Emancipation

The cutest girl at my school brought a tiny baby hamster to class today. It's name was Mimi, and the girls all kept telling me excitedly that its age was "one." I asked "What? One week? One day? One hour? Is it a minute old?" They didn't know what I was talking about. When babies are born here, they're already one year old right away, so it's hard to know how old little Mimi was.

I empathized with the poor thing, who kept getting hassled by all the students, when all it seemed to want to do was sleep. (Or start to die. Again, hard to tell.)

I thought about running outside with the little hamster and setting it free in a field. Very 'ode to Mariah Carey's new CD.' The critics are all ga-ga over it. Have you heard it?

I spent some time tonight watching crabs in a tank. I thought about what their life used to be like, with a whole ocean of possibility surrounding them. I empathized with them too, as they climbed over their tankmates with their long legs reaching up toward the top, and freedom.

Then I remembered how damn delicious they are, and I got hungry, and imagined them boiling in a pot with me smiling over them.