Hospitals are strange places.
I'm sitting in a waiting room that's playing 80s music but not the good stuff. The sound is probably supposed to be calming but I think it might be just increasing the ambient noise level without adding any benefits. It's very busy here, with people arriving every few minutes. Most patients have a designated wait-person (like me) who stays in the waiting room after the patient is called to go through a mysterious door to 'somewhere else'.
A surprising number of people in the room are listening to things on their phones. I know they are because none of them have headphones. I've listened (unwillingly) to news reports, songs, game sounds, voice messages, and phone calls. Is it rude to do this? Since so many of them are doing it, perhaps I'm the anomalous person in the room.
"Soulfight" by The Revivalists is playing on my playlist. They'll be at the music festival I'm going to later this month and I cannot wait to see them perform. The sound is very bluesy, melancholy even, which sort of fits the day.
Across from me is a neurodivergent man with his elderly father. They're waiting for Mom, as the elderly man keeps reminding his very impatient son. The adult child has a good throwing arm, which he just demonstrated for the entire room. I caught the action in my periphery. It was a solid effort, fast and possibly very accurate, if the woman he hit was his target.
Should I wait elsewhere? I wouldn't embarrass the father but I also don't think I have the skills to avoid being clocked by a water bottle hurtled across the room. On top of that, I'm not sure I would be as gracious and undisturbed as the woman hit by the last one. Not that I would yell. More likely I would do something stupid like burst into tears. (Yeah, I'm a crier and it's a burden.)
Many years ago, I was at swim class with my son. It was one of those baby classes so I had to go in with him. Someone's child who was running around the pool area, unattached to a parent, grabbed the pole that holds the flags warning backstrokers of the pool edge. (I was a backstroker. Those flags are essential to solid flip turns and head-bump prevention.)
The poles aren't heavy. He easily pulled it out of its hole but immediately dropped it, directly on my head. It all happened so fast. I wasn't watching him, you know? I was carrying my baby, watching my footing on a slippery pool deck. CONK. I immediately burst into tears. To this day, I cringe when I think of that. My sweet MIL was there to collect baby Tristan while I examined my life choices in my mom-suit, squatting on the cold pool deck. LOL
Next up on the playlist – "Like Real People Do." Hozier's lyricism is remarkable. I want, once in my life, to write emotion the way he does.
An important note: the hospital events are over and I am now at the coffee shop doing my coffee-shop things. Weirdly, I am grumpy, however, and not much enjoying the coffee-shop life atm. There aren't any dogs here but the "people who do not use headphones" set has followed me, which requires that I turn my sound up so I don't hear conversations, news reports, etc. Background noise doesn't disturb me at all but I can't seem to tune out a cell phone speaker.
It's graduation/end of semester time here in the city of colleges. The students across the street all moved out last weekend. Pitt students are also out or mostly so. CMU graduation is this weekend, also known as the weekend when students dump their unused cleaning products curbside. That's a mouthful, though, so I just call it graduation.
Cleaning products are not, of course, the only things overly optimistic parents purchase for their kids to not use while at school. Hangers, sheets, garbage cans, clothing (tags on), lamps, tables, shelf-stable food, garbage bags, ziploc bags, storage boxes, notebooks …. I've written about this before. The new or nearly new reusable items to be found curbside are plentiful.
For a highly vocal generation that marches and protests about climate change, it is noteworthy but perhaps also unsurprising that a very wealthy minority is apparently disinterested in or utterly unaware of reusability, rampant poverty, and the importance of not adding to landfills. If only we could connect the various organizations – 412FoodRescue, the Free Store, Construction Junction, the Center for Creative Reuse – with this predictable opportunity to prevent waste.
Told you I'm a little grumpy today ….
"What's New" by Ax and the Hatchetman – a work of art, in my opinion – is currently playing. They remind me a little of Huey Lewis and the News and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. HORNS.
A guy at the table diagonal to me just said "Well, I mean, you can die anytime." Yep, and yet, I'll bet we could all have gone the whole day without thinking about our own mortality, so thanks for that. But fine. You're right. I guess I'll get the roof repaired. I wouldn't want that on my conscience on my deathbed.
Musical interludes continue with "All We Ever Knew" by The Head And The Heart.
The coffee shop window is open. The sun is bright in a nearly cloudless blue sky. The weather is such that you can find every type of outfit here: hoodies, shorts, tank tops and that's just the three women at the front of the coffee line. (Rim shot here)
Chris Pine's doppelganger was here a little bit ago. He was a bit younger than the actor and clean-shaven. The Chris from his Princess Diaries days, wearing the bluest shirt I swear I've ever seen. It rivaled the sky in blueness. I'm not exaggerating. It also did some very nice things for his eyes, so there's that, I guess.
He's gone, much to the disappointment of my friends, for whom I was to kidnap said doppelganger. Now, I'm sitting in the coffee shop with rope, duct tape, and a VERY innocent expression on my face.
Maybe he'll come back for a refill.
Much love.
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