It's the weekend.

This contains discussion of the Sept. 11 anniversary. Skip it if talk of such things bothers you.



And again, I'm worn out. It seems like each week I wind up using up my little stores of cope, and hope that I can get it replenished over the weekend.

Which is why I'll probably be avoiding most television this weekend.

Yes, it's the ten year anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

First off: I do think it's important to remember...to stop and say a prayer, if you're so inclined, for the families who lost someone (and I count "friends" as "family" here). Or light a candle, if that helps. Or, as I will probably be doing, knit on something for another person...something to be donated, that will hopefully give someone else a little happiness and comfort. (Because I STILL believe that "every loving act adds to the balance of love in the universe.")

But I don't need to see the footage again. I don't need to remember in such agonizing detail how I felt and what I thought.

The news cycle being what it is, and unfortunately channels like History Channel and Discovery being what they are, there's already been an awful lot of coverage.

And I don't need to see it. I don't want to see it. Because it doesn't do anything useful for me. It just makes me sad all over again.

I don't know. I don't know how to put this delicately, and you're free to disagree with me, because everyone's opinion differs, but it seems unseemly to me how much they're hyping this...like it's, I don't know, something they believe needs to be made into an Officially Sanctioned Day To Feel Sad or something.

I don't like being told what to feel about certain things, and I admit to being very suspicious and uncomfortable with mass displays of emotion. (It could be that I read "1984" at an impressionable age, and remember the "Five Minute Hate."

Also, I think of a friend of mine, who says she prefers to think of what people did AFTER the towers fell...all the people who rolled up their sleeves to donate blood (even if they were so distant from New York or Washington that it was a purely symbolic act), the people who gave money, the people who did charitable acts, the people who did kind things for First Responders in their communities...the fact that even when something that is filled with hate happens, there are many more people (well, I like to BELIEVE that there are many more people) who try to respond with love.

So I don't know. I don't want to see it endlessly rehashed; on some level it seems to become something people get into for the emotional thrill or the emotional feeling or whatever.

I think it's important to remember - and to teach future generations what happened so maybe, somehow, we can stop something similar happening again...but it seems to me that the coverage, the endless "where were you whens.." seems a bit much.

(I admit, it's hard for me to write this, because I know there will be people who accuse me of wanting to stick my head in the sand and forget...well, maybe to a certain extent, yes. I want to go about my daily life as I always do without thinking about it, without wondering, will there be a "next" attack and where? I think where I am, we're pretty safe (I suspect wildfires/tornadoes/random stupid criminal doing stupid stuff are the big dangers we face here), but still.

One of the guys on the news commented that he "felt bad to think of going out to a movie and being happy" this weekend, but I think he has it wrong - the people who died in the planes or the Pentagon or the towers, were they still alive, they'd want to go to a movie, maybe. Or I suspect that if you could ask their shades in the Afterlife, they'd tell people to go to a movie, or have a cookout, or whatever - to LIVE life and do what you enjoy.)

I do wonder what parents with children too young to completely understand and digest the information will do. When I was a kid, there were only four or so television channels, and "hard news" was maybe a half-hour or an hour in the evening...and so it was fairly easy for my parents to turn it off if it was something they didn't want me to know about. (Though now that I think of it, other than the tail end of the Vietnam War and Nixon's disgrace and resignation, there weren't that many big news stories I can think of from the early 1970s. The first "big" news story I remember hearing and being somewhat perplexed and scared by was the Jonestown massacre in 1980, when I was about 10.)

Although, ironically, it may be easier today to shield kids from unpleasantness on television, given the fact that things like Disney Channel and Hub (home of the My Little Ponies) and Sprout (another kids' channel; most of the stuff they show is very cloying but they do occasionally have the ultra-adorable (and British) Angelina Ballerina - about a ballet dancing mouse - on).

And I admit - I watch all of those channels on occasion. If I'm really jangled and stressed, a few minutes of Sprout (provided it's showing one of the two or three shows that is clever enough to keep my attention) will help. And Food Network...that's another calming channel (Though I really don't care for the "competition" shows they have at night). My favorites on there are Giada, and the Barefoot Contessa, and that guy who goes around and visits the different "cool" restaurants. And Paula Deen.

I know, Paula Deen is one of those people that people don't feel lukewarm about - you either love her or hate her. I have to admit I love her. Not necessarily for her recipes, which use far more butter and (ugh) mayonnaise than I'd ever use, but for her attitude. She's just so CUTE. And she doesn't care - she's like the Honey Badger of television hosts. People make fun of her, they say nasty things about her...and she seems to be able to keep going, or even make a joke out of it (See: her "who peed in his Cheerios" comment about Anthony Bourdain). (Oh, I don't discount that she may go home at night and feel awful about things that are said, but at least her public face manages well). And I have to admit, I kind of envy that. To be able to have someone say unpleasant things about you or even to you, and to be able to (at least publicly) let it run off your back like water off a duck.

(My response is much more....well, have you ever seen video of someone reaching into a saltwater aquarium and poking a sea anemone with a glass stir rod? How it all pulls in its tentacles and kind of shrivels up to protect itself? That's how I react to someone saying something crushing or rude to me. And even how I react to teasing - I know, I know, people tell me all the time that "It's a Southern thing, people TEASE you when they like you, it's a form of affection" but I didn't grow up with that and it's hard for me to adapt to it.)

So, I don't know. I guess the upshot of this is that I've kind of run out of cope and sort of wish I had a little more time this weekend (I really don't - I have papers to grade tonight and an exam to write tomorrow) to watch silly pointless things on television and knit. And avoid the great big things that I really have no control over.