I'm sure they aren't routinely treating everybody with flu sx for anthrax. But I assume that they're figuring that if you can eliminate hundreds of thousands of coughing, nervous people from the group from which you have to choose whom to test and whom not to, you're ahead.
I went to our local Post Office today. Everybody who works there is wearing rubber gloves, even the people standing behind the counter.
I went out to dinner with a friend recently, one of the friends with whom I'd visited Ground Zero three so weeks ago. She told me about a close friend of hers who had watched the towers collapse, and who is having a psychological breakdown. She's increasingly dysfunctional, and everyone's worried about her ability to care of her child. She has been talking to her friends about it (increasingly incoherently) ever since it happened, but it was only recently that her friends realized she had actually seen the second plane hit the tower.
My friend herself repeatedly touched her lips with her fingers, and licked them oddly, during the time we spent together. Toward the end of the evening, she asked me, "Do you still taste Ground Zero?"
I have another friend who is funny and sociable, usually. But at a party last weekend, which included a lengthy dinner and much wine, she was completely silent. Ever so often, tears would come to her eyes. I noticed, and followed her to the bathroom to talk to her when she left the table. She says she can't help it, it takes her by surprise, but several times a day she finds herself crying. |
