"some say he's mad," macbeth: v, ii

I was walking home from work yesterday, and a dude riding a bicycle on the sidewalk came up behind me fast and yelled derisively "Look out, hippie!" Which, as anyone who knows me can attest, is an odd thing to call me, as I think I'm not really on the hippie end of the spectrum. I was wearing chef's pants, which maybe looked like something else to him (some kind of hippie pattern maybe?), but that's really all I can think of.

So we're in the new place, officially now. I mean, everything we own is in the new place. That's about the extent of it, though. It's pretty much a mattress and a bunch of still-packed boxes and us.

I'm kind of tired of nutcases. There, I said it. But then I think that I should be more compassionate; surely no one wants to be a nutcase. But there seem to be a lot more of them out and about now that the warm weather has arrived, and I have to confess that I sometimes just wish I could walk down the street without incident.

Yesterday on the bus in to work a dude was coughing (a lot) right behind me, and I could just tell from the lack of muffling that he wasn't covering his mouth. I was about to turn around and say something or at least shoot him a dirty look, but then he started mumbling to himself and it sounded kind of like he was speaking in tongues, so I decided to just ride it out. Sometimes better to let these things slide. Although in this day and age of douchebags knowingly traveling on public modes of transportation with TB, it's sort of a wash when it comes to personal safety.

"varying in subjects" love's labour's lost: v, ii

What kind of sicko gets up at 5:15am when 6:00am would have done just as well? This kid, that's who. Why, I cannot say, except that I just get so anxious that I am not going to wake up in time that I never get to sleep very well at all. It's one trait that I truly can say I wouldn't miss in myself if it suddenly disappeared.

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Conversation I overheard the other night waiting for a bus:

Young Aspiring Hippie Man #1: I couldn't believe how mad he was! And he was all up in my face, like, yelling about you, and I'm all, Dude, I'm not Jason!

Young Aspiring Hippie Man #2: Yeah he totally lost his shit, man, it was unreal.

Young Aspiring Hippie Woman: Wait, so who was that dude?

Young Aspiring Hippie Man #1: This fucking guy Noah, who's all, like bent out of shape.

Young Aspiring Hippie Woman: What was his deal?

Young Aspiring Hippie Man #2: He's just pissed that I threw a brick through his car back window when I was drunk the other night.

Huh. I just wanted to shake them, but I couldn't bear to get too close; they clearly hadn't showered in days.

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I never buy US Magazine and then feel good about it. I bought one yesterday and I'm just not sure why. I actually used to read it all the time and derive glee from it, from reading about celebrity mishaps. But a few months ago, there was some smug cover story about a famous couple splitting up (maybe), and suddenly it just wasn't fun for me anymore. Yeah, they're famous, but they're still people, and heartbreak isn't something I should feel gleeful about. So what, someone famous made a poor decision in who they fell in love with -- I know plenty of non-famous people who do that, and I don't express pleasure when it happens to them. It was like a moment of clarity, a weird moment where I realized my worldview had shifted. Why did I buy it yesterday? It was a weird regression, I suddenly felt like I wanted to wallow in someone else's despair for a half hour. But it was a joyless wallowing, and now I feel like I should like, donate a pint of blood or something to make up for it.

Actually, I just donated blood a couple weeks ago. It was my first time donating in a mobile blood center, instead of at a center or in a school gymnasium. In the trailers, they have several cots that are all kind of facing each other, so you end up being able to see the other people who are donating. So I'm sitting on the cot, the technician does her thing, gets me started on the donation, and I sit there placidly making conversation for a few minutes. Meanwhile, this other lady comes in and gets started up. Well, she sits there looking at me with this like glint in her eye, and she's pumping her hand fairly furiously while her donation is going on. After several minutes, she takes a phone call from her son and berates him for not getting his homework done early enough. She hangs up the phone, looks down at her donation sac and then back at me, then goes "Ha! I'm totally beating you!" Uh, wahhh? I didn't realize this was a contest! I didn't realize the object here was to lose as much blood as quickly as possible here! Geez! So, yeah, she did beat me. The technician finishes her up, and she sits down for the minimum number of minutes, refusing the Lorna Dunes (Christ, that's the whole reason for donating! Oreos and cranberry juice!), and then swoops out of the trailer, with a sort of "See ya, suckas" attitude. I guess no one told her that there's no award for quickest donation. It was thoroughly bizarre.