Oh yes, I know that rural America needs a car, but then again you don't have to pay parking and the high insurance and all, so from what I've seen even poor people have them. It's like houses-when I was a kid everybody who could afford an actual house instead of an apartment was upper-middle-class, and the idea of a person saying they were poor and lived in their.very.own.single.family.house! took some getting used to.

Caroma, your original post made it sound like I couldn't call myself an environmentalist unless I sold our cars--cars, mind you, not SUV's, and they get decent mileage--and left Seattle for somewhere with better transit. Made me feel a little snippy somehow.

I didn't mean to imply that anybody *here* is a hummer-loving gas-guzzling hypocrite, just that it's funny when people who call themselves environmentalists are. People in general.

Perhaps because you worded it as people who have cars and call themselves environmentalists, not people who drive Hummers with Greenpeace stickers.

Because there's a lot of environmentally aware and active people for whom cars are the lesser of evils.

I live in the suburbs, and while in theory I have access to public transportation, in practice I live in the kind of neighborhood where we can't get a bus stop because poor people and teenagers mught use it.

Besides, most of the teenagers get expensive cars from their parents-- which is something I don't want, because I dislike driving almost as much as I dislike my neighborhood.

Do I sound bitter? I'm maybe a little bitter.

Not all of them. I'm a very defensive driver. My dad was a driver's ed teacher, so I'm anal about when my blinker goes on, when it goes off, who has the right of way, proper following distance, and I always stop behind the fricking white line.

I'll take the train for just about anything I know is on the route. DFW-train, zoo-train, arts district train. The rest of the time I don't because after a certain hour everything is routed through downtown, which is exactly where I don't want to be after a certain hour.

I don't know where this fits in to the discussion, but when my friend's boyfriend was here, he wanted to ride in a big gas guzzling truck. He was dissappointed with my little Volvo.

Oh, I see, I made it sound like all cars? That wasn't what I meant. I was trying feebly to tie into Gar's post, because he's so much smarter than me it's not funny. It's too late for me to be posting.

And I guess if there's people who Take This Place Seriously, us folks who are here just to have a little fun sometimes will sometimes rattle their chains a little. I guess I just sort of lost a lot of respect for the whole ME as modern mythology thing when I watched the panels from BtVS and Angel at the Museum of TV and Radio. Aside from Joss, the actors really couldn't remember minor character names, plotlines, points, philosophies, etc. They were laughing at each other's mistakes and relied on Joss and the writers to correct their own. Joss himself would admit how much stuff was made up on the fly, or because an actor was unavailable, or an effect was too expensive. He took the Buffyverse sort of seriously but he was making fun of it at the same time. He would answer the more geeky hardcore audience questions with jokes and an implication that you shouldn't worry too much about the shows, just sit back and enjoy them. At least that's what I got out of them. I saw a bunch of hardworking talented young people, some bright, some sort of dim, all relaxed and well-dressed and bubbly, most of them just unknown actors who were grateful for their break but not hoping making a career out of it nor giving signs that they'd thought very deeply about their characters like the fans had. It sort of rubbed off on me.

It's not really a "respect for modern mythology" thing, Caroma; for me, at least, it's that when I discuss things here I take it as seriously as I would a real-life conversation. I dunno. Maybe it is just the Internet, but I take it seriously.

I take things seriously or not depending on the topic and general tone of discussion. Just as if I were speaking to y'all in the flesh.

Just as if I were speaking to y'all in the flesh.

I am not! I'm wearing pj's!

I'm posting naked under my underwear, jeans, turtleneck, and sweatshirt!

(It's not THAT cold here--I didn't bother to change after skating, since we keep the thermostat pretty low at night.)