Today.

Today.

The feels.

I just do not even.

I - like most every other human on the face of the planet - simply cannot understand how a person can massacre other humans. And when it's 5 year old children I just break. It seems crazy, but we will have to live, I think, with not knowing what was behind it. And that seems to us to make it worse.

Nothing, however, could make it worse for the children, parents, and teachers at that school.

I feel ill every time I think about it.

And then I see people shouting about their right to bear arms, as though that trumps the right of 5 yr old children to not be mown down by semi-automatic assault weapons - which Have. No. Purpose. Other than killing large numbers of humans, as quickly as possible.

And then. Then I see what really starts to shake my faith in humanity: a screen-capture (I can't find it now) of tweets or Facebook posts (can't remember which; really doesn't matter) by people distressed or enraged not by the shootings, but by the fact that the news coverage might mean they couldn't watch Justin bloody Beiber on the bloody Ellen show.

After throwing up...

My kids are 5 and 7 years old. I just don't... I can't even think.

(I have to stop now.)

I was going to blip this photo I took of "Eurama", the closest thing to a ruined castle around here. I've been meaning for ages to find and photograph it, and finally did today. I rode there, having got the brakes on my bike fixed/serviced. When I started back I took another path from the way I went in, only to discover that some industrious folks had been busy and constructed a mountain bike course, with banked corners, and bouncy downhills and such. Whoops. Back the way I came. ;-) Other contenders for the blip would've been this one from slightly further back, but it's unbalanced top to bottom, or this black and white, but I think it's better in colour - and mrs tsuken agrees.

I was going to blip that, but felt instead that today I had to go with one of my children. Happy, smiling. Very much alive.

He is holding a painting he did at preschool, and is standing underneath a painting by his great-grandmother. I rather think there's some similarity, or at least connection. Good colours, I reckon.

And a great grin. Look larger.

Good night. Hold your children close. And if you are in the USA, please, in the name of humanity, petition your lawmakers for tighter gun control. At the very least, get rid of the assault weapons.

Please.