this is so very true.

what a bizarre day. well, a bizarre day in a series of bizarre days. all yesterday, i felt the countdown weighing down on me, and i rushed through most of my afternoon and evening activities anticipating something, but i wasn't sure of precisely what. and then things settled down in my head a bit and i relaxed -- chatted on the phone, started to enjoy "the bachelor: where are they now?" special and whatnot, laughing with beth about how much i love bob from "the bachelorette" and all before ari fleischer hurried into the white house press room and announced that war had begun and that the president would address the nation at 10:15.

and then it really hit me that all of this was happening. and things got weird. sitting here in my bedroom, preparing for sleep but knowing that i wouldn't go to sleep right away, wondering what bush would say while knowing what he would say at the same time, watching the news coverage and returning to the process of looking for night-scope flashes of light on the baghdad skyline, just as i did twelve years ago as i sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the television at my parents' house. feeling as if things were significantly changing and they wouldn't, in many respects, be able to go back to how they were even just minutes before, yet at the same time feeling as if things were too far away to really be affecting me. i fell asleep to the sound of tom brokaw's news coverage and woke at 2:30 a.m. to find the television still on, so i turned it off, rolled back over and fell asleep until the alarm went off three hours later.

the sky opened up as i prepared for work, so by the time i made my daily commute, the gray skies and steady shower seemed to add to the sense of forboding i felt. i didn't know how things were going to be when i got to work, how i was going to feel, what i was going to be doing, what official responses there would be, etc. walking out of union station, there was a noticeable increase in police officers and other security types while commuters seemed to be in even more of a hurry to get to their destinations than normal. since i was opening up the office, the building was relatively quiet at the early hour, so i just settled in for another typical day of work.

but it felt off. arranging tours, coordinating flags -- it all seemed pretty insignificant, in the grand scheme of things. i found myself focusing more on the news coverage than anything else. i don't think anyone had their televisions set to the senate floor like they normally do, front office included. it was all cnn or msnbc coverage. why focus on the floor? they weren't discussing it, at least not really. and it seemed as if no one within the office really wanted to discuss it either. it was present -- hell, it was right in front of us on the tv screen -- but what do you really do? you don't want to focus on it or anything because you don't know what to say. it's war -- and while many within the office were in the office last time we had war, i don't think it's anything you ever get used to. it's not as if you can sit there and say, "aw yeah, same old same old."

besides, it was a random day anyway. uvm was playing arizona in the ncaa tournament, so everyone was following that and participating in their various pools (so far, i believe i'm 4-for-4, i haven't checked in a little bit, though) and hoping the cats put up a good showing (while secretly banking on arizona, as many have them going to the final four, if not winning the tourney outright, as i do). and there was a coffee hour in the conference room with everyone's favorite former governor-turned-presidential-candidate and a bunch of senators, so we were all bustling around trying to take care of that. but the whole time, the war thing was hanging over everything. when was the second wave going to hit? what truth was there to the rumors that the capitol would be shut down to tours? what were callers saying about the war? why weren't more calling?

the day went by ridiculously quickly and i bundled up before heading back out into the drizzle and muck on my way home, feeling all sorts of discombobulated. not only with the things that relate directly to the rest of my week (for example, i'm supposed to be giving two tours of the capitol tomorrow, but now think they won't happen because of the possibility of the capitol being shut down to the tours and all), but also with thoughts about what could be coming up in the uncertain future. what type of retaliation are we going to face? how long will it last and how bloody will it be? since the president has already bucked convention and is surprising everyone, can we predict what he'll do in the future of this war? is hussein alive or dead -- and was that a body double or not reading the speech? could it be that i might really have to evacuate the building sometime soon or make use of the safety hoods? how will this affect the tours i've been working on for forever and a day?

a whirlwind of thoughts of varying levels of seriousness twisting and snapping through my mind ...