Elena 
I woke up today to see the black screen of death on my computer. The hard drive was not talking to the system and as far as I can tell, it never will again. Considering I make my livelihood with my computer system I was a bit panicked, but not overly so. The solemnity of 9/11 events kind of helped me keep in perspective what was important and what is not. A compter, after all, can be replaced. Even the data can eventually be replaced or I can learn to live without it. It’s not the end of the world.
So I spent the rest of the day wrestling with my old system, getting a new system and trying to get everything in some kind of working order. As I’m not totally online with my two cyber accounts, I’m losing money but there’s not much I can do about it until the weekend. And I’m okay with that for now.
When I did set down to do a little light blogging tonight, I found that I was getting quite a few hits from Jill Filopovic’s blog over at Feministe. When Jill left her old blog to go over to this one I made up my mind not to follow her. Some of the ugliest comments I have ever received in my life came from her forum and even after I asked for her intervention, in the spirit of free speech, she opted to just let the attacks remain up. I now have no tolerance for a blog host who will not, or cannot moderate her own forum.
Anyway, Jill doesn’t like what I wrote about 9/11 (No one should ever write anything about 9/11 unless they lived right under the shadow of the towers. If you live in DC or near Shanksville, she might give you a pass). She doesn’t like that I tried to find a connection with the woman I tried to honor that day (I can’t comment on that without saying something nasty so I’ll pass).
She also has lots of links to my archives where I oppose early induction of babies with anomalies incompatible with life.
I will never comment on one of Jill’s “free for all”forums again so I’ll just say, thanks for the references Jill. Good to know your still lurking around here. You haven’t changed a bit. Truly. Not a bit.
And that’s basically all I have to say about it.
Well, not quite. The more I thought about it the more I decided I had plenty to say. I would have put this on Jill’s blog but there’s that moderation thing. So I’m just tracking it back instead.
You know Jill, I wasn’t going to respond to you here but the more I thought about it, the more hacked I got.
I’m going to give you the benefit of a doubt that at the young age of 23, with limited life experience and a rather narrow world view that you really mean well, although you have a hard time getting that across to anyone outside your comfortable paradigm.
So here goes – not that I owe you or anyone else an explanation for what I want to put on my blog.
I write my blog for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is that I want to have a place where my children can go back years from now and see what there mom thought about this issue, or that event, and to kind of keep a little diary of our family and the issues and events that affect us. And contrary to what you seem to be able to comprehend, I am doing that because I wish that I HAD SUCH A RECORD OF WHAT MY MOTHER, GRANDMOTHER AND GREATGRANDMOTHER thought about the events and issues of their day!! I’m doing it as a sort of diary and as documentation. If it bores you, or if you don’t get it, then for goodness sake don’t read it. No one is putting a gun to your head.
Secondly maybe I’m not the most gifted writer in the world. The one bit of writing instruction that I keep in the forefront of my mind is to write about what I know. That is why I tried to find a human, woman connection with the 9/11 victim that I honored. What is so wrong with that? I connected with her because she was a mom, she was married etc. When I read about the swimming pool thing that just made her so much more real to me and I tried to bring that across in my writing. I even tracked down the e-mail address of a relative andinvited them to share more memories and thoughts about her so that I could include them in the tribute because I wanted the tribute to do her justice. I wanted any of her relatives or friends who ran across the 2996 project to be pleased that their loved one had been included and that I really tried to do a good job with it.
I didn’t have to do it at all. It was somewhat time consuming, and it was risky, but I did it because I wanted to do something, I wanted to give honor in some way and this was something that I could do.
Maybe it was cliche. With over 2000 bloggers giving tribute, I guess it would be bound to start reading that way. But it was honest, it was well intentioned and I did the best I could for her. I guess next year I could just sit on my hands and let someone else do it and type about something that I guess YOU think I should be blogging about, which I’m guessing is nothing. (Over 40 lots of kids, religious, what could I possible have to contribute that is worthwhile right?)
Luckily for you Jill, I’m a bit stronger than that. I’m not going to let you bully me into whatever it is you think we should be doing on 9/11. I guess judging from your post you see the best reponse as bitching about how everyone else is handling it. I’d rather handle it differently. I would expect you to honor my “choice.” Guess not.
Update: Finally a word with Ms. Filipovic here.
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