Baby (3 of 3): Maternal love.

That same day when we were hanging out, my friend was like, "You have no idea what love is until you've had a baby, I've simply never loved someone else before until I had a child."

"Wow," I was like, very seriously.

Then, I was like, "Remember this moment when she's a teenager."

"Yes," my friend was like, and then she kicked into a British humor persona in a comedy sketch like British people sometimes tend to do.  

"F*ck you mom, I hate you!", my friend was suddenly like, imitating her baby as an imaginary rebellious teenager and using profanity, even as she was holding her cute little sweet little innocent baby in her arms.

. . .

I also told my friend that maybe she should tell her mother about what she now knew, because that would make her mother feel appreciated and maybe make up for any random tensions that had ever existed between them.

She didn't say anything, but you could see that she was considering it.

Baby (2 of 3): Another habit.

My friend's daughter also sometimes kicks her leg out when you're holding her, and she keeps kicking the last little bit of her leg like her shin and her little foot so only that moves, when she gets into that mood.

Since I don't like to gender stereotype babies - for example, whenever I see a cute little (girl), I don't say she's (cute), but rather I say something like, "Who's my little Amazon warrior, who's my little Amazon warrior...?" - I looked at her doing that and I was like, "Look, she's going to be a karate master when she grows up."

"Or a race car driver," my friend was like. "She's stepping on the gas pedal, vroom, vroom!".

Baby (1 of 3): Habit.

The two-month old daughter of my one (half Sudanese) (half British) friend (the sister of the brother-sister pair) really likes to suck her thumb, and when she does that, she has her other fingers splayed out instead of balled into a fist, and she also makes loud smacking sounds.

So, me and my friend joked that she was going to be a loud eater, and my friend said that it was super funny when her apartment was quiet, because sometimes her daughter would suck her thumb and that slurping smacking sound was the only thing that you could hear in the otherwise quiet apartment.

She also said that sometimes when she was breastfeeding, her daughter would sometimes pop her thumb in too and she could suddenly feel it there in addition to her daughter's mouth, and so she'd go and take her daughter's thumb out, and be like, "Sorry, you have to choose one or the other!".

Rest home stories (2 of 2): Jigsaw puzzle.

In this one room off of the resthome lobby, someone had a jigsaw puzzle set out, and the other evening during down time between tasks I joined those same couple (Jewish) residents, who were at the table working on the jigsaw puzzle.

The one who was worried about Medicare has done jigsaw puzzles forever, and when I was trying to do a patch of a sunset sky and I was saying that I didn't know if a piece of a certain color went on this side or that side of the sunset, she said with that kind of piece where it's just blank color or blank color with small variations, you don't look at the picture, you look at the piece shape.

She also said that if you're not sure if two pieces actually fit together, you flip them over and see if you can see black space between the pieces you just put together, because black space shows better when you're looking at the back side of pieces..

Later, I was making head way on the sunset sky part, and I had filled in a huge part and one piece was just missing from the middle of the part that I was working on and I couldn't find that, and I said that.

"How about that one over there?", that same resident said from across the table, and I suddenly noticed a piece in the middle of some others that I hadn't tried.

So, I tried it, and it fit.

"Wow!", I was like.  "You are good!"

She had eagle eyes and so much jigsaw puzzle strategy, it was awesome.  I was truly impressed.

Rest home stories (1 of 2): The Trump circles.

The other week at the rest home, I was chit-chatting after dinner with a couple of the (Jewish) residents, and the topic of the President came up.

One of the two (Jewish) residents I was chatting with said that his tax cuts were destroying the budget, and now they wanted to destroy Medicare to get that money back, and she went on in this vein in a while, about how it would be hard to get the money to fill in the budget deficits now.

"You know," I was like, "I've always had this idea," and then I talked about getting the President to sit in a dunk tank and everyone who wanted to could line up and pay a dollar and throw a ball to dunk him into the water.

"Some people would go at least twice," I was like.  "Imagine how much money you'd get!".

After that, talk shifted, and Michael Cohen came up.

"A Jew," the one said, shaking her head.

"I know," the other said, grimacing, "And so is that Jared, and Ivanka converted...  Orthodox!".

And, the first (Jewish) resident shook her head, too, and grimaced.

"Her," I was like, too.  "What gets me is that she always plays little Miss Innocent, but she lies and she lies and the real estate development projects she was involved in are so crooked, there was probably money laundering going on."

"A shanda for the neighbors!" the second resident then burst out, and then when I got confused, she had to explain to me what a shanda is, and she used the example of a (Jewish) woman who dyed her hair and was single and was always going out, and everyone could see that.

A man on the subway the other day:

On my way home after work, a (thin) (younger) (bearded) (balding) (black) man with a thin black coat and dirty jeans and smelling of BO, who slowly wanders down the pretty empty car and asks for money.

After no-one gives him any, he slumps down in his seat at the end of the car, and when he shifts positions, change falls out of his pocket and rolls onto the floor with loud clinks, and like eight or ten coins settle right in the middle of the aisle in front of him.

He sees this, but he just continues to slump in his seat.

Lesbian Feminist Choral Concert: Boundaries.

The other week when I was at that lesbian feminist choral concert, I was standing in line and got my ticket, and then I noticed an adjoining table full of the most recent issue of this one lesbian magazine that I had never seen or heard of before, which was clearly from this year and also clearly had a naked dancing goddess in front of swirling green waters or something like that on the cover.

So, I picked it up and flipped through it, and it was full of events and wanted ads and articles, and I was just floored, since it seemed to be a continuation of 60s and 70s underground print culture in the present day, where lesbians could gather away from men's eyes and talk to each other and just be, as lesbians.

It was like seven bucks if you could afford it, or less or even free if you couldn't, so I pulled out my wallet and got seven bucks and turned back to the ticket-takers to give them the money.

"IT'S FOR LESBIANS ONLY," the one (older) (white) lesbian told me.

"I'm sorry," I was like.

Then, since she might think I was some pervert there to get wholesome lesbian literature to take home and jack off to, I was like, "You know, I have my doctorate and I've actually taught social science classes on different sexual subcultures, including lesbian separatism, and I was hoping to buy this for my collection of primary sources."

And, the other ticket-taker, also a(n older) (white) lesbian, leaned over and whispered to her friend, "Let him have it."

"Sorry," the first (older) (white) lesbian was like, "BUT IT'S FOR LESBIANS ONLY."

"I'm sorry," I was like, and since I didn't see anything like that on the cover, I pause and asked, "Is there anyone I could talk to from here?".

"Yes," she was like, "YOU CAN GO WRITE THEM."

So, I apologized again, introduced myself to them as the friend of one of the singers and dropped her name to show that I wasn't just some random pervert coming to a lesbian concert, and then I left, flummoxed.

After I found a seat and sat down, I thought to myself that I had missed some sign on the table or something, because I vaguely remembered this green piece of paper on the table in front of the magazines, and that maybe some lesbians are on edge because they're trying to keep their publications and spaces away from men, including the trans* women who are actually men but call themselves lesbians and invade lesbian spaces and try to get them to like their ladydick.

I also thought to myself that I'd have to tell my one friend to apologize to the ticket-takers for me, because I'd approached the table from the side and missed the sign at the front of the magazine display.

During intermission, then, I kind of passed by that same table on my way to get some more refreshments - like almonds and peanut butter-filled Trader Joes pretzels and popcorn and stuff - and I made sure to glance out of the corner of my eye at the sign on the table.

It said, "MAGAZINES - $7."

After intermission, it became clear that this (older) (white) (gay) couple who had been sitting near me had left for good and left a bunch of crap on the table, so at the end of the concert, I went to go clean it up.

Under their programs was the latest copy of the city's gay newspaper, and then underneath that was a copy of the lesbian magazine with the dancing goddess in front of green swirling waters.

I thought for a second of picking it up and taking it with me, but then I thought someone might see me, and then I thought that it might be okay because the one ticket-taker was cool with it, but then I thought of the other ticket-taker and I thought that I should err on the side of respecting women's clearly articulated boundaries, even if she seemed to be maybe a kind of a crank.

So, I left it.

But, I still wonder what kind of secret lesbian knowledge, that magazine contained.