Update: Aurora

I had a blog post ready to go, in the midst of everything on Friday. But it didn't feel right. It felt speculative, inconclusive. Like I was missing something.

So I followed the newscycle, saw some roller derby, and kept thinking about it. I ate some kale chips, and kept thinking.

In the middle of those kale chips, I got an email from a friend. One of our friends was in that theatre in Aurora. He didn't make it out.

Now, I don't know what to think. Everything I was writing before still feels like it was on the right track, but now I have bigger things to contemplate.

I only knew the dude in passing. We played some Fireball Island, maybe shared a drink. The media vultures want to know what kind of person he was: he was the kind of person who went to Starfest and midnight movie premieres, and nerded out just as hard and as deeply as the rest of us. And then what. I have other friends who were, are, much closer. I'm more worried about them.

Mostly, I wait with the rest of Colorado, for answers that will be slow in coming, trying to make sense of this terrible thing. I hug my friends, and try to live the lives we've always lived. We're too far too be devastated, close enough to be walking around half-dazed. I cuddle the dog they're looking after, til his parents and girlfriend have the time to think about all the little details that his absence leaves.

I wait for details about funeral arrangements, avoid vigils that will make me uncomfortable. I try not to pick fights on the internet with PEOPLE that have OPINIONS who are hundreds, thousands, of miles away, a billion degrees removed. Everyone has a solution, a reason. I think about Koa, fancy-free, passed around from human to human this weekend, oblivious to everything, excited about new people, new dogs, new food and new smells. Does he know something is different? Or is he just going to keep trying to facefuck his new buddy-dog?

No answers. Just more questions.