This morning on my way to classes, as I drove through a five-way intersection in
the middle of my hometown, I was confronted by someone standing on the sidewalk,
screaming and gesticulating seemingly at me, although I heard them long before I
had actually arrived at the intersection. They were tall, thin, appeared to be
in their fourties or fifties, with short hair, dark clothing, a sweatshirt and a
black baseball cap with white text I didn't see closely enough to read, over
short hair. Their voice was in a baritone range; I couldn't clearly make out a
word of what they were saying, except that some variation of *fuck* was
invovled; I turned down NPR and even rolled down my window just a crack to figure
out what was being said; I at first I thought the petitioner's speech ended with
something like "You're not taking my fucking kids," but as I waited at the
intersection they seemed to start their speech over again, and I thought perhaps
it ended with "Fuck you and your fuckin' kids," or "Fuck you, and you're fuckin'
queer." (I was wearing my "Fully Automated Queer Space Anarchism" sweatshirt,
but, as I mentioned, I think this tirade started before this person and I could
see each other.) Just before I finally crossed the intersection, the petitioner
took advantage of the walk signal to cross the section of road I was about to
enter, moving from the sidewalk they'd been occupying just outside a tiny
daycare playground to one at the corner of a gas station, and started the
routine all over again.
