Well, my sweetheart hit the sack early, and I had laundry to do. so… I subjected my duds to a sudsy spin downtown.

There, I met a doppelganger, but a kindly one… he was sam shepherd to my grizzly adams. a fellow man-mountain intent on having an outfit clean enough to go to work in tomorrow. We talked for a little while, finding a common bond in that we were the only ones there that were male, over 20, but under 100 years old, and spoke English instead of a loud, shrill Creole or drunken Spanish singing. A rambunctious, cross-cultural, multi-aged cacophony, to be sure.

A little back story, first. This is the same laundry where this happened, nearly a year ago. since then, I’ve been primarily going to the other one, by the chit-chat lounge, because that’s right next to the bakery… and fresh baked goods makes people-watching go by so much more pleasantly. Sadly, since I did my laundry tonight, the bakery was closed, so I opted for the ‘mat of Evil. It wasn’t so bad, but it was rather loud in there… I remember now why I usually do my duds in the morning, on the weekend… far more machines avvailable, and the crowd is still half asleep, rambling through some kind of thorzine shuffle, instead of beer-fueled migrant worker-men and young mothers with rowdy,runner-kids, squealing…. but it makes for an interesting study in people and society.

Tonight I saw –
4 kids playing a weird verion of calvinball involving an uno deck, matchbox cars and a lot of high speed running and screaming, saying somthing about not me! not me!

More paper bags coverin’ beer cans than I have ever seen before. Maybe there’s a public ordinance about boozing it up in the ‘mat? I felt sort of out of place drinking my tasty, tall arizona orangeade (obtained at the beer dispensing gas station across the street)

A cute little girl who was the epitome of “how to be good” sitting on the bench, coloring nicely… strange to see her there, across from all the rowdy grownups, but the parents were close, keeping an eye, fortunately.

I had a fascinating conversation with this big guy (name of Mike, by the way), and we both agreed that it was louder inside than most concerts…chatted about books, got a few reccomendations that I’ll be looking into, and maybe he’ll look into house of leaves and enjoy it.

Head count? about 15 assorted kids, 6 drunk men, myself, mike, 12 women. a mob. I swear.. it sounded like 100…I’m glad that just stepping to the back parking lot quieted it considerably.