By the time the boardwalk story caught up to me, the alleged guy had already allegedly turned himself in, and I felt myself shaking -- not so much in the same way as the "Boston bombers" had (maybe because things were cooperatively under control in the aftermath?), but more in the way that Amy Lord's murder did. Because it was done on a whim, and very close (chronologically) to that murder, and because assholes just do stuff like choking people and running them over and I don't know how to deal with that crap other than to miraculously survive it.

I hope that your hooping friend is getting through this okay -- was she the person with the flowers laced through her hair in one of the videos? whoever that person was, I was so impressed by her poise.

Even after the bombing, maybe because of it, I'm just odds and ends about feeling secure in a place where previously I might have felt comfortable walking my dog on a starry night with lots of people around. The world gets tinier in some respects; I'm very happy that I live in Downtown Salem where, even with the skanky stuff that happens in a downtown, I feel that I have some agency.

Not to say I'd never walk down Boylston Street, or around Southie again; but I still burst into tears seeing a movie set in NYC with or without the towers, let alone how I feel on a train or plane into or out of the NYC. Still.

Assholes.