3 bits of almost-forgotten blogging.

1) Like a couple sundays ago I came in relatively unshaven into the library and my one (black) friend who works the library desk on sunday nights was like, "Are you growing a beard?", and when I told that I was just lazy, but how did it look, she was like, "Get that shit off your face."

Also, yesterday I came in and had just started talking to her when someone called her on her cell (people are always calling her on her cell, usually for advice).

"Come on, don't you know I'm talking to a white boy," she said to whoever it was that was calling her as soon as she answered.

2) Like last week I was talking to this one (black) faculty assistant I know and she asked me what I had been up to, so I told her how I had gone to see "Madea Goes to Jail", and after we talked about it and how good Madea is -- "Did you get the moral?", she was like, "There's always a moral", and when I said it was self-reliance and forgiveness, she was like, "That's right, you got the moral" -- she asked me if I had seen any other Tyler Perry movies, and when I said no, she shook her head and was like, "You are de-prived, you are de-prived."

Also, her first reaction at her hearing that I had gone see the movie was a smile and her being like, "Ooooh, you're getting to know my culture!"

3) Like a few weeks ago when I was at the gyros lounge with my one Dutch friend after seeing a movie, and Patrice had flicked on some reality show where they put people in ethically questionable situations where they should take a stand and help someone to see what they would do, so we all started talking about times we've been confronted with shit like that.

My one Dutch friend said when he was living in Israel, he was on a bus with like four other people, and he turned around and saw this unaccompanied suitcase just sitting on a street, so he spoke loudly asked everyone if it was theirs, and since he wasn't, he started yelling in Hebrew, "Everyone off the bus, everyone off the bus!" As soon as they did that (the bus driver pulled over and fled too), this guy who had gotten off the bus and forgotten his suitcase caught up to them, running, and as he got on the bus to get his suitcase, everyone was swearing at him.

So, I was saying how this summer when I was visiting my friend in the Peace Corps, everyone in the Peace Corps was saying that everyone, locals included, never went swimming at this one beach resort (you went to drink and tan, not swim), and that an Olympic swimmer had drowned in the waves there not too long ago, so whatever you do, go up to your waist or whatever, but never ever go further, because there's a chance you'll be dragged out to sea.

So, I was at the resort, sun-tanning, and all these French tourists like my age who had been tanning went down to the sea and were messing around, and then this one French kid starts swimming into the huge-ass waves (! - they were like 10 or 12 feet high, they were gigantic), so after thinking for two seconds, I ran down to the beach and told them in my shitty, broken French that people have died in the water and that it's forbidden to swim. As it turns out, the kid knew that, and was snotty to me, and his friends acted like I was a freak.

I hate the French.

Then, Patrice said like a few years ago, she was out on her sideporch having a smoke like at 11pm, and she looked out and across the street there was this big van pulled up and idling in her older neighbors who don't drive anymore's driveway, and the doors were open, so she called the police, since she didn't know who they were and why they would be there so late, and it turned out to be some utilities people or something like that who were there exceptionally late at night.