I'm at the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, getting ready to take my written test and the little Asian woman at the computer terminal next to me is trying to get me to answer her question for her.

"Pssst, what the answer to this one is?"

I wince at her grammar and act like I can't hear her so she asks louder.

I glance at her direction and tell her "I don't know" with my best "Gosh I wish I was smarter so I could help you cheat on your driving test and get your license so you can later plow over my ass because you don't know what the hell the two-second rule is" look and gaze back at my terminal and take my test. 23 out of 25.

As I finish up and get ready to walk away she asks me again, yes, I believe she's on the same question. I walk back and tell the DMV tester I'm finished and pray that the little Asian woman doesn't make it onto the road with me.

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I'm sad to say that this morning I actually came as close to rock bottom as one can be. I watched "Dude, Where's My Car?" I'm still trying to forget it.

I am glad about one thing for sure - I was worried when I moved away from Bossier City and Barksdale Air Force Base, which is the single largest nuclear facility in the United States (with over 1,000 warheads), that Charlotte might not pose such as a viable threat to my general well-being. But alas, as I'm reading in Creative Loafing magazine that Charlotte houses a large nuclear facility (McGuire Nuclear Station) AND that the nuclear evacuation plan is fraught with problems (headline: Traffic Jam From Hell) - I suddenly feel right at home.

My dog has taken to a peculiar and disturbing trend - she, let's just say she is a multi-tasker. When some dogs feel the need to "purge" as it were (if you're a numbers person try 2), they will stop and squat and do their business. Let's just say Ani walks and chews gum at the same time, only she doesn't chew gum if you get what I'm saying.

There is good news on the job front - namely that I have one now. I start Monday as the Marketing Communications Director for an excellent small business here in Charlotte. It's a tremendous opportunity and a tremendous challenge, both things that I like. The corporate culture seems great and I couldn't be happier with my decision (or with their decision to hire me).

I will miss unemployed life though. It's been a great two months and I'm sad to see it end (although not financially mind you). No more video games till 4:00 in the morning and sleeping in till noon, not knowing exactly which meal I should be eating (is breakfast the FIRST meal of the day or is breakfast what you eat before 10:30 AM? - these and other probing questions brought up from unemployed life). However, it was a good and well-needed break, I was pretty burned out after grad school. So long unemployment, I'm back amongst the ranks of the walking and working again.

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One year later it's still not any easier to think about it. I still can't remember the day without tears welling up. I think of how our lives have changed, how my life has changed. I'm not the same person I was before 9/11, no one is. This morning I tried to avoid the inevitable onslaught of 9/11 coverage in the media but this evening I embraced it. The History Channel had some excellent programs and I watched the ABC special as well that interviewed a handful of survivors and chronicled how their decisions played into their fate. Reliving the experience, all I can see is myself watching the experience that morning. The helplessness and hopelessness, the pain and agony, the uncertainty and the anger. I think of how I've grown in the last year or if I have at all. I cry and then I stop, realizing it won't do any good. It's the same feeling of that day, the whirlwind of emotions rising and falling, ebbing and flowing. I promised myself I wouldn't write about it, but somehow I feel that I can't not write about it. It was too big an event in my life to simply ignore. I know I share these same emotions with lots of people and that I can't fathom how some people are feeling today at all. I think about my friend Lynda and how this horrible thing happened on her birthday, and then I think about the last scene from the second Godfather when Sonny says he can't believe the nerve of them Japs dropping bombs on our Pop's birthday and Fredo says in his pensive way "They didn't know it was Pop's birthday..."

Lynda, I'm sure they didn't know it was your birthday, but I do - Happy Birthday from a friend who loves you and misses you.