Two stories of trans*women I know from clubbing.

The other week I was getting pretty blitzed on a weeknight at one of the only 4am bars downtown, and this (part Moroccan) IT worker drunkenly confessed to me that he's interested in trans*women.

"There's this club...", he was like.

"[Name of club]?", I was like, mentioning the name of the late night club I sometimes go to.

"Yeah, that's it!", he was like, and he then told me that a couple times he's hooked up with a couple trans*women from there.

"There's this one really pretty one who's kind of nice...", he was like.

"You mean [Female first name]?", I was like.

"Yeah, that's her!", he was like, and he then explained that unlike other trans*women there, she didn't try to sell herself as soon as you started talking to her, and she came back to his apartment downtown to socialize, though after her talking about wanting "to party" and him not giving her any cocaine, she left.

"We didn't hook up or anything," he was like, and then he said that he also didn't hook up with the one other trans*women he had brought back from the club one time, the only other one who was kind of nice.

You mean [Female first name]?", I was like.  "The one who's always packed into a short dress and has big hair and a lot of makeup?".

"Yeah!", he was like.  "I took her home and we made out for a while, but I had to stop, the smell was so bad."

Then, he was like, "I don't get it, you spend all that time on your hair and makeup, and you forget to wash?".

Report of a Barbra Streisand concert.

The one usher I know from the summer music festival downtown had been to a Barbra Streisand concert with her daughter, and the next time I saw her she gave me a report.

The first thing she noted was how many cracks Streisand had made about Trump and Republicans.

"I had been wondering if she'd do that!", I said straightaway, and I mentioned that I had read an article that said she was putting herself out there for Hillary.

"Most people didn't mind," my one friend the usher said.  "But, I was sitting near some Republicans, and they kept yelling, 'Shut up and sing!'".

(I found that reaction very telling, it's a very instrumental mentality where it's like, "I paid my money so do what I want!".)

She also said she later found out that some of her other friends went and were sitting in a different part of the stadium, and some Republicans near them were booing.

"But there were so few of them," she was like, "It's not like she could hear those reactions on stage."

New stuff by my house:

The tree on the little piece of earth jutting out by the driveway just west of my apartment building that's technically the neighboring garage's had gotten cut down last year for some reason, maybe because it was a bit too big and would interfere with trucks coming and going from the garage...

But, by this summer's end, the tree is still alive, and had shot forth all these tiny branches, and now looks like a healthy bush.

I noticed that the other day when I was opening my front window in my living room for air.

Comment to a (younger middle-aged) (black) (female) Walgreen's cashier...

...who asks me "how I'm doing" as I put a small premade Italian sandwich and a pack of dark chocolate Reese's peanut butter cups on the counter like 10:30pm on a weeknight:

"Great, I've had a couple beers, in case you can't tell from this."

At that, I gestured to the food I was buying, and she laughed.

Dream of a zit:

The other week I dreamt:

I look at my arm, and notice that a piece of skin the size of a quarter is puckered out a bit almost like a tire turned inside out, and across the surface is a dull slightly white color like dried vanilla frosting on a cupcake.

I then realize it's a giant zit that I forgot to pop, and so I take my fingers and push it out from underneath, but instead of a big pop with oil and puss squirting out, the consistency is like frosting and it just kind of oozes out while maintaining its shape, almost like frosting coming out of the tip of a large tube.

. . .

(The beginning of this dream was probably me looking at the remains of my wart, since the skin had been eaten down away from the edges of it, leaving a formation much like a tire turned inside out, I had thought at the time.)

Observation of a tenure-track prof at a state school:

The other week at a concert downtown I was talking with the opera professor friend of a (Russian) writer friend I sometimes catch music with, and I mentioned to him that I was finishing dissertation but not pursuing any academic jobs because the sector was "unstable" and it just didn't make sense any more.

"Yes," he was like, "The sector is very unstable."

He didn't elaborate, but my hunch is that he meant in terms of state budget cuts, liquidation of quality jobs to gigwork, and the amount of competition for every single job out there.

It's weird to think that I've been set on a path forever and have done everything I've needed to do to set myself up for jobs, but when you take a step back and look at the big picture, attempting to pursue this path is just too uncertain for someone with nothing to fall back on, and the consequences too severe and worsening for every year I couldn't get good employment...

That's in addition to the fact that a lot of departments and positions are being closed right now, and there's growing indications that tenured profs are getting busted with salary and forced into teaching higher amounts of classes, since they're sheeply people with low job mobility who are captive to admin.

Plus, a significant minority of millennials are assholes, and I have better things to do with my time.

Another dream of decay:

Every time I'm in my kitchen, I smell the slight sickly sweet smell of mold, and I trace it to the fruit that I keep on a dish on the top of my fridge, and when I go look there, I overturn a grapefruit only to discover that the bottom half is a solid mat of white-grey mold, everywhere I couldn't see when I first glanced at it.

. . .

(This happened in real life, and then I had a dream of the same thing at least 3 or 4 times.)