**This is primarily addressed to the members of veganism, and cross-posted there. I just wanted my own li'l copy here.**


So.

I waited about a week to post this, in order to give my brain some time to digest it and perhaps make it not-so-obvious in the case that the offender reads this community.

( Oh, the anticipation... )

Let's stop the crazy, my vegan beauties.

I officially {heart} biking in LA.

I was slightly afraid I might hate it -- dodging cars, running out of bike lane, never escaping Doomed Bike Syndrome, etcetera -- but I don't. I love it.

( Yes I do. )

Ode To My Neighbor

No, not that neighbor.
The other one.
No, not that one, either.
Another one.


Ode to My Neighbor #2

My little neighbor got arrested, sent to
a psych evaluation on Monday.
He'd been moving planters like a fiend and
breaking shit and yelling things like
I'll fuck you up! to the world in general
and to his fat neighbor in specific.
Grinning all fay-boy at the policeman,
No, I don't have HIV, I don't have sex!
Shifting his weight and
Do you have sex?
Making woo! WOO! siren noises
in handcuffs, down the stairs -- the copper behind him
was laughing.

Then he got evicted, but I don't know
how long he has.
I came home today and he was talking at windows and railings and
playing robots.
I got that shit on tape.


( Who needs cable? )

Well... the issue wasn't with any of my students on Friday. It was with the teacher -- yes, the teacher for whom I was substituting -- who, in most cases, is all but unreachable.

After a little confusion with some materials I was supposed to have but didn't, I get class underway in the morning. About ten minutes in, the classroom phone rings and I pick up -- it's this woman, calling from jury duty, to check on things. Okay.

( Names have been changed to protect the slow of wit. )

Fast forward to twenty minutes before the end of the school day... this woman saunters into the classroom and exclaims, "Hi, guuuuys!" She proceeds to kneel down with the kids working in groups, asks them how things are going, and starts teaching without so much as a nod in my direction. I say, "Excuse me? Nelly? Can you come talk to me for a second?" She gives me the old "one second" index finger and says she'll be-right-there-hang-on. Reining in my utter, gasping disbelief (and with as much haste as possible before something shiny distracts her), I try to explain what she should know about the day. I throw in a dripping, "So are you... are you taking over now? Am I leaving?"

"Oh yeah, you can go -- ha ha! Go ahead!"

What in the hell, crazy lady? Who are you and who in the name of Baby Jesus handed you children to influence?

I had to attend chapel while substituting today. In an exciting break from the typical We Heart God routine, sixteen questions were culled from an ass-load of student-submitted queries and answered by a Jewish rabbi and an Episcopalian chaplain.

(No, there is no punchline.)

Do you agree with the war in Iraq? and Should Saddam have been executed? and What is heaven going to be like? were among those chosen to be addressed. Interesting, no? I thought so.

I was disappointed only, then, because the questions were all neatly typed up with no room left for hand-(i.e. issue)-raising. I literally felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when the chaplain -- after having voiced his disagreement with Hussein's execution because he believes "all life is sacred" -- said he hoped that heaven had great waves to surf, a golf course on every block, and In-and-Outs at which he could eat double-doubles for every meal and not get fat.

All life except... what, half the planet? That's cool.

Of course, I am still only a sub and probably wouldn't have taken issue even if hands could have been raised. I just would have had to sit on mine twice as hard.

My brain is being awfully vociferous about sending an anonymous postcard, though, I'll be honest.


ETA: I was just thinking, and it's not that I mean to come off all, "Everyone should be VEGAN, motherfuckers!" I just think... if you're going to make an all-inclusive, straight-faced statement in front of a large herd of impressionable young minds, you had better be damn sure you understand and intend every word you let out of your mouth. Soapboxes are fun, but they can be slippery buggers, too.