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Location: Home.
Listening: The sounds of the city outside my window.

As a corollary, I want to add the following:

I'm safe--as is Peter and, as far as we know, our families and friends. Watching the clips and listening to the stories of people who lost loved ones today, I was acutely aware that I had the luxury of leaning on my boyfriend's knee. The man I love is with me--not on a cel phone from the basement of a collapsed building, not dead in the wreckage of a hijacked aircraft. I lost one of my best friends when I was 11--I remember that despair, and I am ultimately grateful.

I have found respect for people I have never met--for Mark Heath, the doctor who videotaped the towers collapsing and then stood up in the debris to find anyone who needed help, for Rudolph Guiliani who was on the scene to help his constituents when the first tower fell and didn't retreat to some "safe house" when the second collapsed in front of him, for Dan Rather who I already respected but who kept his cool for almost 24 hours because the nation needed information. I respect the cameramen who were on-scene, the firefighters and cops who rushed to the blast, the people who poured out of their houses because someone else was in trouble, the three men on board the flight that crashed in PA who they now believe mobilized against the hijackers because "we're all going to die, but three of us are going to do something"(*). I am a child of the media. I am awed by heroism. I am humbled by these people. So be it.

I live in a country that's about to change. I recognize this and I accept it as necessary, but I will never stop considering the effects that my actions and words have on another. When Arab and Muslim groups are already reporting hundreds of threatening phone calls and emails, I believe this is crucial. I will not take my aggressions out on another because it's convenient. I hope that others will choose to do the same.

It's time for bed and I'm exhausted, but I'm alive. It's a cool night in Long Beach, the stars are out and, for once, there are no helicopters overhead. I can curl up next to Peter and close my eyes. I know that I'm blessed. I just don't know why.

(*) reference: Dan Rather reading the transcript of a cel phone call made from one of the victims to his wife, CBS News, September 11, 2001.