Spidercamp

I've been waking up at sunrise. I've been following the light across my room.

part two in a series: despite the snippy bitch sometimes behind the counter, the morningside post office is a nexus of kind people.

If you're going to lose your wallet you might as well drop it right in front of an ATM on a busy street. I'm a genius. (side note: want to know who will very happily freeze your debit card and checking account, but will not actually let you know about it? WACHOVIA)

While waiting for a stranger I wouldn't recognize, I opened my book to a page on which a woman was waiting for a stranger she wouldn't recognize.

I love it when I get to wear my orange messenger bag for a reason, as a signal to a stranger. Every time, I think of someone saying, I'll meet you in Grand Central, I'll have a red gardenia pinned to my lapel.

And then, a very nice man in a brown suit. Thanks, Lee. I wasn't kidding about the cookies.

here's a little ghost for the offering

It was a week ago now and I don't even remember what happened to make it a bad morning, but it was a really bad morning. Too much to do and not enough time, cats underfoot, hot, headache, whatever, by the time I got to the post office I was shitkicking. I checked my p.o. box and found one envelope and three of those yellow slips which mean I've received something too big to fit in the box, i.e. I get to wait in line for my whole damn life just to be in trouble with the snippy bitch behind the counter, awesome.

Then something happened that had never happened to me before - suprising, given the number of people who want to talk all kinds of shite to me in the post office. This kind of scruffy young guy was going from person to person in the line ahead of me. I couldn't hear what he was saying because of headphones but I assumed it was some form of panhandling or jesus talk. Then I opened the envelope I'd received and got completely distracted, because what was in the envelope was $100 worth of unused postage. From someone I barely know. I already thought she was pretty keen and then she sent me a hundred dollars in stamps and a note that said she hoped I'd have a use for them. Uh, YES.

Then the scruffy young man I'd forgotten about touched my sleeve and I took off my headphones and he said, I'm sorry to bother you. But might you have an extra stamp?

That's how it turned into a good day.