I don't want to be too lugubrious, but my heart continues to break hearing the details of the Lane Br*ant shooting in the Chicago south suburbs (LB has created a memorial fund). Now it appears that one of the women was sexually assaulted (fondled), in addition to being herded into the back with the others. This still doesn't feel like just a robbery, for many reasons, and continues to hit very close to home for me. There is a very particular atmosphere in LBs, common to any place that serves a specific customer base, I guess, but with its own big girl flavor. There's some commonly-shared intent that gets you there, and the mood reflects that--it can be strangely intimate and communal. It's also just a store too, but still--LBs by definition already in many ways feel like havens from the rest of the world. To have someone barge in this kind of safe place I've been in a million times and create trauma...

I have not watched TV news coverage of the event since the story first broke. I did see enough at the beginning to watch a local woman being interviewed who was worried about her daughter's safety but already knew she had not been there: "She lives at Lane Bryant...she's overweight...she's there all the time." Thanks for clearing that up. Really wish the local news had not let that one through; I will continue to be watchin this story.