A New (Maybe?) Neighborhood Story.

So, after looking at an apartment this past weekend in the neighborhood I'm hopefully moving to, I stopped by this corner diner to have a bowl of soup and a cup of coffee.

When I was done and had turned in my tray, I was going to go out the door, but there was this middle-aged (black) woman standing there in the doorway holding it open, saying bye to another (black) woman going out the outer door (it was like a vestibule thing), and so when the one saw me coming up beside her to go out the door she was blocking, she was like, ""Scuse me, hon, I'll get out of your way" and I was like, "Oh no, here, let me get this for you," and I held the door open, while she looked back to her aged (black) mother, who was coming up with a walker, and I said to her mom, "And if you're coming out too, I'll gladly hold the door open for you as well."

"Thank you," the mother was like, "You are a gentleman."

"Actually," I was like, "I'm really not, but I do my best to try to be one."

At that, she smiled and was like, "Well, all I can say is: baby, keep at it!", and with that she toddled slowly through the door with her walker, laughing.

(Outside, too, she looked back at me and nodded and told me to have a good day.)

Snot and blood.

I'd been having a little sinus trouble last week - a small cold that didn't get full-blown, but didn't develop into anything either - and then the other morning I seemed to be breathing easier, and I was just lazing around in bed really tired, then all of a sudden I snorted back, and this huge chunk of phlegm dropped back from my nose into my throat and started gagging me, and so I jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom and hacked it up into the sink, and it was the size of like half a small chicken breat, and looked like congealed watered-down root beer.

Later, when I did my neti pot, I blew into the sink and I must have popped a small blood vessel, because some blood spattered into there, and when I looked into the mirror, I noticed a small fleck on my left upper arm that must have somehow gotten onto there.

Cleaning house.

I started cleaning house the other day, and I finally got around to clearing out all the plastic bottles and egg cartons I had thrown in this cabinet in hopes of one day gathering them all and finding someplace to recycle them (I have a ton of cabinet space in the kitchen, so I just use this big tall cabinet for that).

Anyhow, when I gathered up the egg cartons - I had already stacked most of them in the cabinet, there wasn't room to leave them un-nestled - I had like three piles about two-and-a-half feet high, and as I looked at them, I started getting kind of sick, thinking about all the eggs I'd eaten in the past few years... It was kind of like when Oprah brings out the wheelbarrow of chicken fat to show how much weight you lost, to be suddenly confronted like that.

Sometimes, when I look up at my coffee can collection, which is displayed in my kitchen, I get sick to my stomach too, thinking about how much coffee and caffeine has gone through my system, when I look at all 70+ cans at once.

A (Black) Woman at Check-out (II of II): Scene.

Also like a month ago, someone I know was at a local grocery chain store and this really big 40-something (black) woman in a dingy coat and looking kind of crazy was making this huge scene at the checkout counter, picking a fight and yelling at the cashier over nothing, and just as she was stomping away and leaving all her groceries at the check-out while everyone was watching - it was that big a scene - she turned around and raised her finger and was like, "And woman, I will get you fired!", and as she did this, a ham fell out of her coat.

And then, without missing a beat, she pivoted and shook her finger at everyone who was watching and was like, "Who threw that ham at me!?!??!?!"

A (Black) Woman at Check-out (I of II): Coffee.

Like a month ago a friend of mine was at Starbucks waiting in line when this (light-skinned) black woman ahead of her was ordering coffee...

"And can you put some cream in it?", the woman asked the countergirl.

"Like how much?", the countergirl asked in return, and to that the woman was like, "Bring it up to my color."

Lost another student (I think).

I think I lost another student from my section.

The other day (the evening before section), he had emailed another TA whose section meets at the same time as mine to see if he could switch into hers.

(He never notified me; she replied and CCed me on the reply... I think he didn't want to tell me in person that he was dissatisfied with the way I was running section.)

Anyhow, me and the other TA caught him after class to find out what was up, and basically it turns out that he felt he wasn't a good fit for the section. I spend a lot of time breaking things down to the basic issues and focusing on critical thinking skills for people who are entering the field for the first time, and I'm getting a lot of positive feedback on this approach from other people in the section, but from his recent paper he just seems at a more advanced level than other students... He wants to talk about the text more in class, but I was holding off on that since a lot of people still had questions about how we construct historical chronologies, how do we adjudicate between different arguments "if we all have our biases", etc.

(If he was in my other section, he'd probably be fine, it's just that this other section needs more work with the fundamentals.)

So, he sought to switch sections.

Again, I feel like somehow this is a reflection on me.

Though, I can see that the other students have improved their critical thinking skills a *ton* since being in my section and are already asking more sophisticated questions, and can also probably be ambassadors for basic knowledge about the field once they leave, so I don't feel too bad. I can't win them all (or be all things to all people, if they're all in the same section).

Another dude my friend with the cat took home.

When my friend with the cat was living in LA and bar-hopping with her good gay friend there, they ended up at this late night bar and the blonde muscular dude she was chatting up turned out to be this Swedish bodybuilder who was in town.

She said she felt bad because her gay friend was having no luck and she was spending all her time on this guy, but right when she was about to leave with him and they were getting up to go, he put her hand on his shoulder to stop her and, his face stricken, was like, "What should I do with my friend Hans?"

Soup update: Round II for potato-leek soup.

This time I made it with yukon gold instead of russett potatoes. I like the taste better, but I let the soup boil down too much, and it's kind of more like parsley potatoes than a soup.

Also, when I was stirring the soup, a couple droplets spattered up and onto my hand, and before I knew it, I had a burn there, and it kind of looks like a big pink exclamation mark...

I like that potato-leek soup recipe - it's easy to make, tastes sophisticated, and is *cheap*, when you break down the "ingredients / lb." price.