[Location: JL's Diner] Jesse Mayhem smiles. "Yeah. And till I get my nerve back." She sips her coffee after taking a deep breath. Blake practically bursts into the diner, waving his large sketchbook like a banner. "Boy it'sch a nische day out," he remarks loudly to the distruntled-looking waitress stuck behind the counter pouring coffee. "You all schould go out there and--Oh, but you have a job. Naschty thingsch, glad I don't have one. Gimme one'a thosche," he chirps at the waitress, pointing at one of the cups she just filled for another customer. Glowering, she yanks a mug out from under the counter, sets it down with a bang, and fills it sloppily. "Thank you," beams Blake, plopping himself down at the counter next to an unsmiling woman in a business suit, who prompty relocates to a table. Ray starts to answer Jesse, when one of his favourite people walks in and makes a nuisance of himself. As usual. He groans and sinks down in his seat. "Why me," he mutters. Jesse Mayhem notes Ray's look as she sets her coffee cup down. She glances over toward the counter and chuckles softly. "Afternoon, Blake," she calls, grinning, and gives a little wave if she can get his attention, Ray's reaction notwithstanding. Blake glances around from absently dumping sugar packets into his coffee and sees Jesse and Ray. Fantastic, just the person he wanted to see today! Jesse, not Ray. Well, he can ask Ray about his hand. But later. Waving back, he leaps up and zooms to their table. Opening his sketchbook to a well-doodled page, he thrusts it in Jesse's face. "Doesch thisch look creepy?" he blurts. The doodles are of gaunt, sharp-featured stringy-haired females with pupil-less eyes looking tortured and it does in fact look creepy--but then Jesse stares at dead bodies all day, which is why Blake's so keen on her opinion. Ray rubs at his eyes with the operable hand and wishes heartily that he was somewhere else. Or that Blake was somewhere else. Jesse Mayhem gazes at the picture for a few moments, examining the subjects. "It depends on what you're going for, really. If they're alive, which it looks like they are, then it's pretty creepy. If they're dead, then it's pretty normal. They look like live, creepy people to me," she says, looking over the picture again, then looking up at Blake. "I don't know art, but I know what I like." She smiles. Blake beams and turns to Ray. "How'sch the trigger finger, Kowalschki?" he asks, but not entirely tactlessly. "Budge over." He sits next to Ray. The waitress from the counter comes clomping up and deposits Blake's untouched coffee on the table, sloshing some of the contents in the process. "Every time you come in here you migrate," she grumbles at Blake. "And I have to move your stuff around. I am not your mother." She turns and shuffles off. Blake blinks and watches her go. "Jeez, I hope not," he murmurs. Ray mutters something uncomplimentary in Polish - god bless you, grandma - and shifts sideways. "Hurts." He glares at the waitress, with whom he has not been getting along recently. Jesse Mayhem chuckles at the waitress and shakes her head. "Ten bucks says it's PMS," she says quietly after the woman leaves. She leans back and sips her coffee after stirring it a little more. Blake reaches over for some napkins from the caddy and sops up the spilled coffee. "I don't even want to know," he says cheerfully. He swirls the remainder of his coffee around a little, decides he doesn't want it, and pushes it away. "I'm schorry," he sighs at Ray, in regards to his hand. "I get thingsch broken for me all the time too." He looks at Jesse and folds his hands on the table in front of him. "Scho how about you, how have you been?" Ray shrugs. "It's okay. Had a lot worse." He drinks his coffee. It's not very good. But it does have caffeine. He waits for Jesse to answer Blake. Jesse Mayhem moves her head a little in a 'so-so' gesture. "I've seen better days," she says with a smile. "But on the whole, not too bad. Yourself?" She stirs her coffee some more. It's better than the coffee at Feng's at least. But Feng is also friendlier than the waitress here, in his own abrupt way. "Eh," replies Blake, shrugging a little. "I'd be better if I could get the materialsch I need for a project but I can't becausche noone ever anschwersch the phone over there. I won't talk to a machine. That juscht doeschn't scheem right. And a machine can't ashck me to repeat schtuff it didn't underschtand the firscht time." He runs a finger up the side of the sketchbook, fwipping the pages boredly. Ray decides he might as well be part of this conversation after all. "Where you tryin' to call?" Show an interest, then flee. Jesse Mayhem nods at Blake's response, then at Ray, since he asked the question she was about to ask anyway. She sips her coffee, then sets the cup down to adjust her gloves. Blake rolls his eyes. "Schome company that makesch thisch...artifischial wood...schtuff. I didn't want to have to usche real treesch, thought that waschn't very environmentally correct." Fwip. Ray blinks. That doesn't make any sense. "You think wood is environmentally unsound?" Woo, syllables. He's been reading again. "You're unhinged." "Well, considering trees make oxygen, it's kind of bad to cut them down all the time." Jess looks at her coffee, then up again. "I just wish I had a say in the products we use at work. Formaldehyde isn't biodegradeable, and it's a cancer causing agent too." She finally shuts up about it, having realized she's started to ramble. Blake peers at Jesse, wanting to ask her if that means she's at high risk for cancer at her job, but keeps a lid on it. "No, schee," he says, turning to Ray, "the schculpture isch of treesch. Scho it didn't scheem right to usche actual treesch as the material--beschidesch the fact that it would be painfully redundant." Ray blinks at Jesse. He knows what formaldehyde is...sort of... "You're makin' a sculpture of a tree? Why don'cha just transplant a tree to your house?" It makes sense to him. Jesse Mayhem nods to Blake. "That makes sense to me too," she tells him before she finishes her coffee, setting the cup to her side. She listens to Ray's response, resting her chin on a gloved hand. Blake sets an elbow on the table and props his head on his hand. He looks at Ray the way he might look at one of the cute inquisitive kids he teaches art to at the homeless shelter. "Because," he says gently, "thisch isch art, not botany." He grins. Ray considers that response. "I gotta tellya, Sullivan. Sculpture does not turn my crank, but even I can see that makin' a statue of a thing you can go look at any time is kinda..." what was the word he used? "...redundant." Jesse Mayhem watches the conversation at hand with a grin for a few long moments before signalling the waitress over for more coffee, much as she hates to. Blake blinks. "Oh, you think--No, I'm not juscht making *treesch*," he clarifies. "I'm making dryadsch. Thesche." He opens the sketchbook back up to the page he'd flashed at Jesse earlier with the tortured-looking females. "Imagine thesche all...treelike. I'm trying to convey a message about the schamelessch way people conschume natural reschourschesch. Scho you can schee why I heschitate to usche real treesch." The waitress reluctantly approaches, fills Jesse's cup, and automatically adds more to Ray's cup. Blake's she does not touch as it is evident he hasn't touched it himself, and she slinks off. Ray blinks at the pictures. Whoa. "You're nuts," he decides. "Trees grow back, right?" He glances to Jesse for support. Jesse Mayhem nods. "They do grow back, but not as fast as people cut them down and use them," she says. She frowns. "The funeral industry is bad about that." Blake closes the sketchbook. "Eh, don't tell me what I already know," he sighs at Ray. "And nothing growsch back when it'sch dead. Never mind." He touches the rim of his lonely coffee cup with one finger, checking to see if its cold yet. Ray looks from Jesse to Blake, and back to Jesse again, frowning. "Dryads, huh. You one of those guys who recycles everything?" To Jesse, he adds, "For coffins?" Jesse Mayhem nods to Ray. "Yeah. Cut a few trees down, make them into something, then bury them and don't give it another thought. Not to mention putting them into concrete vaults so that there's no chance of them ever breaking down." She sighs, then stirs sugar into her coffee. Blake shrugs. "I'm not schure why people make a big deal over death," he says. "I mean, the dead perschon ischn't going to be any more comfortable if you pad their box, and they won't know if their funeral isch catered or not. I hope people don't make a big fussch over *me* when I kick it. I'm Irisch, though, scho I guessch they'd have a party. Well--I guessch they'd have one anyways." He grins. Ray is looking uneasy, now. "No, but...it's important to people, right? How they get buried? I mean, wouldya ban em from gettin' buried how they want, or what?" Jesse Mayhem nods to Blake and grins. "Exactly. More people should be cremated I think... but even that's gotten pretty bad, since a lot of people insist the client be embalmed before cremated. Puts formaldehyde fumes and glutaraldehyde in the air. Of course there's one guy in a museum that thought he could save space by being embalmed sitting up. But not too many people would want that sitting at the dinner table, I can imagine." She frowns a little and glances around to see if anyone's eating. Of course it's too late, having already just blurted it out. Blake shrugs. "They kept embalmed relatives at the dinner table in schome ancient countriesch though. And I didn't schay don't let people be buried the way they want, I mean...the people who *don't* care, juscht throw them in the ground. Cremating might be good...not for me, though. There might be a violent explosion." He looks wryly amused. Ray blinks at Blake. "Hey, yeah. Don't get caught in any house fires." He considers. "Embalmed. They stuffed people and kept em at the dinner table?" Jesse Mayhem chuckles. She won't get into violent explosions, because it involves talking about what happens before the cremation process. And it's just gross to many people. "I've heard that," she tells Blake. "It doesn't seem all that bad to me, but a lot of people could do without it." She sips her coffee again and nods to Ray before ruminating, "Burial at sea is actually worst, I think. And I think there should be a new set of guidelines for disposal. It's usually not the person that decides, but the next of kin." Blake looks thoughtful. "But if there isch no next of kin, the government or schomeone juscht schticksch them in the ground, right? And if they're foriegn, and there'sch no next of kin...do the bodiesch have to be delivered back to the country of origin?" Ray can't believe the conversation they're having. But he's actually kinda curious about this himself. "If there's a will, I thought..?" Jesse Mayhem nods. "I'm not too sure about the bodies being delivered to the country of origin. If the body is here illegally, then yes. If not, then relatives are contacted, if they have any. If there's no next of kin and no will, but they're native, then the government usually makes the arrangements." She sips her coffee and nods to Ray. "Sometimes the will includes final arrangements. Sometimes not. If not, then the family, friends, workplace or whatever decides for them." Blake doesn't press the issue. He doesn't really want to know anyways. He idly begins flipping through his sketchbook again. Ray blinks. "Workplace?" He doesn't like *that* idea. "So...do you stuff people?" This to Jesse. Though he might be thinking of Blake here too. Who knows? Jesse Mayhem shakes her head. "They've never asked me to, anyway. I guess sometimes the family wants that done..." her voice trails off after this. That seems weird to her. Why would anyone want that? "If they want that done, though, I think that might be taken to a taxidermist." That's even worse. The waitress appears at about this time with the seperate checks. "Will there be anything else?" she drones. Blake smiles at her. "How about a kind word?" he suggests. The waitress stares at him, then slaps his bill down on the table. "Anyone else have any last requests?" she asks Ray and Jesse. Ray says sweetly to the waitress, "Yeah, would you dance with me? I've loved you from the first moment I saw you. Whatever your name is." He couldn't *be* any more sarcastic. That bill gets slapped down too. Jesse Mayhem groans a little, giving Ray the 'Do I know you?' face, followed by a grin. She looks back to the waitress and smiles, shaking her head. "No, thank you," she says. Then to Ray and Blake, "I need to get out of here. Work calls, as usual." She smiles warmly. The waitress tosses the last bill onto the table and moves off, casting Ray a look of pure disgust over her shoulder. Blake nods at Jesse and slides out of the booth, taking his sketchbook with him. "I gotta go too, gotta go try and track schome more schtuff down. I'm schure I'll schee you guysch around." He digs a handful of wadded-up bills from an inside jacket pocket and tosses it next to the napkin caddy, and walks out. Ray sighs at his bill. "Guess it was not to be. Call me!" he adds as the waitress leaves. "Seeya." This as a catch-all to Blake and Jesse. He opts to sit here a bit longer. Jesse Mayhem waves as Blake leaves and deposits a five on top of her bill. "Take care of yourself, Ray, and try not to get killed." She smiles and pulls herself out of the booth, heading for the door.