Why Do I Do This To Myself?

I'm very teary today (well, yesterday), as the more I see of the astronauts who died yesterday (Saturday) morning, the more it hits me that the bright, shining, shooting star on the television was really, truly the Columbia, the space shuttle of which my brother and I had a toy/model back in the early days of the shuttles, before the Challenger blew to bits over the shores of Florida; that these people died and were worth twenty-five of me, each of them. Smarter, stronger, more dedicated. They were among the few of our planet who got to see it from the outside, to float weightless and see how beautiful our world is from the thrilling, cold emptiness of space. The first Indian woman in space, the first Israeli in space, one of the few Black astronauts. There's all sorts of firsts and fews. It was McCool's rookie mission as pilot.

So, I'm feeling that gray, dragging feeling that I get after horrible events like these, ones unassociated with me personally but which still hit me, over time, like I was personally involved. And what do I do? Go to the North Shore Animal League America online kennel to see the animals there. Now I'm all blubbery again, because I can't even save one, sick, old cat named Martin. I suck. I contribute nothing to the world but my mental spewings in this blog. I can't even give a poor, lonely cat a home in his sickly, waning years. I suck. I can't even do this tiny thing to help. I suck.