Knives, Guns, Woodchippers, and More: Trauma Interpretation in Our Nation's Capital

I'm in Washington D.C. for the annual conference of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. It's a professional/scientific conference that features papers with titles like, "Unusual Suicides Utilizing Chainsaws..." ....which implies this is a thing rather than an isolated incident. That's totally on my list of talks to attend even though it's at 8:30am.  The 8:45am slot in that session features "Accidental Injury Caused by a Handheld Circular Saw: An Unusual Industrial Accident," followed by "Circular Saw: No Enigma?"  Other talks I'm interested in going to include, "Bone and Body Part Deposition in Rivers: Where to Look for the Rest of the Body," "Who Let the Dogs In? The Admissibility and Scope of Testimony of Dog Handlers," "A Comparative Study of the Effect of Four Loko alcoholic Beverages and Other Alcoholic Beverages on Inexperienced Drinkers" [one of my co-workers noted that they hoped the talk was simply a slide that said BAD IDEA], "A Unique Cause of Death in a Double Hot Tub Fatality: Electrocution by Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator," "The Juvenile Psychopath: How Young Can We Diagnose Psychopathy and Is This Even Helpful or Ethical?" and "The Continuing Journey of the Mortal Remains of St. Damien: the 'Leper Priest of Molokai'." This is only a small selection of the talks I'm considering attending, and there are a number that I'm curious about simply because of the titles. For example, I have no idea what "Till Death Do We Dye?" is about beyond the fact that it's under the Pathology/Biology heading and part of a session titled 'Thank You for Smoking- Department of Health and Human Services: Autopsies' and is doubtless some horribly awesome pun relating to the subject of the talk.

There are a bunch of posters that I'm planning on checking out as well. They include, "A Peculiar Case of a Perineal Injury Miming Sexual Abuse in a Child Run Over by a SUV," "Persistence of Volatile Organic Compounds Associated With Human Decomposition on Carpet Samples," [aka: Holy shit the smell of death is tenacious and sticks around on fabric FOREVER] "Some Like it Extra Dry: Specific Skeletonization Patterns Due to Larder Beetles,"  "Effect of Concealment on Necrophagous Flies Access," and "Quantification of Color Changes in Human Decomposition Using Image Processing Software." [Color changes on a rotting body?! I'm sure there'll be pretty slides for that talk!] I'm not attending any of the special workshops or breakfast sessions, but they too have fabulous titles like, "The Thomas A. Krauss Memorial Bitemark Breakfast" and "How to Write Bestselling Novels and Screenplays in Your Spare Time." [I am not making this up, guys. Kathy Reichs is one of the speakers on that one. IN YOUR SPARE TIME. Because why would anyone want to stop looking at dead people as a main job?] I also haven't made any particular effort to include some of the punnier titles in this rundown. There's one about soil trace evidence that involves the phrase "Getting the Dirt on the Suspect," and a review of friggin' EIGHT cases appropriately titled "Overkill..."

Clearly I have found my people.  In addition to the awesomeness of this upcoming conference, the delightfulness of my visit here is also enhanced by the fact that I'm lurking on the couch of one of my good friends from college, and at some point we will be going out in public both dressed in our Star Trek uniforms. That really tells you all you need to know about our friendship and her personality right there.  I'm taking a two-week vacation from work which is good for everybody: I get to take a break and everyone else gets to figure out how to run the lab in my absence. I'm sure they'll be fine.....and if I tell myself that enough, I might even begin to believe it.

The funny thing about all of this awesomeness is that the last time I spent an extended period of time in D.C. was on our eighth grade class trip here, which ranked as one of the low points for my adolescent psyche.  By that point in the year all my school friends had rejected me (without saying a word because that's how middle school girls roll) and I was pretty much at the very bottom of the social totem pole. I was already chemically predisposed towards depression and had exhibited some signs before the rejection, but the sudden switch to being a social outcast tipped me completely over the edge (particularly since my 'friends' included the girl who had been my best friend for the previous five years).  Naturally, I had no one to sit with on the plane, on the bus, or to room with, and was essentially used as a filler for spots everyone else had rejected because the other individuals involved were also social outcasts.  Being the 12-year old idiot that I was, I still disdained these people for being 'uncool' and bemoaned my fate at the forced association. I spent the majority of our time at the hotel hiding in the bathroom (which in retrospect is doubly stupid because one the girls I was rooming with ended up being one of my closest friends later on...and a guy I was at a table with for our dinner theater thingy is one of the few people from high school that I see on even a semi-regular basis), and I spent the majority of our bus rides drawing pictures in my sketch pad so melodramatic that I'm kind of shocked no one forced me into counseling or anything; these drawings were so unsubtle that I later found out the boy who borrowed my sketch pad on that trip went to the office at school and asked if I was okay.  If I were at home, I'd scan some of my amazing drawings and include them here, but I'm not. Maybe I'll remember to do so later.  Anyway, if I had packed some disposable razors or figured out how to get them from the hotel, I probably would have started cutting there and then rather than waiting a year or so to develop that little habit.

I have a group photo from that trip of us all standing on this bank of stairs next to the Lincoln Memorial (and because fate is evil, I was standing right next to my arch-nemesis/ worst tormentor...sometime that year, that little fucker put gum in my hair....though then he made the mistake of following behind me & taunting me on the way to an assembly and I snapped and spun and thwaped him in the forehead with the heel of my hand, martial arts style...it didn't occur to me at the time, but apparently word got out around school that I had punched him in the face, which was technically true, but of course he couldn't get me in trouble for it because I was just a lowly socially outcast girl and that would be embarrassing for him...generally I don't approve of myself committing physical violence, but I can't summon any regret for that one). Anyway, last week on the taxi ride from the airport to my friend's apartment, we passed those stairs and I suddenly remembered just how shitty I felt on that trip.  Then I experienced a wave of self-satisfied smugness because I KNOW that no matter what it is any of my former friends ended up doing with their lives, there is no way their jobs can possibly be as awesome as mine.  I mean, Forensic Sciences are portrayed in the popular media in a manner that's not at all accurate in terms of glamour and sexiness and frequency of gunplay and actual sciency stuff, but the one thing all those portrayals do get right is the amazing awesomeness of forensic theory and analysis.

In many ways, the career I have chosen centers on confronting the darkest aspects of humanity.  By the very nature of the profession, forensic taphonomy generally deals with the aftermath of the very worst humanity has to offer. With the exception of mass disasters, the appearance of decomping humans or parts thereof usually involves violent human agency.  I mean, one of the posters in the Pathology/Biology section of this conference is straight up titled, "When Sadistic Fantasies Are Turned Into Reality."  Even in non-violent deaths, if a forensic taphonomist is called in, it likely means sad circumstances; there's a certain pathos in someone whose death is not noted until their neighbors notice the smell.

Though the darkness and violence in my own brain was always directed inward rather than outward, it was a darkness nonetheless. I distinctly recall understanding why those boys at Columbine felt violence was a logical course of action; I considered the slaughter of others a supremely selfish act and certainly never condoned it, but I did empathize with that feeling of being emotionally stripped to the core to the point where death becomes an appealing option.  Unlike those boys, I had friends and family ties that kept me from ever crossing that line, but in given circumstances, we are all capable of horrific violence.
It's interesting for me to consider that the last time I was here, my brain was steeped in darkness, whereas now I'm here to advance a career that confronts and studies it. I'm sure there's some sort of deep psychological analysis that could go on, but this post is already excessively long and I don't really feel like getting into that shit.

This is the part in the post where I should write a conclusion that wraps up everything I talked about and connects all the dots and makes all this rambling coherent, but you know what? If you want logical, polished writing like that, you shouldn't have started reading this post in the first place. HA HA!!!! (I probably should have included that disclaimer at the beginning, but TOO BAD, SUCKERS!!!)

Be Seeing You