NP: Hot Hot Heat, Elevator

It's been a weird couple of days, obviously. I haven't really been talking about it much -- out loud, that is -- save for a couple of close friends. I haven't brought it up with any co-workers at all, and no one in the office seems to have made the connection that I might know a drummer in a local band, but that's part of another issue.

So last night was gratifying, or maybe cathartic, or something else I can't quite put my finger on. Friends who went to Doug's funeral -- one of whom was wearing a pin with Doug's picture on it that they gave out on Monday -- dropped by Vaughan's, and then some of the Elbo Room crew stopped in, much earlier than usual. I was able to talk about it with people who were as close to it, or closer, as I was. Am. Whatever. That seems important.

One of the Elbo Room bartenders told me that he saw Noel from EXO on Wednesday night, and how excited he was about the band's new record. Earlier in the evening, I had taken a look at my logfiles, and Doug was one of the highest-trafficked search terms coming into the site. I realized in reading some of the news stories that Doug lived right around the corner.

This is not meant to be in any particular order.

I've gotten past the inherent unfairness of the tragedy, I think. It's too random to get into that line of thinking. There's really no systematic way to protect yourself from someone who is that intent on, well, destruction, whether it be of themselves or others. Obvious parallels apply. You just try to stay alert as best you can.

In my worldview of patterns and predictability, these are outliers to an ordered existence. Trying to inoculate yourself against something almost totally unpredictable is a fool's errand. That doesn't make it less tragic or less painful.

A comment on the Sound Opinions message board resonated with me:

This is just a terrible story. The only consolation that I can think of is that these three guys sound like they were very cool, had a lot of friends and were doing what they really wanted to do in life - with no regrets. Which is a lot more than you can say for the person who killed them.

Sliwinski is apparently being released from the hospital today, and will appear in court to face charges, including two counts of first-degree murder. They're saying they may try for the death penalty, and attorneys are already floating a "history of mental illness." It's really easy to be dismissive, to wonder how a 23-year old has a "history" of anything. The fair-minded part of me wants to hear out her side of this story, to not assume she's some stupid, vapid, shallow bitch who's wholly inequipped to cope with being an adult, but that part of me is getting shouted down by the part of me that feels the loss of, if not a friend, certainly friend of my friends and a kindred spirit.