(no subject)

At 8am this morning there were already people on the T on their way to Kenmore Square for Opening Day.  I'm not sure exactly what they were planning to do in Kenmore Square once they got there, except maybe go to Dunkin Donuts or something.  But this so does not bode well for the rest of the day.  At least nobody was visibly drunk yet.  The game will let out around 5pm, so be prepared for city-wide gridlock.  I might walk to my 6pm dance class in Central...

sure it's random

On random play this afternoon, my mp3 player served up Suicide Ocean by Lydia Lunch and then Date with the Night by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  I think it was making some kind of editorial statement.  The YYYs song held up pretty well, though.  Next song up was Godzilla by the Creatures.  I had arrived back at my office by that point, but if it had played some mid-career PJ Harvey next, that would have been tough rock lady bliss.

On my way to dance rehearsal last night, I encountered many people leaving the immigration rally downtown, all different colors and ethnicities of people all glowing with pride and purpose.  It made me proud of my country that they could be there, but I would be even prouder if my country gave them all a chance to legitimize their lives, from the lawmakers to the people paying too little money for too much work.  Poignant mass transit story of the day:  one thing you often hear in the whole immigration debate is that the US can't even take care of all the citizens it already has, that spending on education and welfare is already stretched thin.  And it's true that those things are sorely underfunded/mismanaged/however you want to look at it.  So as I stood in the train waiting for my stop, a clearly homeless guy leaned across the aisle to ask the elderly Hispanic gentleman sitting across from him how the rally went, how many people they got.  "Maybe 100,000" the elderly man said softly, holding his American flag*.  Replied the homeless man, "I hope you guys get what you want, I hope they listened to you up there."  Our neediest are capable of having more compassion than those who suffer little need in their lives.  But this probably comes as no surprise.

*yeah, i know that carrying the flags was a calculated media thing.  But I think it did provide a symbol for everyone to rally around, to perceive common ground by, and it was good to see the symbol of the country used in a positive, inclusive way, a reminder of one of the founding principles.  Puts Patriots Day in a slightly different light.