English friend anecdote (3 of 3): Songs.

Once when I was out with the (half British) (half Sudanese) sister of my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend, since she's also my friend, Cher's song "Believe" came on, and she was like, "Oh, this song, this is the one my brother likes."

"Really?", I was like.

"Yeah," she was like, "And my mom too."

"How do you know that?", I was like.

"Oh," she was like, "Once we were all sitting around and it came on, and it turned out that they both liked it."

 . . .

I find that very ridiculous, that (British) people could like Cher's song "Believe", let alone a middle aged (British) mother.

There's something very ridiculous about (British) people.

I find myself often thinking that their country has no real center to it, and it's a mystery to me why it just doesn't fly apart from lack of any sort of weighty ethos.

English friend anecdote (2 of 3): Trips.

So, the other week I was telling my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend that I was going out of town for a wedding, for a college friend who's been doing his residency at Duke, though I just said I was going to Durham.

"You didn't tell me you were going to England!", he was like.

He was very stoked for a second.

English friend anecdote (1 of 3): Acronyms.

So, my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend was saying that he always used to sign of his emails with LOL since he thought it meant "lots of love", until one day his brother asked him why he kept dong that.

Black Gay Karaoke in the South.

So you know what was the best part about (black) (gay) karaoke in the South?

The big "everybody come up!" group love end-of-the-night song wasn't "Hey Jude", but rather "Oh Happy Day."

And people sang harmony.

Style in the South.

I really like style in the South.

If I had to pick three words to describe it, it'd be "loud", "funky", and "rough around the edges".

When I was watching karaoke in North Carolina, I was talking with this one (black) lesbian and said I liked the singer's hat, this other (black) lesbian with a big floppy black hat, and in a tight black tube dress with simple black shoes.

"I like the hat too," she was like, "But I don't know about that dress."

She then said it'd be better with a cranberry red dress and big black suede boots, or she could keep the dress but have cheetah print boots and big gold bracelets.

Odd behavior of (Chinese) neighborhood people:

1) As I walk to go get a bikeshare bike, I see standing on this woodchipped corner just off the sidewalk by the gas station a (Chinese) grandmother and a little (Chinese) boy, with his pants around his ankles and his butt showing to me...

Did he just drop trou, or did the grandmother just let him piss on the woodchips in full sight of everyone?

2) This old wizened (Chinese) man is facing a "white walking person" walk light, and as soon as the "red hand" goes up, he begins to cross the street and forces traffic to stop.

Weird movie ticket luck.

A few weeks ago on a Friday night, I get to the box office and my one friend from Buffalo who bought her movie ticket for this new pop singer documentary ahead of time is already inside, and the box office guy tells me it's sold out...

...and then I step away, and he's like, "Wait, some tickets became available."

It turns out that someone had 2 tickets in their online shopping basket, and the basket's contents "timed out" without the people purchasing them.

So, I got in to see the movie after all.

I can be very lucky sometimes (= something my mother says)!

What was esp. nice was that I was down a bit about bed bugs, but I had a great day teaching writing, and then I was able to take up my friend's spontaneous invite from a few days earlier, which was also nice since we hadn't seen each other in a while.