get up, get down, 911 is a joke in yo' town

Not a lot of time today. I woke up with no equilibrium, which was a little strange. I had a dream that I was on a speedboat trying to get out of some bay into open water with a corpse in a bag, and the girl I was with (a short, businesslike little person [not even remotely attractive]) was concerned about all the maritime traffic and what it was gonna mean for our successful exiting of the bay. The corpse was someone that we’d killed and we were taking it out to someone who wanted to examine the corpse and make sure that the guy was dead for sure.
So yeah, that led right into me staggering around with no balance like a drunkard. Then I left my coffee at home when I dropped off my kid. THEN I left the car seat in the car when I dropped him off instead of leaving it in the daycare like I’m supposed to.
It all goes to show, the events of September 11th continue to be devastating, confusing, and disorienting, like a morbid dream. Sigh.
My passport photo is hilarious. Well, not to some people, like TSA screeners for example. To them, my passport is an obvious forgery. Here’s why. In the picture I look so much like a terrorist it even freaks me out. I’m bundled in various rags and clothes (due to the picture being taken in the winter), I’m unshaven, swarthy and I’ve got a look on my face that you only get from a hangover and subsequent walk through the snow and bitter cold to the photo place or from days and days of living in Florida taking flying lessons. Not to put too fine a point on this amateur terrorist racial profiling that I’m doing here, but in this picture I look definitively middle eastern, and yet there’s my name “Brendan Kelly” which, uh, is also a terrorist name but from a whole different batch of terrorists. And it says I was born in Missouri, which is true, but it seems a little crazy that there’s a middle eastern guy walking around with an IRA name like Brendan Kelly and he hails from Missouri and right now he’s flying to London by himself. Hmmmm.
I get searched EVERY TIME I fly international as a result. Not the jellyfinger cavity search, but the pretty thorough patdown (hands cupping balls and spreading buttcheeks through pants are two of my favorite moves) and the extremely thorough carryon search (squeezing out all my toothpaste and checking seams in the bag and stuff like that).
I’m sure that in this day and age of fear mongering and acquiescence to xenophobia and any public humiliation in the name of safety (which sounds a lot like the beginnings of national socialism if I’m not mistaken) that I’ve got it relatively good. I mean, I’m NOT a terrorist, and I’m just a guy who actually IS named Brendan Kelly who WAS born in Missouri and just looks like a crazy jihadist in my passport photo but not so much in person. I’m sure any practicing muslims, anyone who’s actually Indian or Jordanian or Pakistani or whatever have it a lot worse than I do. I mean, I can’t imagine the trouble that someone deals with being a practicing muslim of middle eastern descent just, I don’t know, trying to go buy a stack of pancakes at an Ihop in Nebraska, much less taking a flight from Boston to California by himself.
Eh, well, I just read on Yahoo that Osama Bin Laden is officially a failure, so it looks like that’s it. Terrorists lose. We win. Superman can now start walking again and Mickey Mouse can come out of hiding and we’re gonna get all those poor, filthy unwashed hindus and muslims all the cheeseburgers and porkchops they can handle. And a jesus. Let’s give em a jesus, because lord knows that this different prophets thing isn’t working out. And we’ve been trying, lord knows we’ve been trying to show them that jesus is the only way, but no amount of bombing seems to get it through their heads. Well, maybe this article in yahoo is what they need to see. Hey Taliban! Check your yahoo! We win. You lose. Pick your jesus. You get either the rock and roll born-again jesus or the stately catholic jesus. No. wait. Never mind. That catholic jesus is nothing but trouble either. You get rock and roll, no abortions, death penalty, speaking in tongues, big stadiums full of worshipers, no sex, scare the shit out of people Jesus. Don’t worry. You’ll love him. He’s uh, wow...he's actually just like the born again mohammed but instead of boxcutters he uses questionable detention methods and patriot missiles. Okay, glad that’s settled. Happy September 11th everyone!