Oh man. I finally got around to reading my quotes in the book Vegetarians and Vegans in America Today. The book is about the variety of people making up America’s vegan movement. I was libertarian at the time (I felt I needed another hurdle to social viability) and they interviewed me as a representative of libertarian vegans.

I remember that for some reason I intentionally went way over the top with the quotes. “You want libertarian veganism? Oh I’ll show you libertarian veganism!” Before publishing the book, they sent me all my quotes and asked if there was anything I wanted to retract. Without even reading them I knew I should probably retract them all. But screw it, I thought, and told them to run the presses already.

When the book came out, they sent me a copy, but I was too afraid to read it and see what I’d said. Today I saw why.

The only line I recall writing was the one about ladybugs becoming welfare queens. I also remember thinking “Ha! That’ll really make me look crazy!” after I wrote it.

The best part, though, is my line calling barking dogs rights violators. That was a veiled reference to the noisy, sleep-interrupting dog of my girlfriend at the time. Now that I think about it, that dog probably deserves some of the credit for me eventually leaving veganism.

Good dog, Balloux. Very good dog!