"Your beard is beautiful," and other nice thoughts.

Yesterday I took the bus downtown before work to renew my drivers license. Waiting for the bus Broadway in front of Hot Topic a man with a long, full, white beard approached and took shelter in the shaded doorway (yesterday was bright and sunny). He proceeded to open a purple umbrella and hold it over his head, I presumed as a parasol, while he walked across the sidewalk to the curb to see if the bus was coming. The bus wasn't coming yet. He walked back to the doorway, stood there for a half second, and then walked back to the curb again. The bus still wasn't coming yet. He proceeded to do this over and over and over for about six minutes, until the bus finally arrived. He folded up his purple umbrella, and we waited while the passengers exited the bus. A woman coming off the bus said to him, "Your beard is beautiful!" I think that's the first time I've ever heard that particular sentence uttered.

At the DMV there was no wait and I was out of there with my temporary license in about five minutes. Wasn't expecting that. Then I got a call about a project explosion that had happened primarily because I "forgot" to call in to a 7:00 AM conference call. I composed a long email to put out fires in Israel, and now one of the developers from Israel is flying over next week to work in our office so he can see what we're doing. None of this really has anything to do with me, except that I wasn't on the call to be the diplomat. And no one else at our company can even talk to this client anymore, without becoming violent.

After a long day at work I took the bus out to my old neighborhood, Ballard, for cat visitation. Poor Loki hasn't been feeling well and needs extra hugs. I had some time to kill, so I thought I'd get dinner at the new supposed-to-be-good restaurant, Ocho. Sadly, all 5 seats in Ocho were taken, and I wasn't willing to stand out on the cold, dark sidewalk to wait. So I went to the not-very-good Matador, where the happy hour meat market crowd was drinking margaritas. I read Amy Hempel short stories and had some too-salty calamari and too-bland spinach salad.

It was a very chilly walk up the hill to my ex-home, where I spent about an hour hanging out with my ex-husband and ex-cat. I sipped some exotic gin, made in Montana. Potent stuff! Then it was a very chilly walk down the hill to catch a bus toward the UW. There were only two people on the bus most of the way, and for some reason the driver wasn't accepting fare. In the University District I got off to transfer and noticed a young man in a full "The Crow" getup walk past - makeup and all. I looked at the bus schedule and there were 20 minutes before my bus arrived, so I decided to take a walk down The Ave to a bus stop further down the line. The Ave is University Way - where UW students swarm cheap restaurants and bars and bubble tea places. If you have any theories as to why it is called The Ave, when it is not an avenue, let me know. I suspect hippies were involved.

About a block down The Ave, there was The Crow again... singing. What would you expect The Crow to sing? Probably not 867-5309, but that was indeed what he was singing, off key... "Janey you got my number...867-5309!" Puzzling.

I eventually got on a bus. The bus stop where I disembark is in front of Kinko's, so I decided to buy some padded mailers for the deluge of sales I'm making on ebay (6 so far). I worked at a different Kinko's in 1992, and every time I go into one I have the desire to stay. Late at night or early in the morning when the place is quiet, I could hang around for hours, printing and copying, cutting and binding. Sometimes I miss the simplicity of jobs like that.