Suicide Ain't No Couple's Dance

The key concept to suicide is that you fucking kill YOURSELF. Why is it, then, that someone decides to take some other poor sap along for the ride? I personally have never understood the idea of wanting to make oneself dead. I've got too much of a survivor instinct. You're in a plane crash in the Andes with me, I will be using my pocket knife to make ass steaks. No doubt. But even assuming that there's a bona fide reason for shortening your stay on the planet, why include someone else in that? As usual, my question relates to a case I'm working on. Aside from being the vivacious bon vivant my friends all know and love, I'm an ATF-trained arson prosecutor. You'd never know by looking, eh? Oh, and I mean the training on how to investigate and prosecute arsons, not how to commit them. Just figured I'd make that clear, in light of that pesky ATF/Waco dealio. So I've got this case comes across my desk where one guy decides he's going to blow himself to bits. Efficient. I have no problem with that, as long as it's away from others. However, he decides to do it in his place of employment. Pulls out the gas stove from the wall, turns the radio on, and sits down for the long sleep. A neighbor boy, about 20, smells gas. He sees the guy and runs in to pull him out of the small building. Well, suicide king gets pissed and ends up igniting the gas...building goes boom. Boy of twenty now has burns over fifty percent of his body and may not live. Suicide king has burns, but of course, not nearly as serious as the poor kid who went in to save his sorry ass. The rub in all this is that 20-year-old good Samaritan's mother got to stand by the sidelines and watch her son's clothes burn onto his body. Right in front of her eyes. Man. No good deed goes unpunished. Sometimes it sure seems that way.

(no subject)

Compliments of inflammatio. Not necessarily in any order.

7 things you are afraid of:
1. drowning
2. cancer
3. my kids being hurt/killed
4. cruise ships
5. snakes
6. drunk drivers
7. mediocrity

7 things (or people) that make you laugh:
1. Three Stooges
2. Peter Sellars
3. Life in general
4. Spinal Tap
5. poseurs
6. Andy Griffith Show
7. Bill Hicks

7 things that make you cry:
1. heartache
2. rage
3. corny movies, t.v. shows, commercials...you name it
4. seeing extraordinary courage or honor in other people
5. feeling powerless
6. goodbyes
7. missing people

7 things you love:
1. my boys
2. my extended clan of friends and family
3. rainstorms
4. gardening
5. a good turn of phrase
6. beautiful music
7. chocolate

7 things you don't understand:
1. cruelty
2. zealots of any form or fashion
3. what a fractal really is
4. people who CHOOSE to be morose
5. extreme vanity
6. why people line up outside clubs they never get into
7. why everyone in my family is 6' or over and I'm only 5'3"...ok, 5'2" and a half.


7 things on my desk (or table):
1. Magic 8-ball
2. sumo wrestler lunchbox
3. work files
4. a vase of flowers
5. candles
6. a dinosaur punching puppet
7. a little tiny megaphone

Right now you are:
At work, taking a break from issuing subpoenas for upcoming cases, munching on tortilla chips, talking on the phone...oh, and listening to Carlos Vives..

7 facts about you:
1. I am smarter than I look
2. I have way too many shoes for my own good
3. I am a good mother
4. I've had fewer lovers than most people guess
5. I look really ugly when I cry
6. I have dreams that come true sometimes
7. I'm a sucker for a real gentleman

7 things to do before you die:
1. Raise my boys and make sure they're doing ok
2. Publish a collection of my short stories
3. Find my soul mate---after my kids are raised
4. Travel the world
5. Pass on my grandparents' love to my own grandchildren
6. Read, read, and read some more
7. Putter in the garden some more