It is sad. It is frustrating that all we can do is shake our heads and worry for ourselves and our fellow humans.

I feel so sad for them. I mean it hasn't really been that long sense we had our own bout with terrorism here. It seemed at that time the whole world was morning with us-especially England. I hope we give them the same support, prayers and empathy that they gave to us.

London sends her love; things here are going remarkably well, considering what's happened. The trains may even be running to some extent tomorrow ...

I remember the ticket guys at 7th and Metro. I used to come all the way up to Civic Center (worked at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion) from El Segundo every day and boy, was it ever a bitch ...

Life goes on.

Of course at my job all the talk is about(in this order)
1) The approaching Hurricane
2) London

Hope all is going well with you. Did you stop stalking me?

It bothers me, too, that people have just become desensitized. It is disheartening. I guess that is why I feel obligated to worry enough for 10 people. Poor London. It is so sad for all of us that there are people in this world determined to terrorize the rest of us. How prayers are with London. And the rest of us.

Been in contact with all my London friends; most people remember IRA attacks and seem to be very calm about everything. Experienced, I suppose.

Doesn't make it any less horrifying.

I think Laurie has stopped stalking me too, Crystal. I got like, a million comments one day, then - tumbleweeds.

Crystal, I've just been a poor stalker. Phone date? Miss you. Hope the hurricane goes elsewhere. Or just peters out. Can that happen?

Krickit -- maybe that's what I do, too, worry enough for ten people. I heart you.

I'm just a poor stalker, when my boss is here it's quite hard to do the necessary blog-love. They expect me to be productive. So weird!

I think I'm one of those people who has the inability to be desensitized to some things, I kind of hate it. Everyone tells me I'm overreacting all the time. I think I'm still kind of in shock from 9/11 sometimes.

Yes - we need to talk on the phone - I have called several times - but always seem to miss you.

I don't think it will peter out. Best I can hope for is that it goes else where.

I worry enough for 10,000 people. My Dr. tells me I worry too much. Especially about things that are out of my control.

This has been avery bad week for me - the Hurricane hitting me would not be a surprise at this point!

The same thing here at ny office, No body has said anything. No body is checking on anybody to see if they're ok. I'm totally wacked out. It was the exact same thing on 9-11. Everyone came to work and worked like a normal day. Me on the other hand, I came into work, but I'll be damned if I did anywork. I cried the whole entire day and just reading and listening to the news. I was sooooooo sad. And no body here seemd to care. That's very disturbing.

Popping out of general blog lurking to say I so know where you're coming from in that sense of massive worry for other people. Stuff like this always hits me so hard, to the point where I sort of avoid the news (not a good idea, I know) because it gets me so worked up.

Big knitting hugs from Northern California, and hopefully they'll catch the stupid buggers that did it.

My husband's family in the UK are all well, thankfully. I'll never understand why people do the things they do.

Gah. I opened the news (online, of course) this morning and flipped. Thanks, George W. Bush. You're really cleaning up terrorism. Freedom is on the march, my fat ass!

We're on Orange alert here in Boston as well. We had torrential rains yesterday, so some of the T was underwater for a bit, and today, it's under more scrutiny than usual.

No one here at my office is saying much about the attack either...but I am heartsick that even with increased security that was bound to be happening in London due to the G8 conferences in Scotland, the terrorists were still able to pull this off...

hee heee - you said "peters"....

Laurie, I love that you chose to talk about the London bombings today. NO ONE at my work is talking about it. Which I just don't understand. We had one little warning about our mass transit system and a note to say all of the people at our parent company in England were okay and that's it. It makes me sad the number of people who don't feel anything when violence of this nature happens.

My prayers go out to everyone affected by this tragedy.

Much love to you Laurie for your heartfelt blog today.

Calling in from West London to say that it's really business as normal here. I'm sooooo glad I decided to work from home this week, otherwise this morning I would have been in Liverpool Street Station around 9.30...

I work in the Sears Tower, and just had to field a phone call from my mom, telling me that I shouldn't take the train home. Um, mom, I'm 35 miles away from my house. How exactly am I supposed to get home if I don't take the train? I've been exercising, but 35 miles is a pretty long walk, and I'd probably miss my knitting group. So.

My in-laws and our friends in London are all OK. Thank you for asking.

Yeah, I live in Washington DC. I was here on 9/11 - on Capitol Hill actually and got evacuated with everyone else.

The metro here is saying that they've increased security. Lord knows, you can get arrested for eating on the metro (see story on 12-year-old girl charged for eating ONE french fry).

And, though this is anecdotal, it's distressing: on several occasions I've reported unaccompanied packages on the train to metro security, only to be told that they'll check it out if it's still there when it gets to the end of the line.

End of the line? There's a pun in there, somewhere.

thanks for caring.

We've been waiting for this, and the emergency services have been practising. So now that it's happened I can only thank god it wasn't more devastating. 3 million people use the Underground every day. It could have been so much worse.

Meanwhile, the husband wasn't allowed into his office building, so has been at the pub with colleagues all day. A Very British Response.

What Bad Hippie said! Seems like Dubya and all those other folk who don't seem to blink about these frightening, worrisome things must have ordered invisible, brain-draining blinkers of some kind. How can they seem so uncaring, so untouched by terrorism and mayhem and crazy people carrying full gas cans onto the subway? Do they actually believe stuff like Dubya and Sheriff Baca are saying? Or do they just lack imagination and compassion and plain old now-uncommon COMMON SENSE???

This is scary S**T, people! I sit here today and my heart hurts for the people in London who have died or been hurt, for those who are worrying about their relatives and can't get through on the phone (because all the phone lines and cell phone services are messed up by the explosions).

Some years ago one of my co-workers was mugged and beat up right in front of other people; no one helped her. She got the police to come to work and talk about personal safety. Only about 20 people showed up! The guy said one thing that really stuck with me: "Pay attention to where you are and what's going on around you. If you don't feel right, get the H**L out of there. It's your instincts talking to you and you should pay attention."

OK, done with the rant. We now return you to your normally scheduled screwy day.

Shit!!! Shit, shit shit. This sucks ass. As my gay husband michael describes it, we are turning into a society that says "You kill me? I kill you!" "No, you kill me, I kill you!!!" Somebody has to stop killing on one side or the other. Frankly, I wish it was us.

Stay safe everyone.

My parents are vacationing in London this week (not a normal thing for them) and we were worried sick all day- just heard they're fine, though. They found a bus and went to museums, so it didn't even interrupt their vacation!

Thanks for thinking of us over here in London. The news is horrific but we are all pulling together. New Yorkers showed us the way when they had to deal with 9/11 although thank the knit-god our casualties are so many fewer.

Laurie,

I feel you on this one. Me and my little one got up early this morning (about 6:30 CST) and we sat and watched the news for hours. I was appalled when one of the newscasters commented "The people in London have been victims of multiple terrorist attacks in the Seventies, and seem unconcerned about today's bombing." What the hell was that supposed to mean? That just because it's happened before no one is supposed to worry about the 90+ injured and the 2(maybe more now) that were dead?

I cannot begin to think how we got to be such a jaded society. It's scary to raise children knowing that there are people out there that just don't care or don't pay attention to bad things happening to others. 9/11? I cried for days. The hurricanes last year that demolished Haiti and hit FL? I cried. Tsunami? Cried for those people too. And today, you bet your ass I cried. It didn't help anyone a bit, but I will be damned if I get to the point when I don't care about innocent people being hurt.

I guess it's just uncool or unpopular to be compassionate these days... but you had better believe I'll be teaching my children to give a damn about their fellow human beings, even the ones that live on other continents.

I hear you on the fear of the building you're in. I work on the 63rd floor (yes, sixty-third) in the corporate headquarters of the bank I work for, in the middle of Canada's financial heart. If anyone is a target in this city, it would be one of these towers. The subway system runs under all of these bank towers.

Security is crawling all over the place today. I have to say, though, that the minimum wage rent-a-cop is not make me feel any better about my personal safety.

Damn bad guys! How can you POSSIBLY think it is okay to do this to people?? Huh? Huh?? Yeah, there IS no excuse, is there?! F'ers! I just don't get it. You SO suck!

I love ya, London! Stay tough, heal well, hugs to everyone affected and I'm coming to see you soon, bad guys be damned!

Laurie - thanks for the post!
Lixie - Glad you're okay. And thanks for the New Yorker comment.

I was stunned to hear about the bombing in London as well. I have been listening to the BBC news and NPR all day. Having lived in the UK before, it has really affected me and I worry about my friends and their relatives.

On a lighter note, The Hamburg, Germany subway and train system is on the honor system as well, which I loved, since I am a honest person. However, they have thugs patrolling the cars looking for people who didn't pay for a ticket and then they quickly and aggressively escort them off the train.

What you said about the mass transit situation is yet another reason why I moved from L.A. It should NOT be considered normal to have someone take a dump in a public place like that!

This is not the place to rant, but in response to bad hippie, the terrorist situation in this world is not the fault of any one person. No matter who is in charge of any country, there will be nuts out there behaving like terrorists.

Amen Karyn! I completely agree with you!

We have little TV screens in the elevator at work, and everyone here was talking about it. Here being Canada.

I feel for Londoners, and for all Americans caught up in this. :( Fuzzy yarn hugs to you all!

I take it for granted that the worse I have to deal about here in Toronto is the price of my rail pass and whether I should shop LYS A or B. Or that the only time my work is evacuated is for a fire drill. I don't know if I could live with the anxieties you do. And I don't know how you do. We aren't faced with that here...and I am grateful for that. Stay strong and positive, and know that there are people who do care and are thinking of you!

The world is a scary place. Sometimes it is good to live in the mid-west. Then again, we do have a nuclear power plant in Iowa. Plus we have a John Deere plant just outside of town. I know when I was a kid, someone told me that if there was ever a war against the USA that John Deere plants would be targeted by nukes because they could be converted to manufacture military equipment. I'm not so worried about that any more though.

Still on days like this, the world just sucks.

I know you talk about taking public transportation and all but I have to ask - do you take the red line to work? I live down the street from the universal station. If you go shopping at the Ralph's on Ventura, I could bump into you! LOL

I so wish I could take the red line to work. That would give me time to knit. Oh and that's another story....gotta go blog about my knitting drama.

Hear hear, Laurie. It's been a bit anxious in DC, too. I'm glad to be home in suburbia now. Wish I could telecommute tomorrow. At any rate, hang in there. Keep on keepin' on. >>hugs<<

I just wish our government didn't give these terrorists so many reasons to be mad. Don't they realize that violence breeds violence.

It's so sad...not just for London, but for humanity.

I work in downtown LA too, but I'm only 4 stories off the ground in a 10 story building. Not quite the same thing you deal with. And my bus is a commuter express so everyone on it works downtown and lives in the south bay. It surprisingly tame.

But hey, the truth is you would be at a statistically higher risk driving to work on the LA streets than taking public transportation.

No one at my workplace is talking about the bombings either. I think I heard one "Did you hear about London?" "Yeah."

I have to say, I think the reason that Americans in general are not talking about London is, as horrifyingly callous as it may sound, 40+ people dead is just nothing close to what happened on 9/11. I honestly think a lot of them don't think it's a big deal because there was so little loss of life, comparatively. It's all about us in the States, you know. The rest of the world just doessn't matter to most people here. I hate that.

I, on the other hand, am shocked and upset, and haven't been able to concentrate on work today because of it. I've been listening to NPR all day. Luckily, my two friends in London are fine - thank The Internets for letting me know since the phones are wonky.

You just make me like you more and more with every post. You have such a huge heart, as does everyone who comments on your page.

What I can't believe is that I live in a town where tons of people commute to New York City and not one, NOT ONE, person today even MENTIONED what happened in London. Do you believe it? And I work in retail with a major sale going on so you know there are loads of people in and out all day long! NO ONE! I decided not to say a thing just to see how many people would bring it up. NO ONE! What a bunch of self-centered shits i encounter for my working hours! I am so grateful to be safe and sound every day since 9/11, that I don't dare complain about much of anything! Sometimes I just don't get it!

Of course we all need to react. Because while most everyone is ok, some people are not. There are families whose wives / husbands / daughters / sons / friends didn't come home tonight. Just as there are every day in more places in the world than we can bear to comprehend. Iraq, Darfur, London, the list is too long.

So many people and so many places are destroyed by hatred and blood lust and sudden violence. We need to remember, we need to go on, but we need to remember and mourn, or nothing will ever change.

It was another sad day for planet earth
People hating people for no valid reason
Innocents killed and injured
Children starving
and yet Tom Cruise is still allowed to mouth off and act stupid on tv....
I don't get it either.
Pray for the Christians, the Muslims, the Jews, the Pagans ... we are all victims.

I don't believe that others are indifferent. The traumatic events of recent years..... New Yorkers, Afghanis, Iraquis, Phillipinos & Australians, Spanish citizens or the Brits, the beheadings, the death and maiming of soldiers and always the starvation in Africa, have left folks to internalize the anguish and overload of events that they can not control. Citizens of the world all -none of whom alone can change the politics of governments.
Sometimes we are personally victimized, say by marriages. We weep and weep and curse the Gods, then we get on with living. We do what we can and must do. The pain and caring is still there but the crying stops. We live life in a more knowing way with more compassion and awareness. We shed our fantasies but not our whimsy. We live on and owe it to those who did not have that chance. Sometimes when the world is completely insane we read Crazy Aunt Purl, who is so wonderfully full of life that even an old NY lady leaves smiling, knowing that the world will be OK. Here's to the Brits!!!!

When New York was attacked the people in my office did nothing BUT watch the coverage, they cancelled appointments, they didn't take calls, they sat in front of the television all day long. Yesterday nobody turned the television on and I only discussed the bombing with 1 other person who happens to love London as much as I do. I wonder if all the violence of the past 4 years, from the bombings in New York and Spain to our so-called war on terror has led to a mass desensitizing of our population or if we really are as self-centered and arrogant as our detractors claim. Either way our collective response to what happened yesterday is disgraceful.

It's visibility. The WTC falling was an image unlike any other in world history. Let's hope it stays singular. The subway bombings were hard to see, hard to visualize - and perhaps didn't wind into our psyches in the same way.

I was in London during the Harrod's IRA bombing. Scary. Folks kept walking past me hissing, "The Irish are PIGS!" - I guess I looked Irish? Or maybe they were saying it to everyone.

Poverty [financial & other] breeds violence,
Violence breeds hate,
Hate breeds more violence
... until we're all paralyzed by fear.

Chaos = Hell

We have the power to heal the world, but we have to have the will.

I stumbled upon your blog today.

I have to tell you that I may become your stalker!
Seriously, have you ever thought of writing a book? This is sheer genius.

London - the bombing really sucks eggs. I will never understand how blowing something up will further any cause but to stop the bombers.

I live in Chicago and have worked in the Sears Tower, the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Buildings. I agree that being in a high profile building is scary.

Anyway, your blog is not listed in my favorites! I read as far back as I could....and I am making the chicken hat for my PG friend!

As for your divorce....MrX sounds like he was always a putz.....but I feel for your grief at the loss of the marriage. YAY for being able to cook with tomatoes again!

LMFAO - that should read now listed in my favorites.

Note to self - proofread before sending.

The events of yesterday were very upsetting. Last night we had an event at LACMA for my place of work, and we were fortunate enough to have Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa come and say a few words to our supporters. He started with a moment of silence for those affected by the acts of terror in London. After a crazy day at the office with everyone scrambling to get it together for the evening’s event, it was nice to be able to slow down and give proper recognition to the folks who had suffered greatly that day in London. I think LA did good. I like this guy.

I'm originally from NYC, and as you say, public transportation there is just "one big old party of suspicious activity"! I'm not sure how one is supposed to differentiate between the USUAL suspicious activity, and the TERRORIST suspicious activity. Is this when the governments of the world hold "How to Identify a Terrorist" classes for the hoi polloi?

I'll save my rant about illegal immigration for later... all I have to say for now is: How DARE my government employer tell me that I will lose my job if I provide services to illegal immigrants and don't turn them in to the INS! I thought I was supposed to be serving the public, whomever they may be? Whoops, sorry, I guess I ranted anyway.

Hi Laurie, I've been stalking your blog for a while now and I love it..just wanted to tell you how glad I am to read your entry about London. It's hard to believe people could be indifferent about it - I remember a similar apathy in the US media and American forums I post on after the Madrid bombing, and it felt like...aren't these countries supposed to be friends and allies of the US in the 'war on terror' etc? Or friends and allies in any case. I have family and friends in both Madrid and London so had the usual anxious phone-around/mass emailing before finding out they were okay. I feel sick still. There's nothing new to say about it all. My sister lives near London and got a commuter train the evening of the bombings - she said everyone was very hushed and carefully polite and kind to each other. It's a cliche, but they're tough, stoical people.

I'm thinking of Muslims in London and hoping there won't be any attacks on their communities. Cursingmama mentioned the reaction to IRA bombings in London - I'm Irish and some of my older relatives remember how unpleasant it was to be Irish and living in Britain during the 70s at the height of the IRA's murderous bombing campaigns - some people can't make a distinction between a lunatic minority and the people they claim to represent, unfortunately.

The last week in England has included winning the bid for the Olympics 2012, several Live8 concerts, a march, clashes and protests at the G8 summit, the bombings on Thursday and the celebration of VE day (end of WWII) in central London yesterday. The most lip-quiveringly outstanding of these was the quietly-determined professionalism shown by the emergency teams from the London Emergency Plan and the sheer bloody-minded solidarity shown by all those who, knowing the risks, journeyed into Central London yesterday to join with the veterans and the Royal family to witness the dropping, by old WWII Hurricane planes, of millions of red poppies onto The Mall, down Horseguards Parade and over Buckingham Palace, commemorating those who gave their lives in WWII. The timing and the context could not have been more powerful or poignant.