Everyone's supposed to be on "high alert," whatever that means.

Since 9/11, I've been afraid for my loved ones, my family and friends, my country, but I haven't been afraid for myself. It's not courage; it's an inability to imagine myself in danger. Tonight I felt the first cold threads of fear sliding up the back of my neck. I look around my apartment and think about my life and my plans for the future and I wonder if I'll meet a sudden violent death tomorrow, leaving this apartment full of me for someone else to pack up. I think of all of those people in New York who couldn't have known they wouldn't be returning home that night, and all of those waiting apartments. And I'm afraid.

People die every day. A couple of months ago, a nineteen-year-old college kid gave a lift to the wrong person and was stabbed to death. His name was Jonathan Rizzo. I didn't know him. The man who killed him also killed two other men before surrendering. I don't know what will happen to him. But for Rizzo, it's over. And that makes me so unspeakably sad.

It's cold here. I should go to the gym. I'd like to crawl into bed and watch a movie. I keep flipping a coin, an Irish five-pence piece I found tossed in with my dimes, and it keeps telling me to go work out. But while I've been typing and thinking, it's gotten later, too late for the gym. I'll go tomorrow. Just let me have a tomorrow.