Post office huff, and return.

When I went to go mail out some packages right before Christmas at the one post office near my new apartment, in this one kind of dilapidated wood and tile place in a building that kind of vaguely looks historic, the (plump) (white) Post Office lady sent off the one essential package, and then I asked her about if it was true that they had increased the shipping prices for the holidays, and she said that they had, and so I said I was actually going to wait to mail the rest out, since, and I know she wasn't responsible for it, since it felt like price-gouging, and even though it wasn't that much money, I didn't want to pay that money on principle, and I couldn't believe that that one Trump postmaster had been doing stuff like that, I had heard he was pulling a lot of fast ones like that with how stuff was working at the Post Office. And, there was this one (older) (slim) (hard-bitten) (white) Post Office lady with dyed brown hair and huge curled bangs to the left behind the Plexiglass counter, who was just sitting there and not helping anyone, and who didn't seem to be doing much of anything. So, the next time I went in like a week later to go and mail the remaining packages, the (plump) (white) Post Office lady wasn't there at her counter, but the one (older) (slim) (hard-bitten) (white) Post Office lady was, and so I was confused if I could go to her, or if I should wait. "Are you the person I go to?", I was like. "I'm the only one here, ain't I?", she was like, rasping it out in a cigarette smoker's voice, before giving me a not unfriendly but still kind of harsh kind of laugh.

Resthome flashback: A reflection on relative depth of historic landmarks.

In the several weeks before I left the resthome, the one (younger) (gay) (Filipino) nurse who tended to do all of the weekly Covid tests got back from a vacation to see his mother, who's also a nurse and who works in Ireland. So, I asked him how the trip was, if he drank Guinness and saw the sights, etc., and he started telling me about some old church that he had seen from the eighth century, and how old that was, "since we don't have history like that at home," and he meant like the Philippines, but not in a nasty way, but like something he just accepted, like that culture had these old historic structures, and they didn't, and that fact didn't matter. His blase-ness about the whole thing was a bit strange to me, since it wasn't like he was buying into that whole "we have history and you don't" mentality, but he wasn't denying it, either. It was more like, "Oh, they have an old church, isn't that nice," but he didn't see the oldness as a sign of profundity, it was more something pleasant for a second like something someone would text you or post on Facebook, and you'd look at it and be like, "Oh, isn't that nice," and then a minute later you'd forget about it, like something washing through an empty head, though you were verbally recognizing everything you were supposed to about it. It really was quite strange.

Acronym confusion.

Back with the recent global warming talks, I thought like I always do that the COP 26 or whatever talks were the continuation of some agreement that had originally started in "Cop"-enhagen, when I read that the COP acronym actually stands for "conference of parties." But, even after I read that, I'd see the acronym and still automatically think that it meant Copenhagen. Part of me thinks that that's because maybe it's a bit of long-standing habit, but more probably because "Copenhagen" seems like a more natural fit for "COP" than the otherwise-weird phrase "conference of parties," which you never really hear anywhere else. So, even now, when I read a phrase like "COP 26," I automatically think of Copenhagen.

Apartment coincidence (3 of 3): Introduction and prank proposal.

So, after that, the next time I saw my neighbor around, I went and mentioned the coincidence and she (they?) said that my one art school colleague who wears women's clothes texted her (them?) and asked if she (they?) knew [my first name], and since they do counselling with the university in the college town that we live in, she (they?) actually runs across that name a lot, and so she (they?) was thinking about that, but then he texted a picture of me to her (them?), and she (they?) was like, "Oh, him!", and she (they?) thought it was funny, too. And, we talked more, all the while my noticing some long scraggly facial hair from underneath her (their?) chin that I hadn't been able to notice the first time that we had met because it was getting dark out then, and it turns out that they've known each other for a long time since even before they both ended up in this part of the country, back from when she (they?) was housemates with someone that my one art school colleague knew from way back when from growing up. And, it turns out that they had just been skyping the previous week to catch up, so, crazily enough, like one week after I had moved in, even before we had figured out the massive coincidence, she (they?) was actually SKYPING WITH MY ONE ART SCHOOL COLLEAGUE LIKE TWENTY FEET AWAY FROM WHERE I WAS SITTING, AND HIS FACE WAS JUST THERE ON HER (THEIR?) COMPUTER SCREEN IN HER (THEIR? APARTMENT ACROSS THE WAY FROM MINE, AND NONE OF US HAD ANY IDEA ABOUT IT. Then, like a time after that, I bumped into her (them?) in the basement where she (they?) were doing laundry and I was returning something to my storage pallet that all the tentants get one of in the basement, and I asked her (them?) if she (they?) wanted to do a prank on my art school colleague... Since he had said it was like a Lifetime movie when I had sent him that picture of her (their?) door from my door, we could set up some whole escalating drama that we could develop over separate texts to him, like where she (they?) would be burning something in the backyard firepit, and we'd arrange where I'd take a secretive picture between my Venetian blinds of her (them?) with her (their?) back to the camera, then I'd text my colleague about how I saw her (them?) using the firepit, and then after she (they?) got in for the night, she (they?) would text him and be like, "I had the strangest feeling someone was watching me tonight." And, we'd figure out places for everything to go from there, and it would gradually escalate to like something on Lifetime, where he'd see the drama coming from both sets of texts to him. But, she (they?) politely but kindly refused, saying that she (they?) didn't think it was funny, since she (they?) lives alone and it can be really quiet and he knows it, and he'd probably protectively freak out and that that wouldn't be cool.

Apartment coincidence (2 of 3): The coincidence.

So, after that happened, I was bitching about trans stuff on this group text that's been going on for a few months with my one (Spanish) language instructor friend and my one art school colleague who wears women's clothes, and I mention that neighbor story, and my one (Spanish) language instructor friend texted something like, "Oh, for fuck's sake, how could you know," but my one art school colleague who wears women's clothes started texting that that was probably his friend, and before I moved he had meant to tell me that he had one friend who lived in the town that I was moving to, and coincidences do happen, but it seems like I had moved like right next to the person he's friends with, out of all the places in the entire town. So, I was like, what the fuck, and I texted back that they were actually my closest neighbor and since their apartment let out in the back but the college kids upstairs's apartment let out in the front, you could actually see their front door from my front door, and so I opened my front door and took a picture of their front door with my front door in the frame, and I texted it to him. And, he said that this was getting like a Lifetime movie.

Apartment coincidence (1 of 3): Prelude.

So, my new apartment is a little back cottage, and the front house has one tenant on the bottom floor, and a couple of college kids that live upstairs, my landlord had said. Like the day after I moved in, then, I sighted this one maybe (late 20s) (awkward-looking) (white) woman with headphones on doing something around the firepit in the yard outside my kitchen window, and I was like, "Oh, that must be one of the neighbors." And, like a day or two after that, I was studying some (Egyptian) outside in the late afternoon at the little table on the little patio outside my front door, and it was getting dark out, and that same person walks by to go in the backdoor, and so I introduce myself, ask about how I can be considerate with space usage, etc., and then since their name was a bit odd, I ask them about it, and it turns out that it's short for some very traditional (German) name, and then when I ask about that, they start saying how they're German heritage and actually speak German from being raised by their grandmother, and then I ask a bit more, since "I didn't know that could be used as a woman's name." And, at that point, they're like, "I'm not a woman." And all of a sudden I'm like, Oh fuck, I messed up with the trans, which there's a lot of in the college town that I live in, you can see it everywhere, and which kind of makes me nervous.

Cooking cranberries.

Before I moved, my one (Romanian) colleague gave me a few presents for Christmas, including some craft beer, some (Hungarian) sausage that's his favorite, some (German) gingerbread cookies, and a bag of cranberries. So, after I moved, I ended up googling how to cook cranberries, and cooking them. Back when I was a child, a few Christmases we had strung popcorn and cranberries on needle and thread to decorate our family Christmas tree with, but these cranberries were a lot more hard-skinned than I remembered them, it was almost like they were a hard plastic, with the hard plastic exterior brittly shifting around something in the middle when you pressed it, though the insides were a lot firmer than I remembered them, too. And, I didn't realize it, but cranberries pop when you boil them, or at least some of them do. Anyhow, cooking cranberries turned out to be super easy, I just mixed in some cloves and cardamom and cinnamon, and I eventually spooned in a lot of sugar to taste, and it ended up being a really tasty and really easy cranberry sauce, though the cranberries turned out to be super sour, I put a heck of a lot more sugar in there than I anticipated, and I don't even like my cranberry sauce all that sweet.