the same question everyone is asking.

seven-thirty am, eastern standard time, and i've already seen six different headlines on four different news sources screaming the theme of the day: "what has changed since five years ago?" some of them have been yelling this for days, working up to a massive national remembrance that will dwindle article by article each decade until it merits nothing more than a line of small type on calendars and a few interviews with one of the handful left living who can describe where they were when it happened. in an ideal world this wouldn't occur -- we'd always remember how it felt -- but human nature has a fleeting attention span and a very short memory.

i'll admit that i rarely think of it until something triggers me, but obviously it is still fresh enough of a wound that i had to shut off cnn's "real time" remembrance coverage after about five minutes of pentagon flashbacks. cnn is my main television news network (prize awarded to them solely on basis of having the highest concentration of reporters who are worth a damn. aka: actually doing their jobs in the check and balance system!) and i understand the need to look back at every small detail to remember what really happened as opposed to what our politicos have warped and twisted to fit their own pr agendas. but the creepy crawly sick feeling comes back with every plume of videotaped smoke.

five years ago on september 11th, i had just turned twenty years old. i'd recently dropped out of college (long story for another day), had moved back home, and was existing in the weird limbo of not knowing what the hell i was doing after a lifetime of possessing a reasonable facsimile of adult-level personal control. i was sleeping, waking up to my father in the doorway. for three and a half hours i didn't move from the couch, frozen in a state of horror and fear. i went to work that day but felt a sinking sensation the entire time -- feeling like an animal with my foot in a trap. i remember watching the president's speech a few nights later from the bar in a shitty bowling alley in a lot next to the river, and looking at the faces around me riveted to the television like children desperately wanting their mother to make life butterflies and sunshine again. i thought to myself that we were in a whole damned lot of trouble.

so when i ask myself what i've taken away with me from that day five years ago, very little of it is positive. cynicism, distrust of government and media -- those things already existed in me; however after that day they multiplied. i find myself living in this modern world and not recognizing too much of it, though i've managed to function as best i can. i only feel the cold fear and panic alone in the middle of the night, when sleep evades me. more often it takes the form of an open-mouthed boggling at every distortion of reality and decency that worms its way into my senses.

i want to believe in the goodness of this country that's been fed to me out of my history books. i want to believe in the kinder, gentler nature of the human race. i want to believe that good and evil really are polar opposites and not merely a quagmire of gray opinion. it gets increasingly difficult to hold on to even a shred of hopeful innocence in the face of an assault that defies the existence of such things and champions only the worst.

in the end, that's the crusade i'd like to think september 11th has left us with: not a matter of triumphing over the evils of others which we've pointed out with our own dirty little fingers, but a matter of holding on to a little bit of goodness in spite of this world, in spite of ourselves. five years later and we still don't look so good.

when i turned on the television this morning, the movie channel it had been left on was running pleasantville. the irony is not lost on me.

Excuse me while my real life takes over.

time constraints are an inevitability in my line of work/study/existence. and i like it that way.

however, the imposition of ridiculous new voicemail features by my cell phone provider is good cause for me to take fifteen minutes out of my busy day to navigate the labyrinth of automated systems in desperate attempts to locate a real person at whom i can bitch. actually, i never really intend to bitch when i first dial -- i only want a lively debate in which things will hopefully swing a direction that will satisfy both parties -- but after being returned to the main menu and listening to the same "choose a language" prompt three times, i have no recourse but to get a little testy about the faceless conglomerate that is over-charging and now over-servicing me to no end.

communication and i have a love-hate relationship. as much as i crave the ability to toss out whatever assholery i want with the prospect of an eager audience and adore the notion of reaching someone halfway across the country at exactly the opportune moment of their purchasing condoms at rite-aid, there are times i wish everyone would either fuck off, or at least retreat far enough to let me relax a little without interruption.

and when i check my voicemail, i want to check my voicemail. i do not want to hear any special messages, about anything. i don't want to push the pound key twice to skip them. i really, really, don't want to be forced to listen to two solid minutes of advertisements before i get to the list of what the keys for saving and deleting voicemails have been changed to, because i am a creature of habit and i didn't want them changed in the first place. i also did not want to yell, "what is this shit?" in front of strangers in the parking lot when my voice messaging system chose to rebel. thanks to you, phone company, i'm stuck with it all.

what baffles me most about the entire situation is that after a tour through the cons of technology, when i finally got a real person over the line, i was informed that this is a standard feature that i can't opt out of. this marvel of modern technology is mine to curse at in parking lots each and every time i check my voicemail. is this why my monthly bill went up five dollars?

the delicious irony of course being that my reception cut out like mad through the entire conversation.

so, phone company, just because you can doesn't mean you should. i really don't care to hear about your rapidly mutiplying number of customers before i can find out what my brother wants this time, because after my service contract expires i am switching companies. can you hear me now?