"I'm Okay!"

Apologies for missing a week, my hypothetical fan base. And apologies for thus having to address this subject.

It is, to those of us in the United States, September 11th; and that's a day we aren't really allowed to forget about. I've sleepwalked through the majority of that day once or twice, realized what day it was only near the end; I've counted myself lucky that I didn't lose anyone; I've watched clips from media suddenly gone serious and I've remembered my "Where Were You on 9/11?" story, which mostly consists of IMs from my girlfriend and one of my closest to let me know they had survived. And I will say, somehow, be it miracle or just classy company, today is the first day I encountered a September 11th joke. It was topically good, but funny only for its horror; it was the sort of thing that cuts a laugh out of you instead of tickling it out.

I have my opinions about September 11th; they're not particularly frothing on any one political point except that I feel things like that shouldn't be turned to the kind of politics they have been. It's been used to divide where it should have been used to unite and that to my mind is unforgivable on all fronts. And on that subject, I have nothing more to say.

There will be a post tomorrow, about perception and celebrity. Possibly also some complaints about the instant-gratification, constant-stimulation culture of comments and me-toos that blogs spawn, and the less obvious and immediate reasons it sucks to blog without fame. But for today, I want to leave you with a prelude, because I just can't write anything about September 11th and then say "Anyway, here's what I really wanted to say". It's our involuntary national holiday; today we take a break from talking about other things.

The joke, by the way, was about World of Warcraft. And it's probably more tasteful (for molecular measurements of that concept) than admitting that makes it sound.