"It was a beautiful day - and I won't say "it was just like the gorgeous day of 9/11" because that would link the glory of a simple early-autumn day to perfidy of those assassins. Facile as it sounds, if I think that lovely September mornings are Just Like That Day, then the terrorists have won. No. Note to Atta et al, no doubt dogpaddling in hell and bobbing in sulferous feces for nail-studded raisins: a lovely day in September reminds me that I'm alive, and you're not.

No, it was a good day. We had an Indian meal, assembled from the shelves of the pungent market down the street. We drew on the sidewalk with chalk, we went to the park to play. Jasper ran after rabbits while I weeded the lawn. I went to the office for a while, and when I went outside to think about the column I watched hundreds of citizens stream to the Metrodome to watch baseball and attend the memorial. No fear on anyone's face. And if you walked close enough to the Dome you could hear the crowd inside roar - not for blood, not for vengeance, not for death and fire, but for baseball. That was 9/11, 2002. I curse the terrorists for their horrible triumphs, but those bastards cannot even begin to count the ways in which they failed."

More rockin' prose from James Lileks can be found here.