I Married Mello Yello!

Here's David. What has Arlington County done to him?? He's wearing a "Plant a Tree" t-shirt, new hemp jeans (with a Maryjane flower on the back pocket), and a girl baby. He just got home from work, took off his hobbit shoes and sat down next to, yes, our bag of recyclables. (Every week I hear: "Can you believe they won't take...?") Last week, he bicycled to work. The week before, he paid good money to register for a "rain barrel" workshop. And, practically every day, he says things like, "Hey, you know you can compost that tea bag."

In other news, during college, I worked for an English professor who ran a writing program at Lorton, the maximum security prison in Virginia. (She was very cool. She had two kids, a boy and a girl, and her daughter had her last name and her son had her husband's last name. I suggested the same plan to David years ago, but he said no. Turns out, he wouldn't have gotten such a good deal! But how did he know that?? Creepy!) Anyway, I was supposed to type -- not edit! -- the prisoner essays, so that she could print them and return them to the men. But, of course, I couldn't help but fancy them up with such bourgeois nonsense as periods -- and now I feel a little guilty about that.
What would start like this:
"I took up my piece felt its cold ran outside"
Ended up as this:
"I took up my piece!" (Oh my God!)
Anyway, I was thinking about those guys because I just read a short story by Lester Irby, who I don't really know anything about, except that he spent 30 years in prison. He can use punctuation and he must have had a better editor than me: "Daddy ended up knocking Junior to the floor--then started shouting at him. 'Nigger, get yo' ass up and get the fuck outta my house. You don't wanna go to school, you don't wanna work. Get the fuck out and don't come back until you get some sense."
My version: "Dad knocked Junior to the floor! And shouted, "!@#$, get up and get out of my house! You don't want to go to school and you don't want to work. Get out and don't come back until you straighten up and fly right, kiddo!"