This morning I woke up to a text from my friend Ben, who lives in Boulder, Colorado. In my half-asleep haze, I didn’t understand what he was telling me about the movie theater – I thought there had been a fire or something. Then it clicked: someone had opened fire.

It’s sad, shocking and scary.

The story has already permeated every news outlet – Twitter, television, blogs, etc. – and let’s hope the story is reported honestly and responsibly.

If you read one thing about Aurora today though, make it this blog post by Jessica Ghawi. You may have even heard of her by now, or her pseudonym, Jessica Redfield. She died in the shooting last night, and her last blog post was about how she just avoided a deadly mall shooting in Canada. Crazy, right?

It seems appropriate that it’s dreary out today (at least here in the Bronx it is). It makes me want to give my loved ones an extra hug, the thought that even when you go to a movie theater, you may not come back – not because of a car accident or something like that, but because of random, senseless act of violence.

Aurora, you are on my mind today.