I'm completely perplexed by the debate over whether animals have emotions. I thought I'd be the last person to have serious issues with the scientific method, but come ON. If you see that look of fear on an animal's face and don't recognize it for what it is, yeah, you might be a smidgen of a sociopath. Just saying. They do. That's it. I mean, the look on a human's face and the things it says are the only things you need to indicate that another human has feelings like you do, non? So why do you need any further evidence when that same sort of eye-pinch is coming from a cow?

Shit, I think I just argued myself into vegetarianism again. That never lasts for long... my body just starts blathering about the shit it needs to survive... arrrrrrgh, to have been born an innocent rabbit...

Signs that you might want to rethink your dress sense

Holy shit, I'm still laughing my head off... OK, so I just walked out of the corner store with a can of pop after having yet another delightful conversation with the delightfully harmless and distracting religiously insane cult guy who owns it (since he doesn't belong to one of the majors, what large-scale harm can he possibly be?) and walked out, still chuckling over the delightfully mad nuggets of self-help advice he had been trying to wedge down my throat between quips, admittedly not paying nearly enough attention to where I was going, and some woman who seemed in the end to be at least as unhinged as I am, poor thing, nearly backed her car over me while trying to park. I leapt out of the way, and one of a bunch of kids who were on their way into the store screamed at the woman: "LADY, YOU JUST ABOUT RAN OVER THE PROSTITUTE!"

Imagine how flummoxed this woman must have felt as she was trying, in horror, to apologize to me for almost killing me, as I was laughing uncontrollably and trying to communicate to the kid (while the other kids were yelling at said kid for being rude) what a budding comedian I thought she was. Fuck, I really thought this coat looked neat... but maybe I should stop wearing it with miniskirts. Prior to this incident, I was mentally composing a goofy post about how aristocratic I think I am, but that would just make me look ridiculous now... fuck, exactly what is it about a pair of a-few-years-old Dansko sandals set against a coat with a vaguely Marilyn-Monroe-y fake-fur collar that screams 'hooker' to somebody who doesn't even look like she needs tampons yet?!??! I'm afraid to dress myself now. I need to call my more-sartorially-clever sister every time I plan to leave the house, I guess... hee hee hee gotta admit I'm half tempted to go back out again without changing a stitch, but the reason I was headed home early from my random pointless walk in the first place is that I was cold and wanted to add a sweater or four, since the thought of having to put on foldy bendy entrappy jeans at this time of year makes me want to jump out the window... huh, maybe I should also stop aimlessly wandering around the streets when I can't think of anything better to do. 'Street walking' in the classic sense... this is what happens when you let a Wisconsin girl who is amused by dressing too loudly move to Uptown, I guess. Punk rock must have fallen out of fashion again. Oh well, all we have to do is wait for Lisa Falour to go viral and then I'll look perfectly normal.

PS why is it that seriously hating a lot of fabric hanging around your legs must necessarily translate as 'whore'? If it weren't for the sex thing and we kept it to antiquities, I would have made a great Victorian. But you people must think against sex all the time, mustn't you?

(bitter reflection upon the past deleted)

In any case, ME ME ME ME ME have proofreading credits for a book I love, to wit, the latest release from Chip Smith's always thoughtful (well, except when he snorts Drano and agrees to publish me later this year, of course) Nine-Banded Books label, is...

CONFESSIONS OF AN ANTINATALIST!!!!!!
by Jim Crawford.
I couldn't be prouder.
http://antinatalism.blogspot.com/

PS proof-monkey fuh fackts: -er vs more as a comparative:

The general rool of thmz is that two syllables or less is -er, three or more is 'more,' which generally works. (Cooler vs. more atrocious.) BUT the real, secret base rool iz: if it's a middle English or olde Ynglishe root (ie not Greek or Latin) then it's -er. If Greek or Latin, or Latin via French (huzzah for 1066 and all that! variety, spice, yer know), then use the alienating 'more.' Bitte!

Far be it from me to tell anyone else how to do their job...

...especially since my own employment status lately ranges from under- to 'what-the-hell-is-going- on?' to 'oh, I should just go throw myself under a bus, the world has no use for me.' But jiminy Christmas -- Chicago must have the most incompetent panhandlers on the face of the fucking earth.

I mean, panhandlers do provide a kind of service. They serve as a way for overpaid people to assuage some of the guilt they feel over the fact that they receive far more money than they need to sit in a corner office and do nothing that is of any use to anyone. I have never required this service, personally, so I do not give money to panhandlers unless they particularly appeal to me for some reason. The girl with the cat a couple months ago, for instance. Not only did she have a sign saying she wanted to work -- and a stack of resumes she was handing out to anyone who would take one -- she had an adorable, if frightened-looking, fuzzy cat on her lap. I gave her a dollar I really couldn't afford to give away basically because I hoped some of it would be used to purchase cat food.

Also -- this is the important part -- SHE DIDN'T FUCKING RUIN HER CHANCES AND PISS ME OFF BY YELLING AT ME.

Like a civilized beggar, this skilled member of her craft wrote a description of her situation on her sign, and then sat there quietly next to her sign, thereby giving people the choice of whether or not to give her money or take her resume without shrieking, bellowing, moaning, groaning, whining, or belching at them to get their attention.

Most panhandlers, who can't figure out the psychology behind the very acts of human kindness on which they've decided to depend for a living, suck. Look, buddy. You who have been yelling at me since the moment you saw me. People are not blind, unless they have a cane or a dog with them to indicate that, yes, they might not notice you standing there with your hand out. Most of us can fucking see you there. If we are not giving you money, it's because we're unemployed and broke and almost homeless ourselves. Or maybe we're selfish, OK, you got us -- but is barking like a dog at a person suddenly going to make them see the light about human fellowship?! If they want to give you money, people will. But if you make noises out of your fucking head at them -- and most of you make really loud and irritating noises with your heads; maybe this situation could be improved if you were forced to listen to recordings of yourselves -- the likelihood that they will give you cash drops considerably.

The cat girl was raking it in. These dipshits who think they're going to provoke compassion by howling at people -- do you ever see anybody giving them change? Ever? The only ones I ever see giving them anything start talking as they do it, and it quickly becomes clear that they're just as fucking douchey and irritating as the incompetent panhandler, only luckier. They enjoy giving money to other loud, obnoxious hosers? -- well, good for them. But that's really a specialty market. People who don't like being yelled at in public make up, I think, the vast majority.

And they only seem to be getting worse. I guess everyone else is increasingly broke, so they're increasingly desperate. Instead of working smarter though, they're just working harder. The other day I was trucking down Halsted, trying to save el fare by walking a ridiculously long way to a job interview; I had some quarters in my pocket that I was going to spend on the train back if I was too tired. I was trying to cross before the light turned red when this fucker with a Dunkin Donuts cup popped out from behind a mailbox and started not only shouting in my face about how he could hear the change in my pocket, but doing a shuffle-dance back and forth in order to keep himself in my way so I would be trapped on the street corner with him for the duration of the red light. I was not in the mood for a goddamned waltz lesson; needless to say, he did not get any money out of me that day. I didn't even deign to point out the irony of the situation.

Then again, maybe in these tough economic times, it's good for the rest of us that the vets stink at this trade so awfully. Things get any worse, I should start panhandling myself. Show these morons a thing or two. Just by keeping my fool mouth shut I'd be the ace rookie on the block.

Fuck the artists of old

They had no idea what it was like to toil in obscurity with SIX BILLION TOILERS ON THE GLOBE.

They never toiled this long, this hard, or this hopelessly.

To hell with them.

But further to hell with you, breeders.

You cheapen human life further with each cheap, cheap soul.

You have put the price of hard labor at zero, and the price of art at negative twenty.

I only wish there were gods to punish you for your sociopathic carelessness.

Yet more benefits for breeders

Ho ho ho, I love the State of Illinois. "The economy is terrible, everyone's out of a job, people are miserable through no fault of their own, college graduates are in debt and screwed, blah blah blah, jeez, we have to help people... but not without making them earn their keep. Hmm... I know, let's subsidize some jobs and call it Put Illinois to Work!

"But hang on, let's not get too crazy. Let's make sure to exclude everybody who hasn't deliberately dragged another soul into their pit of economic woe:"

http://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=49105

Great idea, State of Illinois. There are too many people on the globe, and yet you keep rewarding those who are adding to the problem, at everyone else's expense. Will there come a day when I'll have to decide between starving and preggers? I'll have to make a sign and carry it around: "Will be babymomma for food." I mean, come on, people, are you trying to keep up with the Chinese? Do you REALLY want to try to stuff a billion hoomins onto our portion of this continent just to keep up in the race to be the globe's most prominent cock-slapper (jesus, I just referenced lolcats and the Onion in the same sentence, please put some tape over my mouth)? Do you think that having more people around than our resources can support is going to HELP somehow? I'm trying to come up with some sort of rationale for why our society keeps encouraging mindless gene-replication, but nary a one seems, er, rational.