But wait! I thought I was watching football!!!

I've been going around in my head about whether or not to blog about today. There are so many others out there who are much more eloquent than I am, who have put the feelings of five years ago and of today into such wonderful entries and tributes, I feel like anything I could possibly write would simply be inconsequential.

I'm still very raw about 9/11. I haven't been able to go see any of the movies about it, whether on TV or in the theatre. Today, I read some blogs and some tributes in the paper, but I've avoided the TV. The still photos I've seen today have touched me deeply; I don't think I could handle any moving ones.

So today I've had my fill. I've remembered my shock, my anxiety, my desperate need to talk to family on that day and I don't really live or work anywhere NEAR the Pentagon. I've cried for folks who have died, who's absences continue to haunt those they left behind. I had had enough for the day, at some point you just have to protect your own nerves.

So I turned on Monday Night Football - had to see my 'Skins in their home opener. First half was good, they walked off the field in the lead...

... and then halftime begins with a 9/11 retrospective.

... queue tears

What in the name of all that is holy does football have to do with 9/11? I suppose I would understand if they had done a retrospective on players who sacrificed their careers to join the war in reaction to 9/11; if they had done another tribute to men like Pat Tillman (were there any other men from the NFL like Pat Tillman?), but Pat was barely a footnote in their piece. It was full of images of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, sprinkled with images of football players running with flags once they resumed playing after the post-attack hiatus. It made me cry, but under my tears was a level of anger. I felt like my tears were being milked from me and I had to change the channel. I don't know, a moment of silence before the National Anthem would have been appropriate; the show that ESPN put on simply seemed like an exploitation of the tragedy to me and it hurt, like I was being beaten over the head with it.

I'll be glad to get up tomorrow, not because want to put 9/11 behind me, because I don't think anyone who saw those images whether right in front of them or on TV will ever forget them, but because the relentless wrenching coercion of some of the day's tributes smell a little self-serving, and are just too much for me to bear.