I went to grad school at Virginia Tech and Robin’s getting her MBA from them now. Granted, it’s the Northern Virginia campus, and not Blacksburg, but we both have friends and professors based down there that we worried about and tried to get in touch with. One of Robin’s friends slept late, of course, and she was frantically calling him all day until he finally woke up and found that he had a ton of messages on his phone.

It’s just tragic. I remember when Columbine happened. I was a junior at Boston University, having a cigarette in the Towers’ smoking lounge where I was an RA. There was a girl in the lounge, she was chain smoking and staring at the TV. I started a conversation with her and she told me she was from Littleton, her little sister was currently enrolled in Columbine, and a couple of the families she knew were already notified that their children were killed.

What do you say to that?

I sat next to her and watched the news reports with her in silence until she wanted to leave.

It’s the same feeling I got when I was watching September 11th unfold. I had friends and family that worked in or near the Trade Center. All the while, I watched the Pentagon burn from my balcony. And you just worry – because you could be that girl in the smoking lounge. Waiting by the phone to hear who else you know was killed by a sudden tragedy.

Sudden tragedies. I’ve dealt with them on smaller scales, a lot of deaths in my family and some of them sudden and unexpected. But if you’ve dealt with them or not, it’s hard not to realign your perspective after something like this happens.

I have Robin to thank for that this time.

Yesterday wasn’t the greatest day. Work was killing me, the comic thing hit a couple of minor bumps, and it was a pile-on sort of day. All the while I’m watching the news and hoping everyone I know is alright while praying for the families that lost people. That’s what us bad Catholics do when there’s a tragedy – we find God again and try to phone in favors.

“By the way, thanks for everything you’ve done for me lately, sorry I haven’t checked in for a while.”

Anyway – by the end of the day, I was really ready to just pack it in. Tell everyone to go fuck themselves and see what happens. And I was bitching to Robin as I normally would when she tells me, “Your day could have been a lot worse.”

And like that my perspective was back where it should be.

Sudden tragedies. I live in a city that a lot of people would love to blow up. My sister’s off to college and on her own next year. My family and friends live in the other city that a lot of people would love to blow up. I make stupid choices – my friends make even worse ones. My Aunt has a crazy lady in her apartment building that keeps threatening to kill her baby; the police finally took her away and she’s in an institution now. Robin was almost in a horrible head-on car accident recently. I was experiencing dizzy spells and light-headedness that I attributed to stress; after a week and a half they went away without me going to the doctor because I was too busy. Sudden tragedies. You’re not supposed to see them coming. Despite the signs and the risks and the fact that you practically invite them sometimes – they come up from behind and fuck up your whole world.

And that would be much worse than anything I had to deal with yesterday.