In a fire on Friday night, I had the oddest thought. We were in moderate smoke on the second floor, searching room-by-room to make sure no one was trapped, and I thought "this house is on fire. I am inside a house that's on fire." Not really an original observation, more of a statement of the abundantly obvious. The next thing to occur to me was that I must be an incredibly stupid person. But there's nowhere I'd rather have been in the entire world than that stranger's house. I think this was the first fire in which I felt calm and focused rather than freaked out.

Here's kind of what it's like to go into a house fire. Imagine that the world is flat, a wide disk with rounded edges. Imagine also that legend tells us the underside of the flat world is beautiful and awe-inspiring sight, but that the only way to see it is to hurl yourself off the rim and turn around to look back as you fall. A few people have done this, never to return, their fate a mystery. You go to the rim of the world, and you step off the edge. I know it's not exactly like that, but it feels like that.

Keep thinking about those compilation mixes: what single CD worth of music would you leave behind if you died, for those you liked? Would you choose death-related tunes, familiar faves, inspiring ditties, mournful accompaniments to grief? Would you pack it with those songs you tried to get your dumb friends to listen to when you were alive and damnit, now that you're dead they'll have to give it another try? Send your mix to seven at deadlysins dot com. I'll post mine next time.