When aliens attack don't say I didn't warn you

So my kid is obsessed with this dumbass series of apps called "Talking Friends". Lemme tell you something. These things are not your friends. There are several characters, animals mostly, with Santa as the one exception.  Yes, Santa. Somehow the developers managed to sully not only kittens and puppies, but that paragon of childhood innocence, the fat man in a red suit. And Santa Claus. 

I will say this, you can punch the characters in the face, which is about the only redeeming quality I've found. The killer is the mimicry. You say something, and they repeat it back in a horrible high-pitched voice that was originally used as a Klingon torture device. It provides hours of agonizing torment fun, for the 5-year-old set, but not so much on the adults who treasure their hearing and sanity. Sanity is one thing; my sense of hearing? Forget it.

Apparently the free version of the apps has pop-up youtube videos of the various characters singing karaoke, of which I was unaware until I heard "We are neva, eva, eva getting back togetha" coming from the back seat, where I thought my beautiful 5-year-old had been sitting, not some Kidz Bop-loving pop princess body snatcher.

The next few minutes were a blur, but the snippets I did catch made my blood run cold. I threw up in my mouth a little bit at "Katy Perry"and "Taylor Swift", although the "Who Let the Dogs Out" reference was this.close to being funny. But the last of my sanity broke when the words "Gangnam Style" came out of her mouth. Immediately I blurted "Oh my God", and not in an 'oh what a horrible surprise' way, but a walking-in-on-your-parents kind of way. Incredibly I somehow did not blurt something more colorful, as is my style. Proof positive I lost my mind.

Her father informs me she sings that shit with her friends at school. What kind of parents are these people, to let their kindergartners listen to the worst music ever in the history of ever, ever? I have forever lost my faith in humanity, and await the day alien overlords chain us to tree roots and force us all to mine for floride, which is apparently what this particular alien race needs to survive (who knew?). And mark my words, punishment for insubordination will include a pair of headphones and "Gangnam Style" on loop. And then you all owe me 20 bucks. 

We Are...[you decide]

This is the second time I have felt the absolute need to post about college football. I am a Miami Hurricane. I bleed orange and green (gross, I know). I understand those who bleed blue and white. I understand those who proudly fly their team's logo from their upstairs bedroom window, or on those stupid car window flags.

 Especially when the entire world seems to be spitting all over it and dragging it though the mud. We Are those who know what school pride truly is. We Are those who know what it means to spend hundreds on a trip "home", to scream yourself hoarse at the game, and to tear up when the band plays the alma mater. We Are those who hold our heads high even after the most devastating loss. We Are woven into the fabric of our schools. We Are an important part of its history, and it is an important part of ours.

Now is the time, my rival Nittany Lions, to show the world what We Are. I've read a lot about the disgusting events that have sullied your school's proud name, and I have been sickened. First by the allegations, and now by the actions of others. Or the reactions, I should say. I read a comment from a person who said the greatest person in the world to Penn State, Joe Paterno, was shat upon with utter disrespect. That made me want to scream and puke at the same time. How could you say something like that? How could you say you have school pride, and yet say the greatest person in the world to you is a man who passed the buck when he was told a boy was raped in his facility's shower? The on-campus facility he is responsible for? The man who didn't call 911 immediately? The man who told his boss, and what amounts to security guards (campus police), then walked away and forgot about it entirely?

Yes, Joepa did what he was legally required to do, but there is more to pride than that. Disrespect? He shat on all the children whose innocence was brutally stolen after he turned his back. Paterno was a great coach, maybe the greatest, and it's a shame his career has been sullied by this. But there are more important things than football. Those of us with school pride know this. Like integrity. Like morality. Like leadership. He showed those on the field. But when it really mattered, Joepa failed miserably.

And now the students are doing the same thing to their school. Rioting in the street? Throwing bottles at police?? Tipping over a news van??? I understand what it feels like to see the values you hold dear violated by those who are supposed to uphold them, to be embarrassed. I love my alma mater dearly. But you are not displaying school pride. You're sending a message that Penn State is made up of a bunch of kids who think football is more important than the lives of those children. Ask yourself, would anyone care if Paterno was a mediocre coach, who had been there for just a few years? Doubtful. The students are shitting on their school with utter disrespect. They are the ones spitting on their school logo and dragging it through the mud.

As a Hurricane, the Nittany Lions are my sworn enemy. But for now I put that aside, and I beg of you, you stupid Nittany Lions, to band together and show everyone exactly who We Are.

We Are hurting. We Are humiliated. We Are angry. And We Are standing behind the children 100%, even if it means turning our backs on the man we love so dearly. Because We Are more than that. We Are proud.

Go Canes!

Deathly blue September skies

It starts with the sky. It always starts with the sky. A particular shade of blue, wispy at the edges, yet with a kind of crispness to it. The weather always seems to match that sky, a perfect powder-blue temperature. And there it is. Curling around the edges of my mind, ethereal tendrils of anxious fear, whispering. I know this deathly beautiful sky, a mirror image of that stunningly perfect Tuesday morning. Ah yes, I remember you.

The fear always comes at the end of August, a yearly alarm clock, in case I've forgotten what month it is, and what lies ahead. It begins in my stomach, a cold, hard knot, and ascends ever-so-slightly, until by the 10th of September it's a barely-contained hysteria pushing at the back of my eyes. I'm weepy by now, constantly taking gasping breaths in a futile effort to hold back the tears that will eventually spill over.

Thank you for asking, but no, I don't want to talk about it. There's nothing to talk about. There aren't words, or actions, or even coherent thoughts to work through. There is only a feeling. A raw, visceral emotion that claws at my throat and eyes, something between terror and madness, something that sets every nerve in my body thrumming and threatens to burn me alive from the inside. It's how I felt.

I have flashbacks. I go back to the chair, the room, the images. I relive my frenzied panic, my screams, that animal urge to run. I hyperventilate and bury my face in my hands, rocking back and forth, just like before. Tears streaming; no, no, those poor people, please God, they're going to kill us all.


And then the ordered chaos of a buzzing newsroom, the only thing keeping me sane, even as explosions rocked our cameras in the field, our reporter ducking for cover. Federal authorities commandeering our chopper to get a better view of their burning five-sided fortress, now with a massive gaping wound, black smoke billowing as jet fuel burned. 

 A traffic camera on route 66, knocked on its side by the low-flying plane, showing the scene through a shattered lens. Reports of fires and explosions all over the District. The anchor, my friend, fighting back tears on the desk, a New York native watching his home town burn. The jumpers. We stopped showing them after a time, but they continued to jump. I watched countless fall to their deaths, nothing making sense except our singleness of purpose: tell the story.

In the days after, 12 hour shifts; midnight to noon for weeks. Bloodshot eyes and a desperate quiet in the station at night, the crew dozing in the control room, watching live images of the Pentagon burning, still burning. From the pile in New York, seeing the initial excitement, hurried movement among the firefighters as a discovery was made, then the visible slump of their shoulders when it was just another body. Over and over, body after body, covered in American flags, gently removed by an assembly line of the hopeful. I saw too many.


And the stories, the stories. A group of children on Flight 77 on a field trip; an entire Maryland family wiped out, including daughters Zoe and Dana, ages 8 and 3. Imaging their terror in the final moments of their short lives, their first airplane ride their last. Mommy, what's happening? Stories of phone calls and voicemails, eyewitness accounts, soundbites from survivors, and the bitter reality that death ruled the day.


I took breakdown breaks. I could only write so much, see so much, before I had to get up (calmly), go into the bathroom, and break down, slumping down the wall, hugging my knees on the floor and sobbing. Then, I (calmly) got up, blew my nose, composed myself, and returned to the torture of watching, over and over, body after body. The Pentagon burned for days.


And my shame. It follows me to this day. Shame that I watched this horror unfold from behind the safety of a camera lens. Shame that I could do nothing but cry; me, who lost nothing, not compared to those with flesh and blood losses. My loss is intangible, my trauma unseen; a thought, an idea, a feeling. I am invisibly scarred, and will shamefully hide those jagged wounds until death takes them from me, as it did so many others.


Ten years later, I still take breakdown breaks. The Pentagon still burns, the pile still smolders, seared into my mind by hundreds of gallons of jet fuel.
 
To the lost, I am so sorry. I pray I told your stories with respect, gave you the dignity you deserved in death. God give me the strength to continue to carry out this responsibility, to pass your legacies on to my 4-year-old child, and her children after her. To this end I endure my personal pain with a terrible honor, and will do so until the day I die.