yesterday was a day filled with chicago regulars: in the morning i rode the crazy old man train up to evanston, upon my return in the evening i was greeted by the dead meat truck vegans. both of these probably require some explanation:

the crazy old man is this older man, neatly groomed, who rides the last morning express train that runs north to evanston. i don’t normally go to work that late, but when i do, i somehow always manage to get into the same car as this guy. i don’t even have to look up from my book; i can recognize his voice as soon as the train pulls out of the station. in a thick greek accent, he preaches a sermon of old testament-style religion, fallen angels and the like, tossed together with thoughts about space travel, robots, and what technology will do for/to our society. he sits staring out the window, speaking in a loud, gruff voice, with the same pauses and intonations that i recall our catholic priest using during homilies when i was a kid. after 10 minutes or so, he’ll break off mid-sentence. a pregnant pause follows for a minute or two, then he launches back to the sermon without so much as a deep breath. it’s as if he’s been doing this his entire life. and this goes on for the 40 minute train ride.

the dead meat truck vegans are a little more annoying and less fascinating. once a week or so, they set up shop right outside of the el station where i get off to go home. they have a van that has roll-up sides, like a garage door, and behind the door is a television showing bloody videos of how cows are raised and slaughtered. the vegans stand up against the buildings, so that in order to pass, one has to choose avoiding looking at the gory cow video or avoiding looking at the smiling vegans handing out leaflets. i’m somehow caught between wanting them to know that i don’t eat meat for the same reasons – slaughter house horrors, antibiotics wrecking havoc on our bodies and the environment, the social irresponsibility of feeing grain to cows instead of to starving people – and wanting them to stop looking so smug and self-important (because somehow they must intuitively know that i secretly crave and occasionally indulge in (free-range, organtic) bacon, and therefore am not a real vegetarian). later i had the misfortune of returning to that corner and having dinner in at S.I.R. (the Standard India Restaurant – indian food you can call Sir! haha) around the same time that the vegans took a dinner break, and so had to listen to them discuss amongst themselves (in voices loud enough for every diner in the small restaurant to listen) the wonders of their conversion to veganism, and how unenlightened the carnivorous masses are.

post script: new words for MS Word’s spellchecker: “vegan” and “veganism”