I never know what to do in the wake of tragedy. An event that made such a profound impact on so many people in another part of the world should have a profound impact on me as well, shouldn't it? CNN reported that the earthquake's power was equivalent to that produced by the detonation of a million atomic bombs. Other scientists said it probably jolted the planet's rotation. How can anything we do on a day-to-day basis even begin to compare? How can I follow up an entry, composed while speechless with horror, with some trifling anecdote or silly remark about fandom?

I want to say that life goes on and that we should continue to go along with our daily lives and that's good, right? The afternoon of September 11th, after school let out, Chungy and I continued with the plans we had made the day before and took pictures of ourselves dressed as crazy old women for our joint blog, The Spinster Diaries. The weblog fell through, but the next year, she gave me a poster-style wall calendar with one of those photos. Though 2003 is long gone, I still have it hanging on my wall. And every time I look at it, I can't help staring at the tiny orange datestamp in the corner, unassuming neon digits that read "9 11'01", and I feel horrified.

Sure, stuff like this takes a while to sink in, but looking back on my blog entries for September 11th, I give the impression that I was more personally affected by the contents of my website being accidentally deleted than by any terrorist activity. Looking back, I'm appalled at the lack of sensitivity. So what do you do? How long to you wait until you can start thinking selfishly again, posting about how suprised and proud you are of your grades this semester, or linking to the latest fandom-related exploit, or griping about the price differences between Amazon and Barnes and Noble when you're trying to support one over the other? Why doesn't Miss Manners have anything to say on the subject?