Sorrow.

When I got home in the evening from class yesterday, I opened the news on my laptop and immediately went cold. There was a shooting spree in Carson. A man fired on a woman in a shopping center parking lot, then walked into the IHOP restaurant and fired all around the restaurant, killing one civilian woman and three Nevada National Guardsmen. He then left the IHOP and began shooting up other buildings in the center, then shot himself in the head.

I immediately saw the IHOP in my head. Though I left Carson nearly two weeks ago, the familiar place came flooding back into my mind. I slowly realized that over the summer, I was in that very same shopping center parking lot one or two mornings a week, picking up groceries at Raley's. And while I felt lucky to have not been there, the tragedy still hits home for me on the other side of the country. My sleepy country "town", that has shocked my city-girl crime senses, is now dealing with likely the worst incident that Carson has ever experienced. The city girl in me said "people get killed on the streets of Oakland nearly every day." But the little bit of country girl in me, the part on which Carson is growing fondly, just felt traumatized by the news.

My thoughts and prayers are with my new home town. Mr. TPG is safe and sound.