Life Is Beautiful/University District/Sun March 31/12:33 pm: Officer Thompson was patrolling University Avenue on a marked police bicycle when an unknown woman ran up to him and asked him to conduct a welfare check on an apartment just off the Ave. The tenant, she explained, had not left the apartment in seven or 10 days. Officer Thompson cycled to the apartment and knocked on the door. There was no response. "Using the manager's key," writes Officer Thompson, "we entered the apartment. The victim [a man in his early 20s] was inside, clearly deceased, with an obvious self-inflicted gunshot wound under his chin. The victim had left his computer on with a note on the screen that said: 'And the really funny thing is that I'm not really all that sad right now. I just... don't know/It seems like the natural thing to do. Y'know? (Are you supposed to put [a] question mark at the end of a rhetorical question?)'" At the bottom of the screen, the victim had typed, "Life is so beautiful."

Le Temps Retrouvé/Rainier Valley/Mon April 22/12:05 pm: While I was heading to work in the back of a #9 bus, an 80- or 90-year-old black man sat next me and said, "Hello there." I offered his courtesy raw silence because I'm usually rude to strangers. Moments later, I sensed his intense stare, and when I looked over at him I realized he was masturbating through his pants. His free left hand reached out to touch me, but I stood, stepped back to avoid his foul fingers, and walked to the front of the bus.

I did not, however, lose sleep over the bus incident, nor did I think it was that creepy. In fact, something rather special happened to me at the moment I realized I was the object of an old man's desires: I was thrown about 23 years back in time to my boyhood. I felt like a boy and had the emotional boundaries of a boy, and my heart throbbed like a boy's heart. Had this old man not projected his decaying fantasies onto me, I may never have relived the taut sensations of my youth.

Straight to the Heart/Downtown/Sat June 8/11:30 pm: This report, authored by Officer Tackett, has what must be the most fascinating sentence of 2002: "A tall woman (suspect) came out of the apartment complex with a wooden stick in her hand and said to the man (victim), 'If you touch my car, I will shove this stick into your heart.'"

Mushroom Party/University District/Wed Oct 9/5:30 pm: Officer G. A. Bernal writes: "A [Snohomish man] attended an event at the Jack Straw Productions Studios yesterday evening. The [Snohomish man] stated that sometime between 5:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., an unknown person placed mushrooms on the buffet, which were later consumed by himself and others. [The Snohomish man] stated that soon after consuming these mushrooms he and others began experiencing hallucinations. The [Snohomish man] stated that he and others had [their hallucinations] treated at University Hospital. The [Snohomish man] stated he has since been informed there were witnesses who may have seen the person who placed the [funny] mushrooms on the buffet. I provided him with a case number."