On Friday, I ended up taking the day off of work. I was going to have to work on Sunday at a show, and I didn’t want to have to work 11 days in a row (I’m now only doing 8 days in a row).
I was planning on meeting my friend Emily for lunch, and as I was getting ready, my cell phone kept notifying me that I had text messages. I checked my phone thinking it might have been my boss asking me something related to work or Emily saying she would be running late. Instead, it was a bunch of text messages asking me if I was ok.
I first tried to remember what I put on the blog that day. Did I write something depressing? Finally, after I couldn’t figure it out, I responded that I was fine and was wondering why they were wondering.
Then I got a text message that made my heart drop.
A friend mentioned that there was a shooting at my work. My first thought was to check the news.
If you haven’t read about this yet, there was a shooting near Santa Monica College on Friday. The shooter ran onto the campus to hide and was inside the library.
I work at Santa Monica College, but not on that campus. I work on the performing arts campus at the theater that is on the campus (we are technically part of the college, yet I’m not an employee of the college).
I figured my co-workers were safe, but I texted my boss just to make sure. Everyone was fine, but there were a bunch of cops outside of my work that day.
I went to lunch with Emily, and as I was eating, I looked up at the tv at the restaurant. The news was filming right outside where I work. Since they couldn’t film at a crime scene, the news decided to film at one of the other campuses. It was pretty surreal.
I was still getting text messages from friends who wanted to make sure I was ok and safe, so I put something out on twitter and FB that the shooting was not at my work and I wasn’t working that day. But I did get some funny text responses from some people. The funniest was from my audition buddy/evil twin, Shey.
While I’m grateful to be safe and that none of my co-workers were hurt or in harm’s way, it still freaks me out a little that the shooting was so close to where I work. Some of my co-workers drive on the streets where the shooting was to get lunch on their lunch breaks. We are all so lucky.
My heart goes out to the people who were affected by the Santa Monica shooting. I ended up speaking to someone on Saturday who was in the library when the police shot the suspect, and her story was so upsetting.
I just hope that some sort of action will be taken soon so something else like this doesn’t happen again.
