That's how I'm going to start referring to myself around the house, since all I'm seen as is a money making/money using machine. Kate can be Unit 002 and Wendy, when she gets old enough to work, will be unit 003.

At least that's the impression I get. I have to live at home, after nearly ten years on my own. I lost my job and needed help with my family, so I moved back in with my parents. I have yet to find a job, though I have applied for at least 100. My stepfather works hard, he'd work hard even if I weren't here, it's just what he does. Every day he makes me feel worthless because, even if I had found a job, I wouldn't work as hard as him. The tension in my house is unbearable, and no one likes one another. I have a job, I think, on the hook. I just need to grab it. It's been a year. It needs to end soon...

Through sheer strength of will, I will raise OT3 up to be a successful board. I have the drive and want to get my money's worth god damn it.

Lovin' the broken forums.

I overslept on 9/11/01. It was to be my last day at work for Barnes and Noble. I wasn't due in until 4 o'clock, so I was planning on sleeping until 1 or so in the afternoon.

I was awakened by the phone ringing at about noon, and heard someone from work leaving a message on my machine. All I could get was "no work today, store closing early". So I called back and asked her to explain herself...she told me that the store was closing early because of the attacks.

"What"?

"You haven't heard?" She asked me, somewhat incredulously.

"No, I've been asleep. What's going on?" I prodded.

"They blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."

I don't remember how the conversation ended, but I went straight to the TV and turned it on. Now, I don't know how everyone else felt as they watched everything happen in real time but, for me, having just woken up and everything had already happened, it was possibly more surreal. I didn't see the planes hit, the towers burn and people stagger around, followed by the collapse of the WTC. I saw it all at once, I didn't have time to observe and absorb each event, I had to take it all immediately.

I don't know if my feeling of shock would somehow have been less if I had watched it in real time, but I've always felt that seeing it all on replay made it more difficult to deal with. I guess, though, when you have something that traumatic happen, there really are no levels to trauma, it's all the same.