To me, September 11, 2001, feels like yesterday. Correction: It's more vivid than yesterday, because I can't remember what I ate yesterday, but I can still taste the toxic World Trade Center smoke and dust given the right trigger. It overwhelms me on the anniversary date; when the sky is a particular shade of blue; when I hear a too-low plane; or an ear-splitting metallic clang.

By the way, you didn't have to be directly in the cloud of dust or on/near "Ground Zero" to smell and taste that dust. I lived more than 80 blocks away from the WTC and for weeks, that smell and taste hung heavy in the air. I remember saying that the air had to be dangerous despite the government reassurances to the contrary. My reasoning was, "Even if there were that much vitamin C in the air, it would be poisonous." I mean, come on. If you can see, smell, and taste a foreign substance in the air - and feel the grime it leaves on both indoor and outdoor surfaces - it's got to be bad. It's no surprise that the number of deaths from post-9/11 illnesses are more than double the number of deaths recorded on 9/11 itself. (U.S. News & World Report says, "Representatives for more than 9,000 people who died after 9/11 have filed claims with the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, and more than 6,000 of those have received compensation so far.")

Anyway, considering how present that day remains to me, I was startled when someone I have known for a couple of years - and have grown close to - asked, "Hey, where were you on 9/11?" Fifteen years ago, the experience was such an integral part of my life story that anyone who knew me well wouldn't have to ask. Even a stranger's small-talk question about my career was likely to bring it up. But a quarter of a century later, the years 2001 to 2005 don't usually come up in conversation, even when I'm talking about work. If I were writing a resume now, those years would be one line at most. Ancient history.

But I kind of want to answer my friend's question. The shortest answer to "Where were you on 9/11? is: Across the street in the World Financial Center (now known as Brookfield Place). For those who know the neighborhood, I was at 200 Vesey Street.

As to why I was there: I was the managing editor for e-commerce for Lehman Brothers, the investment bank, and I was in Lehman's offices early to phone in to a meeting on the 40th floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower. I was supposed to go in person, but I decided it would be too boring. (One person from Lehman died that day.)

If you want my full story, you can find it on this blog, albeit in bits and pieces. As I reread my old posts today, I was stunned by how much I didn't say in some of them. I puzzled over this a while, before I remembered the survivor's guilt that prevented me from writing a cohesive story here. Even in conversation, for years, I said, "I was lucky; nothing happened to me" - although I would tell the whole story in detail if pushed for more information or when MrB started telling part of our shared story. Then I'd want to correct him, of course. But I definitely perceived my story as "small" and that telling it, especially in writing, would somehow take away from the people who truly suffered. I mean, I spent two years constantly visiting corporate memorial sites for their employees and obsessively worrying about these strangers' family members who commented there. Plus I personally knew many people who fled the Towers as bodies rained down; others who were caught in the initial dust cloud (MrB and his colleague who ultimately died from that exposure in 2020); people who lost their homes and possessions; and, really, anyone who lost someone that day, in New York, D.C., or Pennsylvania. Those were the important stories.

This seems wild to me now. I suppose it shows some kind of progress that I now think it would have been much easier - and a lot less weird - to tell my story in one shot rather than over a period of years. Everything's here, but you have to work for it, so if you're really motivated, here's a guide to my personal 9/11 story:

• In 2007, the year I started blogging, I gave the bare minimum information. Basically, MrB and I both worked across the street from the World Trade Center. I was able to evacuate north, but he was forced to go south, towards the water, and that's how he ended up in the cloud of debris. I also wrote about a stuffed cow.
• My 2008 post "Laughing While Crying" provided more detail about evacuating the area, and mused about how certain garments can be ridiculed even during emergencies. Also, the stuffed cow came back.
• In 2009, I wrote about the "other" Wendy Brandes and how my friends ended up talking to her. She's always part of my story.
• My 2010 post, "The Devil Is in the Details," seems the most bizarre to me now because I wrote about key moments while calling them "minor memories."
• In 2011, I finally wrote in detail about watching people jumping from the buildings. It's about halfway through the post.
• It took me until 2014 to mention that I was the one who called MrB and told him about the "explosion" in the World Trade Center. He was the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, and my call kicked off the effort by MrB and his top editors to get Journal folks to a New Jersey office. The Journal published on September 12, and that coverage won a Pulitzer. MrB didn't go to New Jersey and all the journalists worked for hours believing that he was dead. Dean Rotbart wrote an oral history about this, called "September Twelfth."

Do I need to write my story from beginning to end in a single post for posterity? I'm not sure. I'm just so shocked that I never did that. This morning, I truly thought I was going to link to one old post and say, "Here's my story" and then get to my real topic, which is my rage and anxiety about the deluge of 9/11 propaganda. It's one thing to have memorial services that comfort the survivors - I would never take issue with that - but I loathe the hours of coverage and millions of words spilled throughout the day that present 9/11 as THE great tragedy in a country that absolutely does not care about mass death in less spectacular circumstances, either at home and in other countries. (No need to raise your hand and say "I'm a decent person who cares." I know you're out there. This is a larger-society issue.) I wrote about this in 2020, 2021, and 2023 and I'm not going to repeat every line of those posts now. I'll just post this September 11, 2020, headline from the Intercept for the third time because it makes my point in relatively few words.

You can replace that Covid statistic with the stat of your choice, such as the 4.5 - 4.7 million people, largely civilians, estimated by Brown University to have died in America's post-9/11 wars. (Trillions of dollars moved from public funds to the private sector thanks to those wars.) Or you can replace the Covid stat with the half a million people who have been killed by guns in the U.S. since 9/11. You can insert the more than 70,000 Palestinians killed by Israel with U.S. funds and weapons. (One thousand were killed this year during a "ceasefire.") You can count the thousands of people locked in for-profit concentration camps by ICE. Remember, ICE IS a product of 9/11. It was formed in 2003 and now has a budget that's bigger all other federal law enforcement agencies combined, thanks to both Democrats and Republicans. There's a direct line from 9/11 propaganda to the masked ICE thugs committing extrajudicial murders in the street and to people dying from medical neglect and worse behind the walls of GEO Group- and CoreCivic-run prisons.

I passionately disliked today's flag waving and the solemn God-bless-America faces on people who have ZERO personal connection to that day - they didn't work or live in NYC, D.C., or Pennsylvania; they didn't lose anyone; they didn't momentarily fear they lost someone; they weren't on any of the grounded planes. There are too many ways to have a personal connection, so I can't list them all, but watching it on TV was not the same. This terrific Instagram post by Amy Elliott about what it felt like in NYC is a must-read. (Amy, thank you for reposting it at my request!)

Here's a quote from a Facebook post that nails my discomfort with the day. Hollow is the perfect word.

The incessant commemorations of 9/11 ring more hollow to me every year. Everyone here performatively mourns the lives lost in a singular attack, while spending the last 25 years (and decades before that) making this kind of terror a normal way of life for people throughout the global south. It's a level of cognitive dissonance (and hypocrisy) that just makes me roll my eyes and wonder what we're even doing here. Us Americans can't handle even a tiny fraction of what we routinely put so much of the world through everyday.

Speaking of things I dislike, I'll include my own 9/11 10th-anniversary post, back when I believed that the First Amendment meant something, and that corporate media and big institutions like universities and hospitals would resist fascism rather than cave immediately. While I repeatedly mention the USA's failures in that post, I had blind and even arrogant faith in our "ideals." I've changed a lot since then.

At least one good quality has stayed with me for a whole quarter century. Sleeveless-turtleneck-hater Mel reminded me today. She had the dubious pleasure of working for me and a guy at Lehman. I called her after the first plane hit and told her not to leave our building, because the debris falling off the World Trade Center could be dangerous, or there could be a secondary bombing of evacuees on the ground. Then the second plane hit and I was like, "All bets are off! Time to go!" I called Mel back. As she recalls:

I'm proud to say that even back in the day, I was like "Fuck a (second) boss, save yourself!" Remember that, folks! People died on 9/11 because their bosses kept them at work in the second tower. Other people have died of 9/11-caused illnesses because their bosses had them working in offices downtown mere days after the attacks. In an emergency, don't listen to "company man" bosses! Listen to the "fuck this company" women, especially the weird ones who keep World Trade Center matches for 25+ years.

Every time I log into the back end of this blog, I feel like I'm peering around the corner in a haunted house. It's very suspenseful. My heart's kind of pounding thinking a literal ghost in the machine might awaiting me with scary error messages. I assume my fears will be assuaged with exposure therapy, now that I have ghostbuster/Fiverr freelancer Lisa Miller on my side.

I can testify that Lisa is very patient with erratic clients because I told her my blog problems, gave her access, and then disappeared for weeks on end. To stick with a theme, I would say that I ghosted her, but someone somewhere on social media pointed out that ghosting is the wrong word for disappearing, because the whole problem with ghosts is that they're lingering, uninvited. Right? If you have a ghost in your house, it's rudely opening your kitchen cabinets; banging the screen door; turning the TV to static to transport small children and pets to other dimensions; and messing with the back end of your blog. You WANT the ghost to disappear for good. So let's say I was frequently incommunicado rather than a ghost. Nevertheless, Lisa persisted, and here I am.

Anyway, if you follow me on Instagram, you already know that my raison d'être is fighting fascism (sometimes while pole dancing, as you can see below).

I'm choosing the word "fascism" to cover my concerns because political scientist Lawrence Britt published a list of 14 characteristics of fascism in 2003, and the list covers a large number of the evils we face, though in a general way, by necessity. You have to go through it and say, yeah, this one covers patriarchy, and this one covers concentration camps, and this one covers Christofascism, and so on. I'm not sure the list encompasses ecocide; white supremacy; imperialism and colonization; and mass murder through lack of safe food, safe water, medical neglect, and/or lack of electrical power. So when I say I'm consumed with fighting fascism, it's also more than fascism, but sometimes I need shorthand for The System.

That said, I'm not starting with a political post because I feel compelled to write about some non-resistance topics "for the record." I've always felt that the blog is where I make my official statements about people, places, things, daily horrors, etc. If it's not here, it's not official! It's more static and easily searchable than social media. I often use my blog as reference material on myself. It's the quickest way for me to look up things like the date of an event, the provenance of a sequin skirt, photos of favorite hairstyles, and opinions that I now wholeheartedly rebuke. I get very annoyed with my past self when I discover that a topic I am looking for wasn't covered.

Two other answers to my own question of "what am I doing here?" just hit me. First, my stepdaughter Isabelle once called me "completist," when I couldn't move onto a show she recommended because I had yet to finish the previous show she recommended. This blog has felt incomplete, and that's long made me anxious. (Note: I can deal with important things in life being open-ended, but any smaller, self-contained things that CAN be completed MUST be completed or I cannot rest.)

Second, after I wrote my first "real" post complete with photos four days ago and started thinking about what I might write next, I was unexpectedly bursting with creativity like I haven't been in years. I was starting to wonder if I was having a manic episode, and texted Isabelle, a novelist, with alarm, to ask her what to do if I suddenly had the outline for a four-chapter short story written down in 30 minutes. I was like, what does this mean? MUST I write the story now? Is it mandated by the muses or something? I've never done anything like that before. I'm pretty sure I didn't want to do anything like that. Seeing as the energy hasn't spread in either an alarming or helpful way to other aspects of my life, I'm going to take this a positive development and continue blogging if I can, while writing my short story. Kidding! I have not started the short story. Must I? Please advise.

Finally, it has dawned on me, as I prepared to write a last paragraph here, that my new era of blogging began with a story about a stolen ring. Here's a crazy coincidence: THIS WHOLE BLOG STARTED IN 2007 WITH A STORY ABOUT A STOLEN RING. Someone fetch my smelling salts at once - I fear I shall swoon! Seriously, I'm shook! I didn't even remember as I wrote that recent post, and declared the 2026 incident to be my first and only major jewelry theft! I guess I will stand by that, because the first time, we knew who had the ring and I was paid for it. The 2007 ring didn't vanish into the ether.

P.S. Fuck AI. I won't use it here. I will figure out how to do alt text for images though!

I'm going to kick off my return to blogging* with some thrilling jewelry news! And there's an opportunity for you to get in on the excitement. If you come across someone in the wild who happens to be wearing my one-of-a-kind Marie Antoinette ring ...

... you should, of course, compliment the wearer on their good taste. Then ask to take a closer look.
A really close look. Maybe even ask to try the ring on. Then, once you get this baby on your finger, run like hell, because this ring was STOLEN and I want it back.

Can you even believe it? I still can't. This was my first theft after 20 years in business. The first theft at the store too! I'm not going to mention the name of the store, but I've spent plenty of time there, and I know how good the security is, and how conscientious the staff is. Sometimes shit happens.

When the store owner called to give me the bad news, I was so unnerved that I just kept laughing.

Ending that phone call was funny. I was like, "Well, thank you for calling me," and the store owner was like, "Thank you," and then we kept thanking each other and laughing because why the hell were we thanking each other so much.

Anyway, many hours of security footage have been reviewed; a police report has been filed; and I'm weirdly relieved that the victim of the sticky fingers wasn't one of my Maneater rings. That would have hurt more. Not that this feels particularly good, but I didn't lose my mind over the incident. That said, keep your eyes peeled. There's only one ring like this in the world!

*I'm still trying to figure out if this site is functional, hence the asterisk on "return to blogging."

The post Testing! Testing! first appeared on Wendy Brandes Jewelry Blog.

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The post The Age of Majority Blogversary first appeared on Wendy Brandes Jewelry Blog.

You know those exercises where you write a letter to your future self? I should be doing that right now, seeing as I'm typing these words in 2021. Let's see:

Dear 2025 Wendy,

I have no expectation that you'll remember to share this Associated Press report about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on the actual 160th anniversary of the shooting, so I'm setting it up in advance. By the way, are you still writing the blog?! If so, congrats!

Best,

2021 Wendy

P.S. I hope the fascists haven't taken over.

I came across the AP's link to its own April 14, 1865, story about a little incident at Ford's Theatre too late to write a timely 2021 post, so I decided to save it for the next big round-number occasion, just because the first paragraph of the story by Lawrence Gobright is such a spectacular example of burying the lede:

WASHINGTON, APRIL 14 — President Lincoln and wife visited Ford’s Theatre this evening for the purpose of witnessing the performance of ‘The American Cousin.’ It was announced in the papers that Gen. Grant would also be present, but that gentleman took the late train of cars for New Jersey.

In the second paragraph, a kerfuffle takes place ...

The theatre was densely crowded, and everybody seemed delighted with the scene before them. During the third act and while there was a temporary pause for one of the actors to enter, a sharp report of a pistol was heard, which merely attracted attention, but suggested nothing serious until a man rushed to the front of the President’s box, waving a long dagger in his right hand, exclaiming, ‘Sic semper tyrannis,’ and immediately leaped from the box, which was in the second tier, to the stage beneath, and ran across to the opposite side, made his escape amid the bewilderment of the audience from the rear of the theatre, and mounted a horse and fled.

... and in the third paragraph, we learn that President Lincoln was shot.

The groans of Mrs. Lincoln first disclosed the fact that the President had been shot, when all present rose to their feet rushing towards the stage, many exclaiming, ‘Hang him, hang him!’ The excitement was of the wildest possible description...

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

I'm postponing my in-real-life birthday celebration until tomorrow, but because my birthdays demand some kind of fashion photo, allow me to re-share my lewk from exactly 40 years ago today.

Now that I have your attention, here's a special birthday request for donations to to help my friend Nadine Seiler start life over in Trinidad and Tobago by donating to her GoFundMe. Nadine (aka Warrior Goddess for the Resistance) is an absolute dynamo who has spent the past eight years devoted to anti-MAGA activism, bringing spectacular visuals, energy, courage, intelligence, and good humor to her relentless protesting.

USA Today did a great story about Nadine in August. Alexandra Charitan wrote about her here. This interview with Feminist just came out and includes advice about overcoming apathy and much more. (Read the articles and you'll fall in love with her, I promise!) The problem is that Nadine is a naturalized citizen, and the MAGA government plans to strip citizenship from and deport people just like her. Nadine has lived in the U.S. for 40 years, but she now wants to leave her own terms, rather than waiting for the government to target her.  She stood up for all of us who didn't have the nerve to protest like she does. Now I feel like it's time we stand up for her.

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The post Blogversary 17 first appeared on Wendy Brandes Jewelry Blog.

Better late than never: My dear friend and groundbreaking rapper Gangsta Boo was recognized in the "In Memoriam" portion of the Grammys tonight. I guess the Recording Academy became aware of the outrage after she was left out of last year's February broadcast even though she died on January 1 . Thank you to my friend Tina for getting this shot of the screen, because I was too busy screaming to operate my phone.

Here's a close-up of the beautiful photo used.

This was the second Boo surprise I got in a week. Earlier, I discovered an Instagram photo she'd shared of Rihanna back in 2020. Somehow, it wound up in that SpaceNook folder that's like the Bermuda Triangle for random messages.

My heart skipped a beat. I remember this from Instagram, but I had no idea it was lurking in that strange Facebook folder. Boo always did like to tell me when she spotted someone else with a mullet haircut in the wild. Now I feel like I got to say hi to her twice -- and like I might have to tell my hair guru Keith Carpenter that I'm not ready to move on from a mullet after all.

In case you missed it, here's the tribute I wrote to Boo (aka Lola Mitchell) for her birthday last year.