Something unusual happened in Alabama Friday afternoon. A woman committed mass murder.
That's the opening of a piece I wrote late last night for The Daily Beast. It's their lead story right now.
I am really tired now, because I spent a good chunk of the night writing it. I heard about it at the 24 Hour Fitness around 7:30 p.m., when Kari Rene Hall, a photojournalist with the Orange County Register called my iPhone in the middle of my seated reverse-grip military presses on the smith machine. (I use the phone as an iPod while I work out.)
Kari is a colleague from The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma, so I figured her team would write em pathetically, and I was eager to help.
She wanted to know if a woman had ever perpetrated a school shooting before. Yes, I said, but rarely.
I called my wonderful volunteer researcher in Kentucky to find the long list we'd compiled and email it to my phone. The reporter said the woman had killed only faculty, which immediately made me guess it might actually be more of a workplace shooting. Maybe, maybe not. Was she a grad student, I asked. The reporter didn't know. She turned out to be a professor herself.
I was intrigued. Lots of interesting aspects to this case. Lots of ways to address all the myths most of us have about the "profile" of the typical shooter. (Which is nearly all complete nonsense: except that they are nearly always male, which is nearly always true, but not this time.)
I kept lifting, and thinking. Between sets, I'd scramble over to the front desk, reach over the counter to where I know they store the stack of pink message pads which have blank backsides, grabbed one of those and a pen and scribbled down thoughts.
They tend to look surprised when I rush up and do that, but they are also kind of used to me. They start to say, "Can I help y. . ." and then they appear to think, Oh, their wierd guy who frantically needs to scribble things again.
I do my bestcomposing on walks, bike rides and lat pulldown machines.
My gym pants had no pockets, so I fold them twice the long way and then tuck them into my waistband, half inside, half out, with my shirt hanging down to cover them, except when I stretch. Then it might look odd, I'm not sure.
I got home with a stack, and a lot of data to go digging for. It was after 10 on the east coast, so I emailed a couple editors I've worked for. One was still up and wanted it.
A bit past midnight I had the piece, sent it off tried to go to sleep and thought about all the stuff I left out. I sent an update, got five hours of sleep, and by the time I got up for my nightly pee-break, there was an edit waiting for me, with questions.
It took and hour and a half to satisfy myself with the rewrites, and then my body didn't want to go back to sleep.
So the story is up, and I'm happy with it, but I would really appreciate it if my body would turn itself off for awhile. Not going to happen. My brain does not believe in naps. It's hard enough to make it shut up at night.
I hope you like the piece.
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