I just scored a fairly large "E" on my run tonight:





...

I love this city.

Serendipity has been shining on me in the past couple days, warming my face with her sweet sweet beams of light. I've looked up to face them full on and bask in the heat. That's when the bitch lets me trip on the sidewalk and chuckles quietly as I collect my bags from the concrete, stand up straight, and keep walking.

But I kind of mean that literally.

( I've been bike hunting. )


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I really do need to be updating better. Stories like the one where my friend's classroom can't approve this one textbook for class because it discusses Magic Johnson in the chapter on AIDS and Magic Johnson's kid is in the class.

Conundrums of the rich and famous and such.

And like the one where I went to the Pacific Ocean for the first time on Tuesday. After my first pedicure. With my friend from Hawaii who told me many things for the first time and made me smile.

Firsts and such.

Because life is not all work and assembling furniture.

Usually.

SHORTBUS. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I loved it and highly recommend it.

An acquaintance made some comment after the movie about ass and cock and cum being vegan. She said, "Well, yeah, it is, because you don't swallow it! Unless you're filthy and disgusting!"

Um.

Or.

This sent my brain spinning and trying to actually define -- in words -- why all that nonsense is vegan (because I do think it's vegan, but not because, pardon my saying so, I don't swallow). Technically, they're "animal products," so, technically, there has to be some other differentiation between human-animal products and non-human-animal products.

The conclusion I came to is one of consent. An animal cannot consent to my taking its life, its milk, its skin, its feathers, etcetera. A human can consent to me taking (and, if I so choose, thank you very much, consuming) his or her bodily fluids, hair, etcetera. Would I consider a human-hair shirt vegan? Sure, if it came from a human that consented to its being made. Would the same shirt be vegan if it was made from the hair of a detainee, shaved against his or her will? I say no.

This got me thinking about animals as pets, of all things. I think this issue of consent is what may, from here on out, keep me from taking in any animals that, I feel, cannot display a consent to be confined/owned. A dog can choose to stay in the yard or not (though I would certainly not endanger one with traffic just to see if "it really loves me!")... a lizard in an aquarium or a hamster in a cage? Mm... notsomuch, methinks.

I'm sure this could all be fleshed out and dissertated and made elegant and convincing. It's late, though, and so I drag these snippets out and leave them lying in the middle of the floor. Look at how they don't move if I don't move them. Lazy things.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. His name is Nick and he lives two doors down. Yes, he paces outside our door and peeks in our window. And yes, if he sees us inside, he waves frantically to get our attention. He calls us "honey" and "beautiful" and doesn't remember our name. Yes, he has dirty teeth, and he doesn't speak clearly or remember anything. I'm sure he means well, what with the candy and the cookies and the bathmat and the plush toilet cover and the dish towels and everything else he's given us, but there comes a point when "overzealous elderly gent" becomes "fucking creepy old man." No, you are not allowed to use that word. And no, Virginia, you are not allowed to accept any more gifts from Nick. Especially canned chicken soup.