12/23/12

laundry night


Early Sunday evening at the Clean 88 laundromat in the 'hood. I only do laundry when the weather is too cold to hang clothes on the line, or I am seriously behind. The latter one wins today, I am behind from performing, from traveling, and from Sandy…the trips before it and after. 

I thought it might be quiet and although it has quieted down since I've arrived it still amazes me how many people are here. I don't know why; but it does. 

It's a mishmash of families with kids and what appears to be 'single' men sporting their favorite baseball cat and threads. Scary dudes if you ask me, no one worth approaching beyond simple laundry conversation. Whatever that is. 

I am sitting at a playground picnic table, the metal kind with holes to make it look like Swiss cheese. There are two boys, kids really, playing word games, calling out opposites and rhyming (or attempting to). Except they don't know the original meanings, and reach out to me on every other turn to determine if the word exists. Sigh. I ask them how often they read, and they smile in that knowing way as if they should, could, would, won't. 

White noise on the TV screen, an overlay on Sunday night football between the Giants and the Baltimore Ravens. I notice a stain of blood on my middle left finger, injury by way of a commercial washer. 

Four machines running on the wash cycle, with another three on the dryer.  

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