Comment of a fellow canvasser: Tamales.

This one (college age) (Mexican-American) guy, as we were leaving the building where canvassers were gathering and he whipped out and left a grease-stained bag on a table in the foyer, so that they were kind of hiding behind a sign:

"I brought some tamales for later."

Then: 

"I'm just gonna leave them chillin' right there, till we get back."

A dream of flesh wounds.

The other week I dreamt -

I had a scab somewhere regular on my body, like maybe my arm, and that made me remember that I had a scab on my left heel, as well.

So, I turn up my foot, and it's really more than a scab, and more like a cratered-in wound in my flesh that's like the size of a pebble, and though it's still oozing around the sides, there's this part of mixed scab and fresh blood in the middle, trying to coagulate, though it's mostly not, really.

I see that and think that that's not a regular scab, and I have a slight fear that it might turn into something worse, if it keeps on its course..

. . .

Flashback to high school.

Whenever I bike in in the morning to the one community college that I tutor at, I always have to bike on the sidewalk for the last little bit, since the way that the one-way streets run in that part of town, it's tough to use bikelanes to get there, for the last little stretch of it.

The past few weeks, there's been a car or a van parked right in front of the little ramp that runs down from the sidewalk and interrupts the curb, so I haven't been able to bike down using the ramp, but instead have had to stop and lift my bike down, then get on it again and bike on over across the street.

Each time when this has happened, it's brought me back to high school, and my one friend whose brother had cerebral palsy and had to use a wheelchair.

I remember one time when we were together in a car somewhere for some reason - I think she gave me a ride somewhere for something we both had to go to? - and she got so angry because someone had parked right in front of a ramp.

"That makes it so hard for other people!', she said.

She was really really angry out of otherwise nowhere, I remember, and that was the first time I think I really caught a glimpse of how different people's lives could be even though we lived in the same world, if they had something like a disability.

Odd beach sight.

The other week when it was a beautiful weekend afternoon, I was at a park beach like I usually am, since I try to get out to the beach once a week when the weather is nice.

And, people were swimming, and I had been swimming myself earlier that afternoon.

And, all of a sudden, there was this (mildly confused looking) (older) (white) man with a (moustache) yelling down at swimmers, saying that he was a cop and that they were swimming in an illegal place and to get out, and that didn't they know there was an undertow and 39 people died this summer from it, and that cops would come there but they were busy with an event, and he'd be calling them (and he did go on to actually do that, since no-one was paying attention to him!).

The whole thing didn't make much sense, since that part about the undertow seems like crap, and he probably wasn't a cop either, too, but rather just some older guy with dementia or maybe mental problems.

I watched him a bit and then tried to keep an eye out for him, out of the corner of my eye.

To be perfectly frank, I was wondering if he was a wacko armed white guy, like that one shooter guy in Las Vegas, and I was trying to be on top of shit in case he had a gun.

This gun availability thing is fucking nuts.

Comment of a banker.

The other week I went back a second time to a local bank, to finally open up the initial account for my campaign.

"So how you been?", said the same (middle middle-aged) (Latina) account clerk who helped me before when I had been checking into initial details and requirements.

"Good," I was like, "But tired."

I then explained that I was out at an art opening for over 4 hours the previous night, and though I thrive on stuff like that, I find myself tired a lot, and I had actually slept through my alarm that morning until ten-thirty, though I had been hoping to get up to nine-thirty.

"I'm just so tired all the time since I began this campaign," I was like.

"It's like a parent with a new baby," she was like.

Then, she was like, "You just gave birth to a campaign."

Odd injury.

The other week I noticed that I had like a little deflated flesh bubble of skin about the size of half a dime just above the lower big knuckle on my righthand thumb.

It's almost like I had a blister there somehow (?), and it got popped and that's what was left.

I peeled the skin off, and it left a pink patch of skin that's becoming hardened, though sometimes I notice it has clear just barely yellowing juices coming out of the top, from where my thumb moved and broke the slight hardening scab and made it all juicy and infectable again.

"People sure are different."

I'm surprised by the number of acquaintances who say "Not now" and "Talk to me later" when I ask them for campaign donations.

Don't they know how much I'm running around, and how much time and effort it takes me to chase them down?

I bumped into someone the other day on a Sunday, and she was like, "Let's talk later, not in the park!".

I mean, it's like, C'mon, I'm just asking you for a verbal pledge, that takes a sentence to speak, too.

As my dad said to me years ago as one of his 2 big life lessons, "People sure are different."