A story from my youth.

The other day I remembered this story, from two brothers I went to middle and high school with:

They had a larger family with like 5-6 kids, and the two oldest brothers were in their 20s and worked construction but were still living at home for some reason.

So, when he was back in high school, one of the brothers I went to school with had this schtick he'd do, where his older brothers would come home drunk, and he'd charge them $5 to make a grilled cheese for them.

He wouldn't actually buy any cheese or bread or anything, he'd just take it out of his family's fridge for nothing, and then his brothers would pay him $5 a sandwich for him to fry it up for them.

Reflections on another birthday.

I always find it interesting how it hits you at some point that you're suddenly that age, after you hit your birthday and the total ticks up by a year.

For me this year, it really hit me that I was 38, when I was reading a Mormon fundamentalist cult memoir, and the book said that the writer's (plural) mother who died of largely untreated breast cancer, got diagnosed late-stage at age 38.

"That's how old I am," I thought when I read that.

The writer was 19 at the time, which meant her mom had her when she was 19, too.

Lives of people who are the same age, sure can be different.

Since the book stretched largely into the present day, when different years were mentioned like 2008 and 2010 and horrible cult shit was happening to the writer in the backwoods of Idaho, I also thought of my life during those years, although she's a bit younger than I am, just to think of us existing in the our lives at the same moment in the same country, in such different ways.

Warning of a teenager on my street.

The other afternoon it was cold but very sunshine-y and I was walking down my street to my apartment on my way back from the grocery store, and this (young) (Latin) guy was walking up toward me, and looking over his shoulder nervously at a van parked a quarter block behind him and idling with its rear doors thrown open.

"Hey man," he was like, "Be careful, that van, you never know, this city is crazy."

And at that he walked past me, at that same quickened pace he had been walking at.

Surprise from coffee at a (Mexican) restaurant.

The other month on my way into work for a shift starting in the late afternoon, I finished my coffee on the subway but still wanted more, since it had been a tough morning waking up.

So, I popped into this one (Mexican) restaurant that I've popped into before, to get my thermos filled with coffee.

They didn't have any on and I didn't want to be late for work, so I thanked the guy at the counter and said I didn't have time to wait for him to brew any like he had offered, and so I left and popped into another (Mexican) restaurant right next door, to see if they had any coffee that I could get for my thermos.

"Yes, but it's cold," the (Mexican) waiter was like, in the hearing of the (old) (Mexican) woman in the kitchen right by the take-out counter.

"That's fine," I was like.

Then, I mugged in Spanish, "El cafe esta frio, como el tiempo," and they both laughed.

"Your Spanish is good," the take-out guy was like.

"No," I was like, "But I practice."

When I got to work then and poured out some coffee, then, it turned out that the coffee wasn't only cold, it also tasted like cinnamon.

Weird energy.

Energy's been weird among a lot of people a few major times the past few months.

At the one major academic conference I used to go to back in late November, people felt things were off, at the same time that a lot of Facebook friends were feeling stressed out over the GOP tax bill and were saying shit like "Post pictures of kittens and puppies, please!".

When I told one co-worker my (positive) campaign slogan during this time period because she had been asking me about my campaign, she started crying out of nowhere.

After New Year's, too, one day was like that too, where it was gray out and I felt off and then there was weird oddness on the subway, and when I got in to work with my one client at home care, she and the other caregiver felt that same way as well.

The other caregiver thinks that there's a lot of unhappiness and people are sensing it in others and feeding off it, and it just depresses the atmosphere everywhere.

"A change is coming," she was like.

She also thinks that some people who voted for Trump now regret it, and they're feeling guilt and getting angry at others to make themselves feel better, in a projection kind of thing.

I saw one political strategist say that a lot of people who were swayed to vote for Trump just want the drama to end, and I think that's part of this, too?

A sight on the subway the other day:

A (large) (black) man in a wheelchair, who makes me get up from my seat that folds up so he can back his wheelchair in...

Oddly enough, there was a pile of empty Cheetos bags and stuff, in a pile on the floor by the edge of the seat by the wall, which is weird, since you usually never see litter like that on the train.

Later, he takes out a deodorant can, and sprays it all over himself, and his head.

Still later, he moves his wheelchair out of the designated area, and positions it in front of the exit, even though he's there for multiple stops, and he falls asleep and people have to walk around the chair in order to get out, and one person even just walks down to the other end of the car to go out through that door there.

At one point, he wakes up, has a sucker, and throws the stick and wrapper on the floor.

He was asleep again when he was near his stop that he was afraid he had missed, so I woke him up right when I left the train.

"I fell asleep again!", he was like, kind of muttering to himself.

Fortuitous find.

The other morning on my way in to work, I was walking to the bikeshare rack near the subway, and there was a $5 bill just laying out in the middle of the sidewalk.

It was kind of lazily folded in half and slightly damp from the rain we had been having, but it was otherwise in pretty fresh condition.

So, I took it, and I put it in the back pocket of my jeans.

I wanted the fabric of my pocket to press it from each side and slowly absorb the water out of it, so it'd be dry when I finally put it in my wallet.