We’re doing a farm unit with my class this week, and it’s almost as hard for me (as a vegan) as the week we did Thanksgiving. I have to read all these stories about the happy cows and pigs and chickens that live on the farm, and I want to look my toddlers in the eye and say, “You’re not getting the whole story, you know.” It helps to remember, though, that it’s that way with everything we tell children – we never tell them the whole story. I tell them, I want you to stop stamping your feet because you might stamp on your friend’s foot, but I never add, Also the sound of you stamping your feet is like the sound of nails being driven into a coffin that’s burying me alive.

I was watching an episode of Supernatural on a plane last month, and one of the characters was drinking another character’s blood (he was getting super powers from her demon blood, like, you know, one does), and I felt extremely awkward about it. Like I should explain to the person sitting next to me the RATIONALITY behind the blood-drinking. So she would know it wasn’t weird or anything. Years ago, when I lived with my parents, my dad walked into the family room while I was watching an episode of Buffy that involved two of the characters chaining another character up and kissing in front of her and I was like, “It’s a trick to get more information about the apocalypse! That’s what’s really happening. Don’t read anything else into it.”

Sometimes I see people from my morning weekday bus on another bus, and I just think, What are you DOING? It’s like when I was a kid and I’d see a teacher at the supermarket, like WHY ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR BOX?