9.19.01

project: scrappingbooking (yes, i think it’s a verb).

i have three years of photos, ticket stubs and theatre programs that have been piling up in a frighteningly large number of shoeboxes, waiting to get glued into a scrapbook. i’ve been putting it off because there were some painful memories boxed up in there; i think i’ve finally put enough emotional distance out there to deal with it. they are, after all, good memories, but i’m a big believe in looking forward, not back, so sometimes it’s hard to bring myself to look at good times gone by, because the bitter in bitter-sweet is to much for me.

so last night i worked through my first trip to japan and fall quarter of my junior year at stanford. while i was working, i turned on the tv, just to have a little background noise and distraction. i selected jay leno, figuing it’d be a rerun and therefore something light-hearted. actually, it turned out that both jay leno and conan were airing their first show back since last tuesday’s attack, and the shows’ subject matter was accordingly somber – an interview with Senator McCain and another with a teenage girl, representing average american youth. halfway through the second show, i had to turn it off because it was making me physically ill. i’m not sure why i’m having such a physical reaction to this event – i can think and talk and reason rationally about it, but i just keep having this gut reaction that makes me want to throw up everything i think about it for more than a few moments at a time. i think this means i’m far from actually beginning to process this event in the context of my own life.