An odd subway rider:

The morning I go in for more periodontal follow-up work, this (late middle aged) (skinny) (white) guy with a cap pulled down over his head and some earphones or earbuds or whatever on, who ends up getting off at the same stop that I do, and singing out uncomfortably loud to that Rihanna song but otherwise to no-one in particular as he walks along in a very direct straight path down the center of the sidewalk, being all like -

"Shine beautiful /
like diamonds in the sky"

-

. . .

People at the school's library.

So when I was working on stuff at the school I go to's library before typing this up, I hear a sound from my right, and it's a (young) (Asian) (male) student over on the computer, eating a banana and chewing with his mouth open, and then proceeding to an apple, only with that he chewed with his mouth open like maybe 40% of the time.

Later. I heard a sound from way in front of me, and it's a (young) (Asian) (female) student, eating an apple and chewing with her mouth open far more often, though not always.

Just a little bit after that, then, I hear a sound of someone chewing with their mouth open, and I look over, and it's actually a (skinny) (white) (guy) who's often on the floor making out with his overmakeupped (white) girlfriend, who's actually sitting beside him as he eats takeout with his mouth open.

I usually never hear such things on the usually quiet floor I work on, and then three on one night!

Thankfully, too, not everyone chewing with their mouth open was (Asian), because that would confirm stereotypes.

One time my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend (the brother of the brother and sister who I'm friends with) actually told a (Chinese) colleague of his from the Anthro Department about the social norm of eating with your mouth closed.

"He didn't notice!", he was like.

"That's a bit straightforward," I was like.

"Well, that's how we do things here," he was like.

A memory of college:

In the very early 2000s, this (white) (female) acquaintance of mine who had dyed black hair and wore much black and was a bit tech-y told me about this thing called a "blog," short for "web log."

After she explained it to me, I kept thinking to myself how freaky she was, since it was like a diary on the internet.

Formal metal sign in the alley behind my new apartment:

NO

GARBAGE

PICKING

Katy Perry and my life.

Every time I wake up feeling shitty from disrupted sleep due to barhopping - they're not hangovers, really, since I don't get those - I think of the Katy Perry lyric that goes something like -

I think I need a ginger ale /
That was such an epic fail

- although it's mostly the first part that's appropriate, since on days like that a caffeinated soda is good.

Another dream, much less disturbing -

A few days after my taquito vomit nightmare, I dreamt -

I'm coming through into the cabin of an open summer camp-like refectory place on a hill, and after walking by a cash register, there's a couple of tables set up against a wall and another table in the middle, with glass plates full of big fifth-to-quarter-size slices of little pastel tri-layered pies with central layers of gelatin-like areas and then also with different glass dishes with pastry tops like cobblers and disguising what's underneath so I can't tell what's there and what they're exactly made of, and I know they're all for breakfast, and they're slightly strange food that's meant to be fun and get you out of your norm, though they're familiar to some people somewhere as their normal breakfast food.

I take a big slice of pie into my one hand, and I ladle some pastry casserole stuff onto a dish, and then I go out the side door to where some picnic tables are lined up, by the side of the pleasant hill that drops down somehow gently, albeit abruptly.

The sky is blue, and it's nice out, and the weather is warm, and I'm with friends, including some I haven't seen for years.

. . .

One possible cause for my taquito vomit nightmare?:

That same evening before I went to go hit up some new bars and then meet a friend for a party (after which I hit up another new bar and then got upsold to the three taquitos that I scarfed), I was on the subway, and a (shorter) (skinny) (younger) (male) (relatively clean shaven) (hispanic) homeless person in flannels with a recent haircut and a decrepit voice was at the other end of the car, and was asking everyone for help.

"...and my legs are so swollen up and I need my diabetes medicine," he was like, I remember as one of the last things he said, before everyone looked down and no-one helped him.

As he walked past me, I glanced over with my downcast eyes because I caught out of the corner of my eye that the legs of his jeans were rolled up, and I suddenly saw to my surprise that his lower legs were massively swollen, to at least two if not three times their normal size, and on his left leg was a huge yellowish-green sore the size of a teacup saucer, with some dried blood in a small dried stream coming out from one small bit of one outer edge, where what must have been a scab on the sore must have cracked once.

And, beyond that, as he passed, I saw in an opposite seat a (younger middle-aged) (black) woman and she had seen it too, and we exchanged glances and both of our eyes were so big.

. . .

There has been an exceptional amount of homeless people in the city the past year or two and their number has only been increasing, and now this man is displaying his sores like I hear the beggars do in India, I thought at the time and I think now.

Very disturbing.

What is becoming so wrong with our society?

I'm thinking it's the heroin and the inequality, both.