so today being election day and all i found myself looking at news sites. i happened upon this article about a fight that broke out between homeless people and people that wanted to see a girl jump off a building. i found myself laughing at my desk today just picturing this going on. you have the frightened girl wanting to end her life, then you have a group of people who just want to see something outrageous, and then you have some well meaning bums. all combined with a fight between the bums and the people on the ground while the girl is up on the ledge of the building. kind of cartoonish or something.

that reminded me of a story someone had told me a while back. they were driving into work one day and came upon traffic on the high rise in new orleans. the cops had stopped traffic on the three lane each way bridge while they tried to coax a guy from jumping off the top to the water hundreds of feet below. the storyteller recounted how he remembered sitting in traffic, hearing people yelling for the guy to jump, while the police were trying to talk him down. i thought as i heard the story “i’d probably be yelling for him to jump too.” after all, the least the guy could do is not want to jump during rush hour. incidentally, the guy did not jump. i have not been able to verify the authenticity of this story since i can’t remember who told it to me, and it does seem rather like a “fill your city in here” type story, but relatable to the first story nonetheless.

i wrote another article for corner table last night after watching an episode of studio 60. (half of it was written before brandi’s!) some people say they don’t like it because they feel the show is condescending. i tend to disagree, but tonight watching some of the election coverage, i felt i was being talked down to. something about being republican and living in the south, apparently that made me special to some of the commentators. too bad their dialogue is not witty, but at least their only on every couple of years.