A conversation at work the other day...

...at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

Like I always do with the school-age kids of various people, I ask them how their school-day was and what was the best part about it, and the (middle-of-the-three) (Thai-American) (early high school-age) daughter of the owners said that that day she had gotten to drive again, as part of her driver's ed lessons.

"Oh my gosh!", I was like, "So you're going to be a holy terror on the road?"

"Yeah," she was like, demurely laughing.

I then told her that she probably thought a driver's license would bring her freedom, but instead she'd probably just end up having her parents make her make deliveries for the restaurant.

"Maybe!", she was like.

"Yes," I was like, "You'll have your driver's license, but then you'll be like, 'Oh man, I had more freedom and more fun before, when I didn't have this thing!'"

Reminiscence of one of the greatest compliments that I was ever paid in my life...

...during when I was working at the one resthome that I used to work at:

Several times when we were doing our daily jobs and I -- like many other coworkers -- was simply trying to do my best to take care of residents, my one (Tibetan) coworker with an inappropriate sense of humor said out of nowhere, "Little Buddha," and told other people stuff like, "He is a little Buddha," and she did this is in a playful but not unserious way.

This honestly happened like 2-3 times, and I think that there was something about the purity of my behavior that called out that response in her, although I'm not sure why she necessarily said that about me in particular versus other wonderful people like my one (skeptical) (Mexican) coworker... Perhaps she did sometimes with them, too, and I simply never saw it.

The (Tibetans) there did take Buddhism very seriously, it seemed, although it didn't come up all that often.

Like, once death came up as a subject among people talking, and one of them was like, "Of course, everyone dies."

Another time, too, a resident who was in a concentration camp was discussing her experience with my one (male) (Tibetan) coworker, and he was like, "Yes, [her first name], everyone suffers" and he then began to Buddhist-splain to her, which made me wince a little bit, since somehow her suffering seemed like categorically different suffering and his response was a little bit too rote.

On spiritual reading.

I find that it's easiest for me to approach the spiritual wisdom of texts that are Buddhist.

Since I know (relative) jacksh*t about historic Buddhist cultures, I can just kind of come to the texts and consider any wisdom, without many expectations or reflexive contextualizations.

Addendum.

Like right after I wrote that blogpost, I was chit-chatting with a (late 50s) (hippie-ish) (upper south) (white) couple who are teachers who just retired, and who had come in through the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now on their way home from a camping trip at a wilderness area nearby.

And, they were saying that they were thinking of moving to the college town that I now live in, so we talked for a while, and I mentioned that I had moved three years ago from the city that I used to live in, and when I mentioned the three recent safety incidents -- I said that I was just talking about them "to friends," rather than saying something about a blogpost -- you would not believe the looks on their faces, that so much disturbing crime could happen near where your regular life occurs.

It's really like the frog-in-boiling-water thing -- which, incidentally, a (middle-aged) (Latina) friend brought up when I was thinking of moving -- that is, that you get normalized to stuff like that, but you better snap out of it and get out before it gets even worse.

Interestingly, too, they were saying that their niece was in college now, and they were interested to see where she ends up, a comment I've heard many older people say lately, since they just don't know where young people can go for decent jobs nowadays.

Three safety-related incidents in the city that I used to live in...

...like in the span of 3 weeks:

1) Someone shot (and I think killed) right at the corner of the block where my one assisted living client with (disabilities) used to live.

2) A mid-evening spray-shooting like a block from the resthome where I used to work.

3) A rush-hour shooting on public transportation right by where my one (half Sudanese) (half British) friend lives (the sister of the brother-sister pair).

. . .

(This density of incidents is really astounding... Years ago a drunk homeless guy tried to mug me on the subway, and I can think of three targeted gang-shootings near 2 different apartments and 1 workplace, but that was all very rare and mostly all gang-focused within known boundaries and at known 'trouble places,' whereas now it seems like it's always something happening pretty randomly and you'd be tempting fate just to live your everyday life there and chance being around stuff like that so much... I really can't imagine my having continued to live in the city and my having kept coming across stuff like that so much, not to mention having to face the continued public transportation problems. Having to be "on alert" all the time really puts a person on edge.)

Two check-ins on the state of the economy:

1) An acquaintance of the husband of a friend who I made through my one (lawyer) friend from Missouri was unemployed for a year, I think from something in business, and she sent out around 20 applications a week -- that is, something like a thousand applications overall. Reportedly, that whole situation was very tough on her.

2) My one friend who delivers singing telegrams has had health problems and is in a Medicare-accepting place down in a GOP-led state where she's originally from, and she recently fell in the shower there and broke her hip... When I remarked surprise that she didn't have someone there to assist her for safety's sake when she was showering, she said she didn't think she needed it before she fell, and anyways, the place is short-staffed and if you wanted to take a shower you would probably be calling someone forever and they wouldn't necessarily come.

Addendum.

I've heard that kids who spent their teen years during the pandemic have all sorts of misfires with basic socialization, and that shows up in all sorts of weird ways when they make the transition to college.

I wonder if that turning up the music at like three-thirty in the morning during a Halloween party was something like that, where beyond basic late-night drunkenness with friends they weren't even processing basic social expectations from neighbors, even far below the basic perception gaps that can occur at that age.