Watching: News. Too much of it, I suspect. Not Watching: Any new shows this season. None. It's bizarre. Reading: Nothing, and it's pissing me off. My mother bought me Faye Kellerman's first novel, The Ritual Bath, the last time she was here. I think I'm going to start it this weekend.

Sent to my notify list Monday night around midnight:

I've been having this low-level nausea for the past couple of days. Nothing serious, not moaning-groaning-clutching-at-my-stomach kind of nausea, but a small catch when I swallow occasionally, and the feeling that if I tried hard enough, and thought about it a lot, I could make myself puke.

So I was having a quiet evening, writing some e-mail, chatting with a friend on IM until about 10:30. I was tired, planning on going straight to bed without turning on the television. Except that just before I shut down the computer, I clicked to my IE home page, CNN.com, and saw the headline.

Breaking news. Woman shot dead at a Home Depot in Falls Church, Virginia.

And I threw up.

I am afraid. I am. I know that my chances of being killed by this guy are about the same as winning the lottery. But I bet the woman who went to Home Depot tonight to buy a curtain rod or a sink or a screwdriver thought that too. And before, in Virginia, he was far away, Fredericksburg, Manassas, far away. I don't shop there. I shop at Seven Corners. I've been to that Home Depot.

And I am angry. I am infuriated that I'm afraid. This guy is somewhere in my vicinity right now, watching television, probably laughing in glory at what he's accomplished. All the traffic stopped, the police swarming the shopping center, the profilers guessing left and right about his motives, and he's sitting somewhere, grinning, saying to himself, look what I did. He's putting everyone on edge, making us afraid to get gas, making us look over our shoulders while we walk from the car to the grocery store and back again.

He is terrorizing this city, all by his small little self, and he is scaring me, and that is pissing me off.

It's three days later. I'm still scared, and I'm still angry.

Things are weird here. It's not all everyone talks about, but it's there, underneath everything. A girl I work with and I were walking across the courtyard behind our building to go get breakfast this morning, and she was telling me how she hadn't been sleeping very well, she keeps waking up at four in the morning and can't get back to sleep.

"Have you been nervous about the sniper?" I asked.

She smiled, almost sheepishly. "Yeah, that's what it is."

As it turns out, we're all afraid to admit how much this is scaring us. But I told her about my stomach, and we shook our heads and sighed and reminded ourselves for the millionth time that it's not like we would actually ever get hit.

And then we reminded ourselves that the woman on Monday night probably told herself the same thing.

As I was driving home last night, they were interviewing someone on NPR who was giving tips on what people should do if they find themselves at the scene of a shooting. First you hit the ground, then you look toward the sound, then you try to remember whatever you see.

How bizarre is that? How completely wrong is it, that this has become information we need? They also suggested that, if you have to stand outside in one place for any length of time, you find someplace dark. (Since when is dark good?) How fucked up is that people are afraid of parking lots? That the Guardian Angels are out pumping gas?

Perhaps the strangest, sickest thing is the feeling that we're all just waiting for the next one. Every day that passes with no shooting is a blessing, of course - no one has been hurt - but it's a curse, too, because we know someone is going to be sooner or later. If there's one thing all the experts seem to agree on, it's that this is not over.

Hasn't this city been through enough?

Truthfully, I bet I would be able to deal with this better if the rest of my life was in place. Someday, I will have a job, this I know. But it is taking much much longer than I expected, much longer than I hoped. My current temp job will likely run through Thanksgiving, and as much as I would enjoy a holiday season of leisure, I don't think my parents would be quite so happy with the idea.

Unemployment and radio interviews about how to duck and cover. Yes, things are a little out of whack in my head. I'm going home this weekend.

Fortunately, I have enough gas to get me out of town.