WHAT!?

Last night, as I was walking down the street, there were three little girls playing in a front yard. Their game seemed to require that one of them have a blanket over her head and chase around after the other two. Anyway, as I was walking by, Blanket heard me and thought I was one of her friends, so she started walking after me. Then her friends, giggling, yelled, "No, that's not us! That's a woman!"

A woman? I'm not old!

overheard

As I was walking across the quad towards home last night, enjoying the gorgeousness that was going on up in there, I overheard two women sitting on a bench underneath a tree by the Foreign Languages Building. They work for Facilities & Services, and seemed to be relishing a break from cleaning up after us rats. One said to the other, "When we were young, we used to climb trees..."

I've been exploring spoken-word poetry with my students this week, and I was struck by how much the scene sounded like poetry.

Sappy, I know. Shut the F up.

found photo

I found this on the ground outside on my way to the post office this weekend.

tormented soul

The public transportation system in C-U has been running an ad campaign for a while now that features various bus drivers, each with a photo and a personal tidbit enlarged and slapped on the sides of the buses. I kinda like it; it feels really community-grounded, or something. Anyway, I saw one this morning on my way to class that said something along the lines of "Four years with MTD, father of three, writes jingles in his spare time."

Now, in his photo, the guy looks pretty well-adjusted. But I can't help thinking that with a little embellishment, this guy sounds like a great protagonist for a short story or something. Methodically driving around a relatively small town on the same route everyday, eternally tormented by catchy little diddies that run through his head incessantly. He can write them down and sell them and try to move on from them, but there's always a new jingle playing in his mind... "I gotta get to the autopark! The O'Brien Autopark" (People in C-U might know which jingle I'm referring to.) And he's good at it, so there's always some local company willing to pay him for a new one. And he hears his work on the radio as he's driving around, but even when he's not driving, he's constantly hearing radio jingles. He tries listening to other music, but once it's done playing, he remembers it cheesier. Like the KidzBop versions of already overly-catchy pop songs.

a lose/lose situation

Walking home across the quad today, I observed a man standing on a bench in front of the Union holding a microphone and a placard that promised eternal damnation to queers, feminists, atheists, etc., the usual. While I found his whole thing offensive, or more just obviously and annoyingly flawed, I was also a little disturbed by the crowd of students standing around laughing their asses off, and asking him leading questions as they put their digital cameras right in his face. So they didn't agree with him? Neither did I. But they were being jerks, you know? What good does that do?

Kind of a depressing scene.

late night snack

On Tuesday nights I have to walk home from work at 12:30, 12:45ish, and it's a half hour walk, and it's scary. But I have this one friend who waits up for me to text that I'm home safely, and it's the best.

Tonight, I had a double security system because Frank Zizi just happened to call me during the walk. He had just gotten home from the bar, and was wondering if he should eat a Polish sausage or some cheese pizza. Since we haven't talked since about December, he called for my opinion, and we had a nice little chat.

keeping myself amused

Late last night I was walking home from work I snapped a few photos of this little thingy that I've been admiring the past few weeks.

It doesn't look like much when you pass it coming from east,


nor from the front,


but it's a face!