it's an effing zoo
2007-05-18 2:07 a.m.

it's probably 90 degrees in this apartment, and i'm wearing my maternity dress.

soy yogurt-- well. i figured i'd give it a shot, so i bought some. but when i opened the container, i screamed. putrid-looking, to be sure, but not half bad.

it's not likely i'll lose weight with this vegan thing if i continually eat date rolls and peanut butter sandwiches. hmm.

ANIMAL STORIES FROM FLORIDA!

- the bats were awesome. while waiting for them to come out of their little bat house (it's so cute i almost want to live among them, despite the guano--i wouldn't know that word if it wasn't for ace ventura 2, i swear to god), we saw two baby alligators, a turtle, and several uninteresting lizards. i love this school because it's one of the few schools that has its deadly mascot living on campus.

- i killed a dragonfly in my apartment. hit the fucker eight countem' eight times with my shoe. i guess i didn't need to kill him, seeing as he wasn't going to sting me or eat my blood. but he freaked the shit out of me. maybe i should've called daniel, killer of wasps. also, does my dragonfly murder in any way negate the effects of my veganism? ethics-wise.

- the ants have taken over. they come now with wings and they crawl around every door frame in my house. they are still nocturnal but their increasing numbers worry me.

- yesterday there was a small crowd gathered around the car parked next to mine in my apartment's parking lot. the hood was up on the car; a young hipster man poked at the engine with a stick. that's rather crude, i thought. a young hipster girl -- his girlfriend, the owner of the car, i recognized her face, her hair is cooler than mine -- turned to me and said, "there's a raccoon in my engine."

"omygosh," i said. i distinctly remember saying "gosh."
"it's still alive."
i couldn't think of anything to say so i said, "how did you discover a raccoon in your engine?"
"i turned it on."
"ahh." there seem to be a few gaps in this story, i thought. i had so many questions to ask her, such as, what does a raccoon do when you turn on its internal combustion home? but i stayed quiet, mostly for fear of saying "gosh" again.

i watched the he-hipster poke at the engine as i unlocked my car. and then WHOOP a raccoon pokes his head out of the engine. i can't really describe this--yes, i know, there's something off, logistically, about all this. where does a raccoon go in an engine? where did he pop his head from? i don't know the answers.

"wow," i said.
my hippy -- not hipster, hippy -- neighbor said, "is he going to come out?" she is a bit off.
he-hipster said, "he might be injured."
hippy lady said, "we should call someone."
he-hipster went to his car and came back with a towel. i have never seen a hipster look so determined and brave. what's he going to do, wrap it up and carry it away? maybe i should stick around, i thought.
hippy lady said, "but not animal control--that's instant death."
he-hipster put the towel on the ground and began poking the beast with the stick again. he said, "i think he's foaming at the mouth."
i said, "okay well good luck guys ive gotta go buy some bottled water and several soy products so i'll catch you later good luck with the rascal in the engine and all." no, i didn't say that.
i said, "wowsers," or something equally as horrifying. gosh, gee-whiz. wow-a-wa-wee.

later i came back and the car was gone. in retrospect it probably would've been awesome to watch a hipster catch a rabid raccoon with a towel. but at the time it seemed vaguely dangerous or something.

i went to my car late at night, when the lot was dark and the threat of rape hung in the air like a garish banner at a used car lot: "rape sale!"

(hahahah i don't know why i wrote that but i'm keeping it)

i could just make out my car's mangled bumper in the darkness when i realized, hey, maybe there's a raccoon in my car. only in florida would that thought ever occur to me. but what are the odds of two raccoons nesting in two parked engines in the same parking lot?

well, if you asked me a year ago what the odds were of me ever, in any time in my life, sitting alone at 2 am, sweating my ovaries off, wearing a maternity dress, eating organic date rolls, i might say close to zero. and yet here we go! they look like little turds. why is everything vegan so repulsive-looking?