Thunder Rd. street sign

I am a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, so it’s no surprise that I’m anxiously counting down the days until this Sunday when I’ll get to see him and the E-Street Band in concert at the Scottrade Center.

In addition to writing some of the best lines ever in rock and roll music, in the song Thunder Road Springsteen is  responsible for what I think may be the most honest - albeit horribly conceived - pick-up line ever:

“You ain’t a beauty, but hey you’re alright.”

Of course, he follows it up with the reassuring, “And that’s all right with me,” which brings some level of humility to the whole thing and somehow makes the statement actually seem kind of sweet, in a naïve way (since I don’t think that the narrator is speaking grudgingly but rather that he genuinely means that her appearance is okay with him).

Still, I can’t imagine…

Does anyone else feel like more than seven years have passed since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on our country?  I know some people think we give that day too much media attention, but I’m not so sure.

I remember the morning of September 11 vividly. I remember where I was standing when I heard the initial news reports, my sense of growing horror and fear. It was only 15 months earlier that my husband and I had left jobs in lower Manhattan and moved with our baby to the Bay Area. From the first days of our marriage New York City had been our playground, precious and chaotic and impossibly rich in its diversity and wealth of opportunities, and now it was in flames. The things I saw on TV that day still make my stomach churn. Early news reports left the impression that LA and San Francisco were…