My ex-boyfriend's parents live in that neighborhood. Well, not far from there. Sleuth that I am (and, well, procrastinator, since I should have instead been writing a letter to pissed off clients about why my company is discontinuing some drug or other), I started doing Mapquests to determine the location of Slacker Ex's parents to the latest house destroyed (a list of which is available here.

They're really only a couple of miles away.

Not like I've talked to the family in years, but I immediately became concerned and emailed S.E. "How are your parents? Have they been evacuated?" I haven't heard back and probably won't. It makes all of this all the more horrifying that I know somebody who might be affected.

It's interesting ... how impersonal these things can be when they don't affect you directly.

I was speaking to A. the other day about the 9/11 attacks. A.'s uncle recently lost his mother, and I was wondering aloud if Uncle got emotional about things like that. A. doubted it. I disagreed. Then A. said:

"But on 9/11, I guess he just lost it. He said he didn't set a good example for his son."

But Uncle has lived in NYC all his life. A. concurred that it was completely understandable.

I said: "But you didn't really become emotional about any of it yourself. Why is that?"

(Because A. never cried. He never got angry. He was curious and shocked. He was scared because I was sobbing so hard. But he never broke down. He never showed despair.)

He said it was because the whole thing didn't really seem close to him. And that he was disturbed by it, but not sad. Not upset. Not jumpy and anxious and unable to sleep like I was for a year afterwards.

Is this a Venus and Mars thing? How could one not be just devastated by something like this? Still, I know a lot of people who remained fairly untouched by it. It was a blip. Something shocking that happened far away. Of course, I worked for a bank at the time. All they cared about was that it was a blow to the stock market.

Then again, stuff happens all over the world that's just as bad. And worse. People live in war-torn countries. Through genocide and terror and ravaging injustice and poverty. And I feel sad about it, but it doesn't tear my heart out. I don't cry on trains or in the car over that stuff.

What is it in us as humans that allows us to be so desensitized? And how do we choose what breaks through to honestly touch us?

I asked A. what would have to happen to really, truly sadden and horrify him.

He said:

"If something happened to you."

I leaned over and put my head on his shoulder.