Comment of a(n older) (black) (female) postal employee.

The other day on a cool cloudy day around 11:30am I went to go mail out a couple books to a friend and his longtime girlfriend who are getting married, as my wedding present for them.

"How are you doing today?", the (older) (black) (female) postal employee asked me, in a firm monotone voice.

"Sleepy!", I was like.

"Don't even say that," she was, still in her firm monotone voice.

Conversation with an old talk radio reporter.

So, the other week I popped into this one bar just north of my house for a nightcap after hitting up new bars after the storm, because they have cheap PBR drafts.

And, the (white) (older) guy at the bar next to me turned out to be an old talk radio reporter with a taste for politics.

“I broke a serial killer story back in the mid-90s,” he told me.  “Black hookers were turning up in dumpsters.”

He then said that the police were covering up that they thought it was a serial killer, but a source inside the department gave him tips, and so he would request the police reports as his source told him they came in, and no-one could figure out where he was getting his information from.

And, because the police wouldn’t really speak to him, he had to go out to two major viaducts in the city, to talk with (black) hookers there and get some interview taped to fill up airtime.

“What’d they say?”, I was like.  

"Oh, that they were afraid, that she was a nice person who fell on hard times, always the same thing,” he was like.  "It was kind of repetitive."

  

“But,” he was like, “I had to get tape.”

Later, I share with him my one idea of a petition to the state attorney general, as an exercise in academic politics.

He loved it, and gave me some tips.

First, if it's big enough, people will report on it no matter what, since they don't have to determine it's true, just that people are going around saying it.

Furthermore, he said, to set the attorney general in motion, create “motivation, but with plausible deniability.”

Storm trapped me in a (new) bar.

So, the other week  I was out hitting up some new bars, and an approaching storm ended up hitting right after I got to the 2^nd (new) bar of the night, this sort of upscale Tex Mex barspace with food that was just jammed with people and a bit overstaffed since it had just opened.

As I was walked in, the (younger) (hispanic) host guy who was standing at the door was like, “Welcome.”

“Thanks!”, I was like.  “It's my first time here.  If a tornado’s coming straight for us, I hope you guys hand out free shots of tequila.”

“I hope so too,” he was like.

Then, I sat down at the bar, and the bartender who came up to me was this tatted up (white) girl with (bleached blonde) hair and a black halter top.

And, I made the same joke.

Then, she was like, “Actually, tornadoes wouldn’t hit us because…”, and with that she launched into this long explanation of funnel cloud formation and how heat gathered up in city’s pavements interfere with that process.

“I love weather,” she confided, after her long, incredibly detailed explanation was over.

“Wow,” I was like, “You’re like this strange combination of shot girl and Neil de Grasse Tyson.”

“Thanks!”, she was like.

Then, she talked about how she grew up in a smaller city to the southwest of the city, and they always had tornadoes, and her dad would take her out back and show her funnel clouds as they formed.

Once, too, she was caught on a highway in a bad storm where visibility went to zero, and the wind was shaking her car so bad that she got out and laid in the ditch like you’re supposed to if there might be a tornado coming, and then suddenly after a while the wind just stopped, and as she got up soaking wet from the ditch, she looked around, and all around wherever she looked there were other people getting up from ditches everywhere, and there were all these cars stopped and pulled off on the side of the highway.

And, there was a newstruck, and that night she got on the news.

“You’re on the news!”, her mom had called her and said, and there she was, sopping wet and looking dazed.

I also told her my gay Orlando shootings killer theory, where a condomless Puerto Rican threesome made the guy think he had AIDS, which led him to donate blood and then go on a rampage for vengeance.

“That’s wild,” she was like.

Then, she said she also used to go in this one tavern where Jeffrey Dahmer used to come and visit.

“The old owner died like in 2009,” she was like.  “He would talk about him sometimes, if you asked him.  He said he was cute, that all the guys liked him, and that he was just the nicest person.”

She also said that what really sticks with her about the Orlando shootings is that she read somewhere that everyone was calling their loved ones to see if they were all right, so all the police who were in the club were just walking around through this giant club in the middle of all these bodies, and it was totally quiet except for 50 cell phones ringing and ringing and ringing.

Come-on from a youngster.

So, the other week on a Thursday, I had a unionization meeting, then went out for drinks with a labor activist I know, and then I went for a nightcap, and then a second nightcap.

With the second nightcap, the person at the door was like, “Are you here for the gay event in the basement?”

“Is there a cover?”, I was like.

“No,” he was like.

“Then sure!”, I was like.

                                                                                                                   

And, I went in to the basement space, and it was mainly a lesbian event and it was packed wall-to-wall with lesbians, so I immediately texted my one library circulation supervisor friend, who recently got out of a bad (lesbian) relationship, and I let her know that she should come out.

(She did, eventually.)

As I was standing by the bar, one of the few guys in the room, this (skinny) (young) (hispanic) guy, starts making eye contact with me, and this proceeds for every once in a while, and then he finally introduces himself when the groups shift and he’s standing nearby me.

                                                                                                           

So, we chat a bit, and it turns out he does some worker activism too, and we chat a bit more about that, and then the conversation gets starts amping up with a bit of heat.

And, sensing that, he’s like, “Just so you know, I’m a companion, as part of a larger service to the community.”

“Oh,” I was like.  “I can't afford that.”

At that, he got in closer and was spoke to me in a confidential tone-of-voice.

“I have a sliding scale,” he was like.  “Like for the disabled.  They deserve love and companionship, too.”

. . .

(Overall, I got the sense that he wanted me, but also had convinced himself into sexwork, and was trying to turn everything into a sale; I've run into one other case like that.)

Quasi-vandalism outside my apartment.

The other week, there was a beer bottle broken all across the sidewalk out in front of my apartment.

Except, it was a Stella Artois bottle.

I couldn’t figure that out, people who drink Stella Artois don’t seem like the type where they’d shatter the empty bottle against a sidewalk.

Walk in the Quarry Park on a Monday evening: Many sights.

So, the other Monday I went for a walk in the quarry park.

On the way there, on the street right before the quarry park, I saw a(n old) (Chinese) woman out in her front yard hoeing and making the entire thing a garden, and it was all turned over except for this big tall tiger lily just standing up in the middle of the yard among the earth mounds.

As she hoed, she was also talking to a friend who was leaning against the fence.

At the park, as I was picking up trash in an old potato bag, I was walking down the main path, and there was this (young) (Asian[-American?]) couple, and as they passed by, the girl was like, “Thank youuuuuuu,” with no discernible accent, but perhaps pitches and length to her words (is she a recent immigrant with good language skills, or did she largely grow up here?).

Afterwards, as I strolled back down the main drag, there was a bunch of people out by the two ballfields, and a white dog was leaning out of the window of an SUV and sticking its head into this circle of a young (Mexican-American) ballteam and their (female) coach who were gathered on the sidewalk next to one of the ballfields, probably for a post-game debrief before everyone's parents came to pick them up.

At that point, I was getting hungry and still had to cook that night, too, so I popped into the minimall McDonald’s for a cone and then decided to get a burger, too.

As I was seated by the window counter, two (short) (fat) (Mexican) women next to me were pointing up to a two-sided “2 for $3” poster hanging in the front window, and the one was explaining to the other all the difference combinations of food you could get, medium fries and a jalapeno Chicken sandwich, or a jalapeno chicken sandwich and a double hamburger, etc. etc. etc.

Wart solution container got botched up.

So, my first container of wart solution was this little glass bottle from the local drugstore, and you’d open the top and there’d be a brush underneath that you could use to put the wart solution on.

Only, over time, the wart solution in the bottle got gelatinous sitting in the bottle, and it'd come up in this already hardening clear bubble, and it was hardening to the point where you couldn’t really spread it on, and it'd touch the wart but not come off, and just sit as a hardening clear bubble on the brush.

I’m not sure if this is what usually happens, or it was just me not putting the top on the bottle tight enough, or it was several hot day over ninety, or what.

Anyhow, I got a new thing of wart solution from the local Walgreen’s, except, I sprung five extra bucks to get the gel tube, since I thought that that would mean I didn’t waste any solution, since you'd cap it and there wouldn't be any air in the container and you'd actually come out ahead since you wouldn't waste any of the solution.

Like a week after that, though, I was screwing the top back on after one of my two daily applications of solution, and as I gave it an extra little twist to make sure the cap was on tight, the entire tip of the tube slid along with it.

I had effectively twisted the top of the container right off!

What shoddy construction.

Now, I have the tube balanced upright on my kitchen table leaning against the edge of the middle of a roll of duct tape, and I set the cap on it to try to block out what air I can.

Every once in a while I find the cap has slid off, and I get worried that the solution is hardening and I'll have to go spend more money on a third container of wart solution.