. So can we all.