Orlando

I had a really nice Saturday night. Like I said on here, our neighbor came over , we had some yummy snacks, drank some wine, then I grilled us some burgers. Had a little too much wine for the first time in ages, and just had myself an old fashion silly night after Neil went to bed. Played music, danced around, cleaned the kitchen... just had a fun time on a beautiful early summer evening, but was up late. Neil got up for church Sunday morning early ( choir ) and got his email alerts on his watch thing.....

20 dead in gay bar shooting. Fuzzy brained from the night before - just sat zombie like watching tv - as he got dressed and left. It was the great American numbness that we have all mastered. Angel faced first graders in Sandy Hook, folks waiting to see a Batman movie in Colorado, an office Christmas party in Southern California, so many others all in an endless loop of sadness and anger and nothing being done - now it was the Gays of Disney turn.

 No real feelings about them anymore, to fast and numbered to register the anger and shock that the world felt a lifetime ago in Columbine Co, 17 years since this all started being our new normal. Then the second news briefing - things said in passing. Shooter wore blue jeans, sun came up this morning... 50 dead and 50 plus more in the hospital, blown to bits, just dropped sort of at the end of the first guy or so - almost going over the heads of all the reporters, till someone had to say .." wait did you say 50 ? "

That snapped the zombie out of us all ... absolutely horrible what it takes to shock Americans in 2016. Just more than I could process - took Koda out for a walk then just went back to bed, I was working on just a couple of hours sleep. I had very odd dreams, rare for me - I was back on the walk I just came in on and it was getting dark - but not like the sun setting, like this silly phone game that I play , where an inky black cloud takes over the screen when you do something wrong. Koda and I out on the trail , with this inky blackness coming in all around me, I could not even see him at the end of his leash. Trying to get back home, feeling my way in this black out fog... really a distressing dream, which is very rare for me to have.

Neil came home and we turned back on the tv... first things heard was that no bodies had been taken out, active crime scene and all. Then the Cassandra like wailing of that heartbreaking mother looking for her son or his boyfriend.. over and over, msnbc, fox, cnn, begging anyone who would listen to help her.. give her the news that she could not bear.

All this took away the luxury of the non feeling zombie, this was happening in front of us on live tv.. and to LGBT Americans , a gay bar.. our people. Horror , disgust, anger, anger, anger, sadness.. just poured over us all after noon and into the evening. We were supposed to do our usual tradition and got watch THE TONY'S ( we do all the award shows ) with Dahn and David, but we just could not seem to put one foot in front of the other . Being social was just impossible...

We did watch the Tonys, but a lot of it seems forced.. I think the majority of the Broadway folk were told just to not react. A small opening statement and the " show must go on ". Came in here to write about it last night and was just too exhausted. The cacophony gave way this morning to anger as the night got straight washed.... The media seeming wanting to pigeon hole the shooter into their ISIS cooking cuter.. except he killed these folks because they were gay. Letting gay hatting right wing pols offer up prayers to what ever god lets this sort of thing happen. Rubio and Scott some of the worst of the worst, all over today - with out ever mentioning those that were killed.

The abomination that was the US Senates putrid little moment of silence ( 16 and counting! ) for the victims of gun violence, led off with a prayer from MLK, freedom and all. Not a Harvey Milk and justice for all . The fact that it was a gay bar with gay folk dead seemed to get in the way of the story.

Luckily we had a friend drop by and bring us some lovely flowers, then I went on a few mile walk, no darkness at all, just a head clearing time in the still strangly cool June day, and tonight to a little vigil at St Johns. I wanted to go downtown to the big gay one, but in the end glad I went to the one in Honeoye Falls. The expected tiny crowd, but at least I knew and liked everyone there.

The mother from Saturday night found her son, and his boyfriend, fiancee really, they had plans on getting married soon. Both had been murdered. The two families are going to hold a joint funeral for the young men. They can be together in death if not in life. We will return to the zombie state soon, you know we will, and a shooting of 40 or 50 , bodies shredded with automatic weapons fire - won't even cause us to blink. The horror bar terribly raised.

And any crazy gay/Jew/ child/ Superhero hating man can walk into any gun store in America in the morning and buy the exact same gun that was used to kill so many people, and no one can do anything about it.