(no subject)

It is really beautiful outside right now. Perhaps mid seventies, clear, a bit of a breeze. I have never felt an August below ninety.

I wonder if there was some massive accident around here recently. Every day I see numerous people with bandaged arms or legs, sometimes heads. David remarked on it as well. I see many more older people with crutches and canes.

Brno is a quiet place. I went out last night with some other students, and we spent some time sitting in a very warm bar, before tromping down to another club playing cheesy dance music. The best thing about all of it was ordering drinks filled with ice. Watched a lot of the impossibly good-looking girls. There is something about the way they look, their expressions, their manner of moving, that is so very far from home. It is puzzling and attractive.

Everyone has gone off to Telč today, so I am left in a blessedly empty room. Washed lots of clothes. Will never take my washing machine for granted ever again. Just contemplating the amount of time that used to be spent on just that task... I have been thinking a lot about materialism and machines and the way we live, lately. Reading Edith Wharton and novels about Communism will do that I suppose. Perhaps later the thoughts will clarify themselves, and I will write it all down. I make cryptic and weird notes to myself in the notebook Elisa gave to me, listening to Remy Zero. I have been listening to a lot of Remy Zero lately.

(no subject)

There is an article in the NY Times today about the WTC, and how some firefighters made it much further up in the south tower than anyone knew.

A few times so far, some of the Germans and others have asked me about September 11th. It is hard, to find words. I am at a loss as to why I am still so inarticulate about this moment. When I was a kid, my mom would tell me about the afternoon when they learned about Kennedy's death, about her rage and fighting with her father about Kent State, and I always wanted to have some moment that would connect me to everyone else like that. Here is is, and I do not know what to say. It must seem morbid, to have wanted to experience something like that, but I was a lonely child. I wanted so much to belong to something.

I read these articles, and I still cry. Because it is awe inspiring and terrible, the madness and the bravery in human hearts.