my new career never took off

i'm drawn to people who are passionate. who do what they love and attack whatever is in front of them. in writing, it's the writers who keep churning out material (fic or nonfic, doesn't matter to me). it's the reporters who come out with really exciting series that keep me chained to my computer screen when i should be folding iron man undies.

i've also been drawn to the coverage of samantha koenig's murderer. the same serial killer who killed bill and lorraine currier in vermont.

(i tried to type his name twice in this entry, but my entire body recoiled at putting his name anywhere in this blog.)

hours and hours and hours of interviews he did with the fbi before killing himself this winter were released yesterday on the alaska dispatch and i listened more than i'm proud to admit i did. i'm morbidly curious about a man like this...maybe not so much a man as a monster. a creature of his own making, so self obsessed with his image after he's gone that he was particular with his demands and just how much he'd release and when.

i read more about him and came across the name of an investigative reporter who is covering him. i followed the rabbit hole down a few more links and soon i was in the world of true crime writers and bloggers. some considered themselves victims' advocates and pursuers of the truth. others were looking for the next network to give them a ring for an interview.

but for a few nanoseconds between pulling the fishsticks from the oven and depositing a few of my progeny in the bathtub, i researched true crime bloggers. i wondered how many unsolved crimes existed in houston and whether i'd be able to help any with a sense of purpose and dogged research.

why couldn't i be a true crime blogger?

the answer didn't take long to appear.

somewhere in the midst of reading about a double murder torture in tennessee that is currently being prosecuted, i took a deep breath. wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes after reading about the victims and the horror they endured. and then i turned my computer off and answered my own question.

i could never do that work because i could never read about how horrible human beings are capable of being day in and day out. hours and hours of researching the grisly details of psychopaths and their often unwitting victims. i would never sleep again and my kids would never be allowed out in public.

i'd never go to church. i'd never get my car fixed. i'd never go out after dark. i'd never nod a hello at a stranger. i'd never greet the people who live in my building without wondering if they were holding some pedestrian hostage in their granite countertop bathroom that looks just like mine.

i'm too soft. too prone to nightmares. too sure that i'd be the next random victim in a world gone mad. no, sir...a true crime writer i am not.

maybe a cupcake maker. i'm pretty sure cupcakes wouldn't give me nightmares.