(no subject)

Well, I had a nice day today. first I dropped off some laundry and chatted with the owner of the launderette. He's from China and is working on his PhD. I discovered this one day when he was sitting at the counter reading a journal article and I asked him what he was reading. We talked a bit about systems theory and doctoral programs and his dissertation idea (he wants to test a theory of some kind about why Toyota has succeeded as a business while GM has not), and it was neat and gratifying to chat with him him about something completely unrelated to the business of doing my laundry. You don't expect the guy who does your laundry to be working on a PhD, and I suspect most people he interacts with never bother to ask him anything besides "How much for softener?" But for me, it makes my home a neighborhood. There are people in my building who I would never recognize on the street, or even know they lived a floor away from me. But here I have made some kind of connection with someone I would otherwise never meet.

Then I went to brunch with coyotegoth and ate a ridiculous amount of food which I spent the next five hours digesting. Seriously. Then I went to a cafe and did some reading and ran into an old neighbor. Of all things, we wound up talking about bifocals and I gave him the number to my opthalmologist. He's recently gotten health insurance and this was the second conversation on health insurance I wound up having in one day. His life hasn't changed much in the 13 years since we were neighbors, but mine has in some ways. It made me feel kind of good as I told him about finishing my bachelor's and master's degrees, and my current job at the shelter and pursuit of a PhD. Some things in my life have been stubbornly, persistently unchanging. But this, at least, was a way I could look at my life thus far and account for the time in a positive way.

After spending some time in the cafe, I was driven out by the sound of REO Speedwagon, so I retreated to the friendly shores of skull49's tattoo shop. I managed to read a complex article while bantering with them about Lou Reed dyeing his hair and Mariah Carey being the most dreadful pop star in the country. I even got a massage, which did wonders for me.

Now I'm at home, where my pink bag full of articles stares and mocks me for ignoring it and writing in my LJ. So I leave you with this, a tribute to the glory of marshmallow peep, in visual art form. 21 in all! Enjoy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2008/03/21/GA2008032101983.html?nav=hcmoduletmv