Nighttime sight:

As I walk on a bridge street south over a series of massive interstate exchanges, I look down to the isolated grassy median areas marred with recent construction tracks, and see a rabbit hop across one, though that media area is not only completely disconnected by interstate exchanges from anything resembling street level or a yard, but also walled off from all the interstate exchanges by high concrete walls.

I wonder how it got there.

My neighbor from New Orleans.

My one neighbor from New Orleans and I have been bonding a bit by text over bed bugs, and the other Sunday she got back late after a shitty day at work and then being out with friends, and she texted me to join her on the back stoop for drinking and chatting while she had a cigarette.

I said I'd bring a wine bottle that we could swig and share - I cracked by text that "I have bedbugs but not herpes" - but when I got home and got there, she had remembered she had a can of cheap shitty beer in her purse and had begun to drink it, and we ended up staying out there and talking and then going to hang out in her apartment.

For one thing, I discovered that she has like fifty shades of nail polish all on a shelf in her apartment, and while she commutes to work she looks at nail polish videos on Instagram and even posts pics of her own nails, although she doesn't do all the elaborate stuff like she was showing me on the videos.

On that topic, she told me that not only did some friends of hers who live near a world-renowned amusement park start a business of going there everyday to buy limited release collectibles for people all over the world, but they've now also started filming their day doing that and so they make even more money, to the point where that's their jobs.

"Isn't that bananas that they make money doing that!?", she was like.

Later, for another thing, I also discovered that she's had bad anxiety, and has had it ever since Katrina.

A beautiful sight at the beach the other Sunday afternoon:

A (middle-aged) (Asian) man has two sticks with a rope and stands at the top of the row of rocks that go tumbling down to the water, and he dips the hanging rope into a jar of solution at his feet, and then he uses the stick and the rope to form huge bubbles that float out into the wind.

And, as he does this, everyone who's all out along the rocks and out sunning keep turning their heads to watch the bubbles as they go by, to watch the colors and to see where they go and how long they last.

The fragility of millennials.

I find the fragility of millennials interesting, after having seen it in both students and a tenant in my building.

They can never brook contradiction, and don't understand respectful behavior.

I remember once a few years ago at the gym this (young) (Asian-American) college student was just sitting on a piece of equipment towards closing time in contravention of posted rules and diddling on her phone, and I asked her nicely to move, and when she told me to wait, I reminder her of the posted rules, and when she told me to wait again, I reminded her of the rules again and politely said I was going to go get a manager to speak with her.

At that, she flew off at me, and kept telling me that I didn't understand respect, and that "you have to give respect to get respect."

Which, was very odd, since she hadn't behaved respectfully at all.

In other words, she thought respect was bending to obey her will.

I've also noticed that when I was talking with students at the art school about possible legal violations, some of them who *had* experienced legal violations didn't understand that an accidental misgendering of a transgendered person wasn't illegal, and when we talked about it, the sticking point seemed to be that the person requested it and that that action violated their request.

In other words, they just assumed that laws automatically match their desires.

All in all, it's very odd, and I wonder if they'll grow out of it, or if the culture will change to match them.

Solution against bed bugs?

So, my bed bugs are back...

But I installed a hammock, and slathered the walls around the hooks with talcum baby powder and then the hooks themselves in Vaseline!

For three nights, then, no bites.

I think I'm finally safe, until a bug is captured or the problem worsens and the landlord finally is forced to hire exterminators.  :)

A dream of dirty shirts.

The other week, I dreamt -

I'm kneeling in front of someone, and I'm pulling out my undershirt from a red t-shirt I was wearing.

The front of the undershirt is all moldy and has a big splotch on it the color of mildew, and as I pull apart the red t-shirt from it, I notice a huge white smear like cream cheese towards the collar, with a big piece of red like red pepper on it.

I'm so embarrassed, and feel very shame-faced in front of the person who I'm kneeling in front of, though I can't see their face and I don't know who they are (though that doesn't bother me, in the dream).

Three 4th of July stories: Bestiality, Student Debt, Cleared-out Bar.

1) At the BBQ, I meet a woman from New Zealand, and like I always do when I meet someone from New Zealand, I start making jokes about sheep-fucking.

"You know...", she was like, and at that she launched into a story about how this one guy in this small town near her once got busted for sheep-fucking, and they took him to the town jail and as it got towards night, he started complaining that he was cold.

So, the cops gave him a bale of hay.

"If it's good enough for your girlfriend, it's good enough for you!", they were like.

Much afterwards, I wondered if that was a real story, or a converted joke.

2) At the same BBQ, I bumped into a former masters student from my university, who was with a nearby group and has been cobbling together part-time jobs at a community college for going on eight years.

As it turns out, she lives below the poverty line in a studio apartment, works more than full-time, and is on an income-based repayment plan.

Only, of the $300 that she pays each month on her $60K in debt, only like $19 goes towards paying down the principal.

So, she's been paying a ton for eight years, and her debt is pretty much still the same as it ever was.

Isn't that crazy?

More and more people are like that nowadays.

3) After the BBQ and fireworks, people are driving crazy, so I stop into a local bar to read a book till traffic dies down and I can go bike home.

After like 11pm, I suddenly notice that the bar is pretty cleared out, and I comment on that to the (light-skinned) (older) (black) (female) bartender.

"Yeah," she was like.

"Huh," I was like, and at that I lifted each arm and sniffed my pits.

That got her, and she laughed pretty hard.

"You crazy", she was like.