It was back when I was still using AOL.

I had been awake early, had already checked my e mail; had done my usual cavorting among writer friends in Michael Seidman's news group called Ask the Editor, and decided to go take a nap. I had just fluffed my pillow and got comfortable when I heard the AOL alert signal summoning me to my computer in answer to a friend's instant message from his home in Germany:

"Do you have your television on?" He wanted to know. I said, "No. Why?"

"Turn it on." A. J. Flynn said.

It was close to ten a.m. I tuned in just in time to see the first tower in flames, and then saw the second one get hit. Live. Terrifying.

Nothing has been the same, ever since.