From an email from Jaime, Queens, New York, USA:

Thank you all for your emails and phone calls (and attempted phone calls)...This is my first opportunity to check my email as the Museum was closed for 3 days. Many of you know that John and I do not live near lower Manhattan, and neither of us work down there. We are fine. I did not get into Manhattan at all on Tuesday, as I was taking my car to the shop and was planning on heading in late anyway. As far as we know, our friends and loved ones are safe as well, but I suspect that in the coming weeks and even months, I'll find that I do know someone or at least someone who knows someone. I think we all will.

It's been a surreal and horrible few days. You've all the seen the same images and video and news coverage that I have...I don't have to try to explain the horror and tragedy. There are no words for it.

I stayed home Tuesday, watching the one local station that broadcasts from the Empire State Building and crying. I walked up to a local hospital to give blood because there was nothing else I could do. After waiting an hour and a half, hundreds of people were sent home because there were hundreds in line in front of us. It took John an hour and a half to walk home from Brooklyn.

Wednesday, I woke up and for a moment just pondered what time it was, but soon remembered that Tuesday's events were not a bad movie I'd seen. I came in to work because I couldn't get through to Museum security to find out if we were open, and I didn't want to stay home alone. John had to take the newspaper away from me on the subway because I was crying so hard. The Museum was open to staff, but my department was locked and the lights were off. I went home. John came home early.

Yesterday morning, John asked if I smelled something burning - the wind had shifted Wednesday evening, blowing the smoke and dust north, and there was no mistaking the metallic smell of the wreckage having drifted into my neighborhood - as if we needed a reminder of the nightmare. The Museum was supposed to be open, but they decided to remain closed for another day and we were sent home at about 9:40.

Last night I dreamed that big weird planes were flying over my neighborhood, and a fireman I was talking to told me the names of them. They were bombers. Then I was in a small wood-paneled room that turned out to be a gas chamber and I knew I was going to die. I very calmly told myself that I would just fall asleep and not wake up. That of course, is when I woke up shaken.

Many of you know that I live next door to a firehouse. I haven't gotten up the courage to ask, but I'm fairly certain they are all accounted for - both trucks are there and they have not hung up the mourning bunting (which was up just a few months ago for one of their firefighters who died in a hardware store fire on Father's Day).

I'm distracted, confused, absent-minded. Nobody's getting any work done today. I know that with time, things will feel better. But I can't imagine it, and I feel right now that feeling better is completely inappropriate. New York is a horrible place to be right now.