2001-05-21 - 3:16 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: Can't hear it. Could be the MITM theme again ("You're not the boss of me now").

I'm on the train on my way to NJ. Jean-Claude Van Damme is sitting across the aisle from me. Well, it's not really him, but it looks ike a smaller version of him. He was irritating me early on yakking on his cell phone, but he quit that.

He was sleeping for a while, so I was tempted to take a photo so y'all could see the resemblance, but I thought, "What if he woke up?" Less than 30 seconds later that's exactly what he did.

Why do people talk on their cell phones all the time? Are they bored? When I'm bored, I read. Maybe excessive cell phone use is a symptom of being an extrovert.

So, I went to the National Zoo yesterday for the first time. 'Bout freakin' time, really, seeing as how I've lived in this area for the better part of seven years.

I liked it. It's in the middle of the city but it feels very isolated because of all the greenery. Trees and plants everywhere.

It was a little depressing. The explanatory signs seem to be obsessed with disappearing habitats and all the horrible things human beings have done to force species into extinction, stuff like that. Meanwhile these same people are maintaining a zoo that has a disgustingly dirty Rhino/Hippo house, with cages instead of habitats. Go figure.

Watching the kids was hysterical. Brennan loved the giraffes. Susannah liked the ducks. But both of them were most fascinated with all the kids in the park. Who cares about animals when there's all these other people their size around?

Also interesting is how much attention the two of them get, being twins. Nobody could walk by without looking at them and smiling. Plus they are extraordinarily cute. They're small for their age, and they've got big eyes with long eyelashes, and biteable cheeks. It's a pretty good combination, cuteness-wise.

Miscellaneous comments:

- If I ran the world, I would outlaw field trips. Did you ever take a good look at what kids are doing on their field trips? Mostly they're gossiping, taking pictures of each other, shrieking and running around, or staring blankly into space. Meanwhile, the chaperones look positively haggard. I don't believe the "educational" experience is worth the bother. Once the damn kids all went back to school the zoo was a blissful, quiet place to be.

- Which leads me to digress to this point: Why is it necessarily "educational" to make a trip to the zoo? Why do kids need to know about animals? I don't question that it's fun and something that makes life enjoyable, and is worthwhile for that reason, but it's not very scholarly, really. Am I a better-educated person, or a better person in general, for having spent a day learning very small tidbits about obscure animals and looking at elephant poop?

- Yes, I am juvenile, but I could not get over the elephant poop. It's humongous. It's quite logical -- it's proportionally sized to the elephant -- but there's something truly amazing about a turd that's bigger than a football.

- Watching primates is freaky. They are SO human-like. (Or we're primate-like?) Watching monkeys grooming is like watching a wife pick lint off her husband's shirt.

- After a while, I got irritated with flitting from one animal to the other. I wanted to focus on one, watch them for a while and see what they do. I've a mind to go there from 4-7pm someday, arriving after the field trips leave and departing after rush hour. I will sit by the primates for three hours and watch them and marvel.

- I saw the giraffes intertwine their necks. I'm probably anthropomorphizing, but it looked very affectionate.

- Taking pictures at the zoo is kind of pointless. I can go look at lion pictures at the library any old time; lion pictures that would be far better than any photo I could take. The zoo is special because the animals are RIGHT THERE, almost close enough to touch. Pictures don't do the experience justice.

- Nevertheless, I had to take a panda picture. It's the PANDAS, y'know. I love their little black ears. Here y'go:

I had to use the 2x digital zoom and 3x regular zoom to get this close of a picture. I was rather pleased. Not the clearest, most focused picture ever, but the panda ain't a little dot, either.

More on my weekend later, but for now here is a picture of me with the newest addition to the Stacey's family (it's a boy!):

(If you look closely, you can see the little mole just above my lip. I'm a little vain about this. Back in the day, people used to make fake ones with brown eye pencil, y'know. Mine is real.)

The thing I like about newborn babies, besides their tiny perfection (perfectly formed little fingers, little toes, etc.), is that they have almost no motor control, causing a variety of comical expressions to cross their faces at any given time. You see newborns smiling, looking confused, scared, pissed off, whatever, and it's all just random muscle movements.

My mom said to me, as she was holding him, "I'd give anything to know what he's aware of and 'thinking' about right now."

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