magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

'So I was supposed to call today and ask about the squirrels?' Er!n was taking care of five baby squirrels that had been abandoned by their mother in the house that she and Patrick are fixing up upstate. And sadly, after raising them for a week, they weren't doing very well.

'I don't know what's wrong with them,' Er!n said. 'I'm worried that I'm killing them. Up until yesterday they were active and all running around, and today they've just been tired all day.' We fed them. Tried to get them to drink some water.

The smallest, and most lethargic one died this evening. We had been drinking iced tea and trying to keep her warm and hydrated. I was drawing a picture of a lighthouse. Even though she was just a little squirrel, probably left without a mother too young to have even been given much of a fighting chance at life, and I had only first seen her a few hours before, it was still hard on me emotionally. (This is, primarily, why I'm vegan.) I hope the lighthouse guides her little squirrel soul to somewhere better.

---

Meanwhile, on Craigslist missed connections:

You: Shaggy haircut, sport coat, converse. Got on the L train at Lorimer this morning. You were reading some intellectual novel or something. We made eye-contact. Was there something there?

Meet me TONIGHT! At the Party for John Kerry at Nevada Smith's in Manhattan. Check the link below for more information.

And the response:

So is this simply a ploy, a description of a suitably ambiguous Williamsburg type, to entice one or two lonely, literate commuters to a party in support of John Kerry? Or was there a real person on the other end?

This is probably the closest I've seen to a description of myself in the MCs. Although, with two inaccurate details. I was wearing an orange hoodie this morning, having left my sport coat in a basement in Massachusetts last fall. And I got on the L, as every morning, at Morgan, but shifted places in the car at Lorimer. The Shaggy hair is in need of a trim. The novel was Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities.

Of course I didn't see the post until just now, back home in Brooklyn, but chances are I wouldn't have stopped by the Kerry fundraiser anyway. One, because this is very likely not about me. And two, because as much as I would like to see Bush go, I can't accept the proposition of supporting a candidate who I don't necessarily agree with, just because he isn't the worst choice.

-b