London is burning

(I meant to post this on the day, but I find these days that when I have time to post, I often don't have the brainpower)

My thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the London bombings this week.

coeli was wondering why the New York and London bombings affected her much more than the bombings in Madrid. I hadn't thought about it, but I reacted much the same way - I hadn't even remember Madrid until she mentioned it.

I think for me, it comes down to personal connections. I think we often connect to and make sense of tragedies based on how they relate to us, and if the connection isn't there, it never penetrates as far. With New York, there was the fact that I had close family members living and working in Manhattan, the fact that we were on the Garden State Parkway just north of the city when the planes hit and first heard about it on the radio because the announcer had seen the first plane hit from his window, and that I will forever associate that horrible day emotionally with my grandfather's death (he didn't actually die until six weeks after, but we had been in New England saying good-bye to him because it was clear that the end was near).

My emotional connections to London are mostly from the wonderful times I've had visiting there. I don't want to live in a big city, but London often fools me into thinking I might. The life and vibrancy, the layers of history, and the ease of travel. One of the first things I really learned to appreciate about London is the Tube, and the mass-transit advocate in me hates that it would be attacked. My personal connections to London aren't quite as strong as for New York - I've mostly lost touch with my English friends from my six months in Lancaster and I don't think any of them were living in London. But it still occasionally gives me chills that if this had happened two years ago, longstrider's sister could have been on the Tube during the bombings.

(no subject)

Our angelic daughter decided to sleep long enough yesterday to let us not only go to a movie, but stay through the entire thing. She's a champion napper at the moment, so we may yet be able to do this again before she gets too old for this. We saw Fantastic Four, which was a fun movie. It lacked the emotional depth of a lot of the recent comic book movies, but that's just fine with me. Not every comic book has the angst and drama of Batman or The Hulk, so I'm not sure why every comic book movie should. FF was amusing and very much in keeping with the feel of the early comic.

Meanwhile, it's just starting to penetrate my squishy brain that the new Harry Potter book is coming out in a week. I hadn't forgotten - I had it firmly in my mind that it was coming out in the middle of July. It had just slipped my mind that it is in fact July.

I certainly don't regret having a baby and it's nothing but a relief to me that I'm no longer working, but at times like these, I do wish I was still cataloging so I could get my hands on HBP a week early.

( Almost certainly TMI. You probably don't want to know, but somehow I feel compelled to share it anyway, although non-graphically )