Ahh, schadenfreude. Maybe it's just because I'm reading Filth, by Irvine Welsh, but I've found myself reflecting on notable human trainwrecks I've seen, and giggling sadistically to myself the last few days. A "friend" of mine recently went through a series of heartbreaks-his business went under, he found out that his (much younger) wife had cheated on him with his business partner, and she subsequently left him to live with her parents. Why I find all of this funny is the absurdity of how much has happened to him in a relatively short period of time, and his total unwillingness to understand his role in all of this. Add to that the fact that his alternative to finding a job has been to sell off all of his possessions, while continuing to pursue women who are much too young. There is something comic about watching a man repeat the same mistakes over and over while hearing his complaints about how bad his life is. Tragicomic, I suppose.

Then there's the case of a kid who I was never really friends with, whose rapid decline has been a not-even-guilty pleasure for me, especially as I see people who trusted him realize that his life is and has been without worth. He started out as just a cocky liar who played the guitar and did drugs and took whatever he could get from whoever let him in. Then came the beginning heroin use, and the inevitable slide into full-on junky wastedness. Watching him deal with periodic junk sickness has been amusing, to say the least.

Maybe this makes me a bad person, but who the hell cares? It's fun.