I was talking with M of The Caribbean (good gravy, listen to this music!). (Warning: This will make noise for those of you reading from Cubicle Land.)

As I was saying…

I was talking to M of The Caribbean, and we’re going to have a cross-promotional show of music and poetry. It’ll be in the winter or spring 2008. I had never heard of this band before my friend, Chad, suggested we do this event. Now, I am a nut for the song I linked above.

Or was I saying this…

I was talking to M of The Caribbean about the fear around the snipers. Did any of you live in DC at that time? Victoria Chang has a poem about the sniper. It was not something I could write about. The fear was irrational — what are the chances of being shot at a gas station? — yet it was also rational. There was the night my sister called me. She had shopped at the Home Depot in Falls Church an hour before someone was shot there. Maybe the snipers were there and casing the place.

I would come home from work at about 4 p.m. and see the police cruisers parked on my street and the police officers standing on the hill to gaze down at the school.

You’d wonder if you could get gas. You’d wonder how long you could go with the gas light on. You’d wonder if he just killed someone 30 min away, would it be safe to get gas on your street corner.

That is what terror does. It makes you think in ways you can’t fathom. It makes you think in ways that seem ridiculous after the fact. It makes you think like other people even if those other people do not admit the ridiculous things they think. It makes you think you can control events…if only I use gas stations with no easy access to the highway. If only I use gas stations in DC where it’s hard to get away. If only, if only…and you know deep down that you can’t control a darned thing about it.