Nemesis

He gets on at the same bus stop every morning; pasty-faced with short bushy hair, and eyes that might be kind if they weren't so beady. I'd guess he's close to my age and I'm pleased to note his hairline is receding. He doesn't look like he gets laid regularly. He might live with his mother.

I imagine that he sees me sitting there with Sophie, my Howard Dean button still proudly displayed, and feels a similar dislike. I think he must know that if I were alone and didn't have to set a good example for my child I'd find a way to unapologetically spill coffee on whatever shite book he has his pointy nose stuck in.

The first time I noticed him, he was reading one of Anne "I'm a nutjob harridan from hell" Coulter's collections of questionable research pathological lies. I probably snorted and surely rolled my eyes. I almost asked, "You do know there's at least one lie on every page of that book, don't you?"People must buy her books since she continues to write them, I'm just amazed that anyone could actually her seriously. On the east side, maybe, but in Seattle proper?

Today it was "Rumsfeld's War" written by someone whose tongue is shoved so far... well, let's just say it's a loving portrayal of the principled genius (*snort*) whose hands are stained with the blood of hundreds of our soldiers as well as that of the innocent Iraqi civilians that he insists we're there to help. Right. The same hands that shook Saddam's back when he was the enemy of our enemy and we really didn't care if he butchered his own people.

I loathe what this man chooses to read, the lies he chooses to believe. If I was alone on the bus ride, I'd be sure to always have a book to whip out in protest - Franken, Ivins, Clarke - to hold up like a silver stake of truth against the screed. I want to be aggressive in my liberalness, in-your-face about my contempt for the "values" his reading material upholds.

But Sophie is with me so there are no dueling books today, though my eyes ache from the rolling.