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Thu | September 07, 2006
things that happened today while I was exposed to the outside world
4:00 | Went to get the mail. As I sat back down at my computer and brushed my hair aside with my hand, I discovered a lady bug. I shrieked at a volume disproportionate to the seriousness of the situation. When I realized no one was around to hear, I stopped. At the picture window, I gently pinched the bug, skittled to the door, and hurled it out.
5:00 | Went for a walk. As I traversed the asphalt path by the gazebo, a black dude ran for the train. I considered saying run faster, because the train was already there.
Two little white girls in a side-by-side stroller poked at pink and plastic metal cell phones. I tried to formulate words of disapproval for the man who accompanied them. But who cares.
A white man in a convertible cut me off at that tricky intersection on Passaic between the Fire Department and the Post Office parking lots. When halfway across the street, I heard a car engine behind me, turned and saw a car coming at me. I hurried across, while he made a short turn, into the wrong lane for much of it, only to wait at the light twenty feet away. I watched him as I approached the light, and he kept his head turned the other way.
At the intersection the light turned green but the pedestrian signal didn't change to the white man walking. It stayed red (more like a strong orange). The couple standing there with their kids were confused, and confused me also (emotions are contagious these days). However I unconfused myself before the light changed. As I put my conclusion to the test, by walking across, I heard the woman's voice behind me, through my earphones, "Why doesn't it change?"
6:00 | As I left the library, two enormously fat people twaddled up the stairs at the front of the path. There are only two stairs, then two more, to get to the walk. I could tell that the woman could not get up the stairs without a railing. She did not lift her legs, but tilted herself to the side to get her foot high enough to reach the step.
While walking down Main Street, I reflected on the perpetual question proposed by my environment: Why are the affluent corpulent? Because they can afford to buy new clothes when they grow out of their old ones.
At the law office parking lot on Summit Avenue, a Hispanic boy chased a rubber ball across the street. His parents were watching. I have seen them play baseball there before. I thought of the Italian kid I saw once at the train station, on the inbound side. He and his brother played with a marble.
8:50 | As I left the library again, a young Indian woman walked straight down the center of the path. She didn't yield either way. And just what was she trying to prove by this slight conquest? It was no effort for me to move several inches over. But the pettiness was noted. Dostoevsky is on my side about this one. Too bad I have no memory for people whom I haven't actually conversed with.
9:00 | Myrtle Avenue. The moon rose full and clear, and I remembered that last night I saw it through the picture window.
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