More from my Canadian roommate.

A while ago I had told my one Canadian roommate about the great sugar rolls and rugalaches at the French bakery located near my old apartment, and over the next week he asked me like twice what the name of the bakery was again.

"Oh, are you planning to go to [my city] soon?", I was like, and offered to show him around if he did

"Maybe," he was like. "There's a lot of places that I want to travel to, so I kind of decide between them based on where I can get great donuts."

Misc.

1) The other day I took a long bikeride, and when I was paused at the top of this hill near an intersection to look at my bikemap, this (black) family biked up, and they asked me if I needed directions... The early 40s (black) mom had a tight pink t-shirt on that said -

I DON'T WANT TO BE A PRINCESS, I WANT TO BE A VAMPIRE

- and the word "Princess" was in a girly font, and "Vampire" in a bad-ass one.

2) When I was walking back from fireworks on the 4th, some late 50s/early 60s (white) women from Wisconsin were walking slowly ahead of me, and I was going to pass them in front of this hip young bar that was flooded post-fireworks, the one asked the other what that place was, and the other is like, "Oh, I've heard of it, that's the place that the kids go now," which instantly downgraded the entire place full of self-satisfied moneyed professionals to a stage of life which the old people can categorize and think is quaint.... That comment made Milwaukee feel very much like a small town, where stages of life are socially regulated.

A story from a classmate.

Her one friend from the south can't use public restrooms, and somehow she got into this yearlong program where she was going to go live in France to study French, so to prep for the flight, she worked out a lot and didn't eat so she could go the entire flight (which was 2 legs) without using the restroom.

When she got to the airport in Paris, the older French couple picked her up and took her to their apartment, where they tried to entertain her while their little dog yapped around her feet and she was on the point of fainting from being tired and dehydrated and needing to piss, so she politely struggled to ask for the bathroom, and when they showed it to her, she practically ran in, she had to piss so bad.

But, it was a room with a bath, not a toilet.

So, she decided to sit on the sink to piss.

But, despite being short, she was like 250lbs, so the sink broke off the wall, and there was this huge crash, and the couple began knocking on the door frantically, and she opened it up and they held her by the arms and led her out into the living room, and she was crying hysterically and trying to explain in bad French what had happened, and the little dog was running around on her feet and the older couple were talking rapidly to her, and she was just more and more confused and distraught, so, still needing to piss, they led her to the couch to sit down, and she practically collapsed onto the couch, she was so worked up.

Then, they noticed the dog wasn't yipping, and they looked around, and it was nowhere to be found.

Then, the southern girl realized that when she had staggered back and falled back into the couch, she had sat on the dog, and had killed it.

Effects of Smoking.

Smoking was banned in Milwaukee on Monday.

The week before, after going out on Thurs. and Fri. to semi-smokey bars, my throat was scratchy, and on Fri. when I went to sleep I had a hard time getting to sleep because of something at the back of my throat.

The next morning when I was in the bathroom after taking a shit, I rinsed out my mouth with some water, and the way I leaned over, something slid forward from the back of my sinuses into my throat, and I snorted it down and then hacked this huge hunk of yellow snot (about the size of two quarters) into the sink.

No one ever talks about that effect of 2nd-hand smoke.

If I was mayor of Milwaukee...

A few things:

1) Long-range urban planning to make better use of the lakefront and make it flow into downtown.

2) Long-range urban planning so buildings are built more densely downtown.

3) After-school and neighborhood programs.

4) Public transit for downtown, planned ahead so extensions can go outward from the center when funding comes through.

5) More ESL programs.

6) Nutrition programs.

7) Programs for school children on Native American culture.

More on Milwaukee.

I'm very much amazed by the Native American presence - people you see, names in the paper, everything. So much more than in Michigan or Wisconsin.

...the priest's advice to people...

The priest from my Latin class was saying the other day that people always used to come up to him and tell him everything (I think about birth control) and were looking for him to excuse their behavior, so he would always tell them that who was he to talk to, that they should think that if they could defend their behavior before Jesus of Nazareth and really mean it, that they should be content, and not look for his approval, for who is he to judge.