I am afraid to go outside.

Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty minutes from my apartment a guy was shot last night by some unfeeling indiscriminate coward with a rifle.

I was a little unnerved that this was going on, but this last one brings it both literally and figuratively closer to home.

I could look up this term before I write it, but I won't... "agorophobia" - I think that's it. I think I understand how they feel, afraid to go out of their homes.

How do you deal with this kind of thing? Of course you can throw off the old John-Wayneish "You gotta go when it's your time, pilgrim," but I prefer the much more the old Woody Allen "My doctor told me I'm not supposed to let any bullets enter my body. I've got an allergy."

I don't get how this is happening, I don't understand how it's real. I see people duck and weaving in the parking lot at the video store. I see people hiding in their cars while the gas is pumping. I notice myself unconsiously changing my pace radically as I walk and taking unconventional paths to my car. (That's grown up talk for "running like a scared little girl")

And if something happened to Rachel? I'm afraid for her to go anywhere alone! I notice myself totally without realizing it putting my body between her and "harm's way" as we walk places. It'd be worse for me to have to live through something happening to her than for it to actually happen to me I think. Selfish, or noble, whatever, the definitions change.

We can't let fear run our lives, though. It's trying to. With every tendril of its reach, every call of cthulu, it is trying.

So we're going on the road with the show this week, then back here for a few days, then off to Omaha.

Why in God's name would anyone do this?