Flipping the Bird

For the first time in my life today, I gave somebody the finger while driving.

I have never felt so bad about anything in my life.

As Jessie and I were leaving the pool, I saw a guy with a chair strapped to his back walking towards us with his two cute kids. I remember mentally noting how nice of a smile he had and how he looked like the perfect dad; he looked like the kind of dad I'd want to be. You know how you can just look at some people and part of you already knows them? Some sense that they will have a role to play in your life?

So we come to the intersection at Locante's, and to my left is a black Toyota pickup. We get to the intersection at relatively the same time, and since I had the shorter turn and was on the right, I made the turn before the truck did. I didn't think I was cutting them off, but they honked. For some reason, the honk really shook me, I stuck my left hand out the window and gave them the finger.

The truck didn't do anything else save follow me, and when we came to the next intersection, he pulled up beside us and called out to me. I rolled down the window.

It was the guy with the chair. He looked... hurt. Embarrassed. His voice was strangely innocent. Sympathetic. All he said was, "Hey man, don't give me the finger." The same tone of voice you'd use to
"You didn't need to honk," I said, defensive and prickly, my voice a mixture of indignation and embarrassment. "We got there at the same time."
"No we didn't," he said.
"You just scared me when you honked. You scared me."

And then he gave me this look that I can't describe, as though in that moment he could see me for the lower man that I am, and suddenly I realized that it was the father from the pool. His little children must've been sitting next to him, looking up at him, and he was teaching them how to be a real man. He must've recognized Jessie and I from the pool, too, because he said nothing further. The light changed, and he drove off.

After I dropped Jessie off, I drove around Mt. Lebanon for twenty minutes, frantically searching for his truck. I didn't find it.

I don't have it in me. I just... don't. Maybe someday I'll grow up to be like him.

In the World

In other news, I'm afraid to die.

So I'm contemplating this whole 'eating meat' thing. Not on some misguided quest to change the world, but just searching for the right thing to do. If you haven't yet, check out 'Meet Your Meat' (http://www.meetyourmeat.com). The treatment of animals at these 'animal factories' is just so ridiculously gratuitous and unnecessary that I think it's something we should stop.

Don't get me wrong: It's not that we're killing animals to eat them, it's how we're doing it that bothers me. There's no honor in it. That bothers me the most. Sure, animals aren't people, but they are conscious beings and deserve to die in a way that isn't brutal and prolonged. It's not just like, 'Hey Mr. Chicken, we're gonna cut off your head and eat you." It's, "Hey Mr. Chicken, first you're going to live in a cage that's so small you can't around your whole life, and then we're going to scald your feathers off while you're still conscious and put you through a machine that only sometimes cuts your whole head off..."

Anyways, I'm not exactly sure what to do at the moment. I like chicken and intend to keep on eating it. Same with beef, though I'll pass on the whole genetically modified cow-thing ('Oh no, none for me thanks' as Dave might put it). The question is, What should I do, and do I care enough to want to change it?

It's a weird time for me. On one hand, I feel the immortality of youth coursing through my body, and on the other, that all-too-annoying mortality thing on a rocking chair outside my window. Today I was wondering whether I'll ever really have the balls to face myself, or whether I'll spend the rest of my life in Housewares never getting the girl. I don't want to die without accomplishing something, but accomplishing means risking what I have. Namely: safety, security, breathing. I envy warriors. Their purpose is so clear. 'Martin' actually comes from the Latin word for 'warrior' (i.e. Mars, god of war), and there are times late at night, with a candle flickering atop an iron sconce, that I can almost taste a warrior's blood in my veins. I believe firmly that people become their names, and that words can shape a destiny.

I also believed until I was 20 years old that there were no cars in Canada, so take me as you will.

If anyone knows of any elementary teaching jobs in Pittsburgh, please let me know. I want to help Jessie get a job so she can be happy. For someone like her, to whom a sense of place and purpose is so important, this is an especially trying time. She can do it :) I believe in her.