2 car stories.

1) Coming back on Sat. from a movie at the black movie theater - Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland", it sucked except for the Red Queen, who tore the screen up every time she was on, though my friend I went with didn't like her - this car ahead of us on the highway was swerving a little bit, so my friend slowed down his car some, and then as the car ahead of us went onto the off-ramp and was heading up it, it started swerving more erratically, and it went straight into the wall-side of the off-ramp (the highway is below street-level in that part of town), and ricocheted back with its front crunched in.

So, I called 911 and told the operator what happened, and they transferred me to the state police and I told them what happened, and they sent someone out, though I still don't know what happened.

2) Walking to krunk karaoke the other night, it was really foggy out, and crossing the street with a friend when we had the walk signal, an oncoming car tried to make a lefthand turn right into us, probably because they didn't see us...

My friend pulled me out of the way, though by that time the car had seen us and had slowed down some.

From the memoir of J.D. Salinger's Daughter.

From Margaret A. Salinger's "Dream Catcher", p. 178:

When I brought home an A in Spanish one year, he said, "Oh, terrific, now you're studying the language of the ignorant!"

...

Very nice.

The other day I was coming home and I saw the one homeless (black) guy who hangs out on the corner opposite my apartment asking for money from people coming out of a local deli.

(He hasn't been there in a while.)

He had a toothache again, so he asked me for some Ibuprofen if I had any to spare, and just like I did a few months ago, I went up to my apartment and put some in a plastic baggie and wrote out the instructions from the pill bottle and came back and gave it to him.

"Thank you, big guy" he was like.

Then, I told him that I was moving in a few weeks, so I had given him some extra to tide him over.

Then, he offered to help me move if I needed help (and I don't think he meant for money, but just as a being-nice kind of thing).

Another nightmare: My apartment.

The other night I had another nightmare and I dreamed that I had some friends over, and they had muddy boots on and somehow at the end of their visit they walked across my braided IKEA rug and tracked mud all over it.

Addendum.

Also, we started talking somehow about crime in the neighborhood, and says what drives her crazy is all those Asian girls who walk around with iPods.

"I go up to them and I show them my school ID so they know I'm not crazy, and I tell them as somone looking out for them that they better take those goddamn earbuds out of their head, because if they don't watch out, someone's going to come rip them right off them," she was like.

Then, after a beat, she was like, "And I tell them, if someone you don't know who looks dirty in a dirty coat and kinda crazy tries to stop you to talk to you, you don't do that, but you hold your hand out right there and say, 'Stop right fucking there you crazy-ass motherfucker,' because if you say that, they do stop... They think it's kind of harsh, but then you have to explain to them that it's kind of like a South-side hello, and it's not as impolite as they think."

2 (black) people talking (black)with each other story.

So, the other day I ran into the one (black) friend of my one (black) friend who works the library desk on Sun. nights...

She has a masters degree from the university from years ago, and when she moved back to the city, she moved to the university neighborhood for family and personal reasons, and still uses the library as an alumnus (I don't use the word "alumna", I find it pretentious).

Anyhow, I ran into her outside and it was a nice day, so we sat outside and had a snack - we both had oranges with us, and sat outside on the main library steps and peeled them - and then, what do you know, one of the library desk workers (an older [black] man) who we know had just gotten off shift and was walking out, and we both waved to him, and I was like, "Be sure to enjoy the day!"

"I sure will," he was like, "I'll be getting out to enjoy it."

"And knowing you," my (black) friend was like - and when she spoke to him, her voice even got deeper and (black)er -- "I'm sure you'll be getting into some trouble then, too!".

"Oh, I'll sure be getting into something later," the guy was like, "and that something is bed."

At that, my friend swatted her hand at him and laughed, and he walked away to go find his car.

Gyros Lounge Karaoke: Return.

Karaoke at the gyros lounge is now twice a month, I found out! Me and my one (white) friend from Mississippi went the last Fri. in February...

Hadn't been there in a while, Patrice hugged both of us and said it was great to see us back.

Anyhow, the place has the best book, and there were oddly few people singing that night, so I ended up singing over the course of the night:

1) Carole King's "Beautiful" ("oh, i love carole king!", a drunk [white] woman near me said. "i sang 'Smackwater Jack' last month!"... "you gotta love Tapestry," i said at her, and winked, and she started clapping her hands together and stamping her feet and doing a squeal of joy, and was like, "you do!"... the song was on MIDI, though, and the lyrics were off and the tempo was way slow, so I kind of bit it on it).

2) The Hollies's "Air that I Breathe" (did it okay, need to learn to do a better slow build, though I really worked the line about how after making love you feel peaceful warm and tired).

3) MIA's "Paper Planes" (i sang it fine and some [white] hipster girl danced drunkenly the entire time of the song, right from the opening chords, but i don't have the attitude to pull it off, or even to do the requisite gun-firing and cashdrawer-pulling-open motions -- though, Lady Red would, I'm sure).

4) MGMT's "Kids" (oddly, i couldn't get the melody for the chorus! - opening verse was great, but the song is too repetitive and the words mean nothing).

I also had Akon's "Lonely" in at the end of the night, but time ran out.

My friend I went with sang some blues shit, don't know the name of it.

He also said that a while ago on Facebook Lady Red had a comment about fat black people raising fat black children, and that it had over a 100 comments after it and more every minute, but he didn't send it to me because he wasn't sure I'd like it.

He couldn't remember her exact wording, either, but he remembered more or less one of the comments, which went something like, "GO RED YOU TELL IT LIKE IT IS".