It's been nice becoming a morning person again. I do this occasionally in my life. But I've had to do a lot of over-sleeping to get here. Such hard work. Nice to walk out in the morning when all the riff-raff is safely tucked in bed, and to walk in the cool sunlight meeting jaded cats and rolling waste cans. And - yo - getting things done!
This morning I walked to the store. Some little guy was in line ahead of me. He kept asking about how he could cash a $100 money order. The cashier told him where to go, and he kept acting confused and slow, so I just burst ahead and checked out my items. I thought that was the last of him, but he was waiting outside for me. He kept asking about where banks were and stuff. I told him he was from Wisconsin - he said no, Minnesota. Cuz of the accent, which he denied he had. He had lived in CA for a while, so it wasn't thick at all. Then I asked if he just got out of jail and he said yeah. This little guy was a horse jockey. He didn't even come up to my chin. We talked a long time smoking cigarettes, me trying to hide my pretty long fingernails from him. He said he was making $7,000 a week, for only a couple of races per week. Then he got thrown in jail in Rockford for aggravated assault, which should actually have been called druken stupidity. So it was like he didn't have a clue about how to get out of Rockford, or even to deal with life in general. He was fairly smart, OK-looking, nice, etc., but kept making long pauses. What he was was still a little boy lost in the world, who lucked out cuz he was so short, then ended up in jail cuz the only other thing he does with his life is drink. He wanted me to be his friend so I told him to hang out at the Library cafeteria and I'd run into him there sometime. I've never met a horse jockey before.