I did some errands today...a little grocery shopping, picked up and dropped off some shirts at the cleaner, which I like to do so much because the Chinese lady who runs the cleaners is so nice and has such a nice smile. She can't speak English very well, and everyone knows what a smile means. I tell her that I'll see her next week, and she just lights up the store.
Got a haircut, too. I'm starting to fit in a bit around here (more on that later) and it's all a bit weird. I never really fit in anywhere, and I'm always a bit leery of people who seem to take to me. I guess it's all that low self-esteem shit that keeps cropping up from time to time, not thinking you're good enough. Not deserving.
Anyway, we talked politics 'til the cows came home. Joe and Midge and I were going at it. Midge is a townie. Joe's Sicilian, and damn if I'm not the odd man out. I said, the Democratic candidate will take Massachusetts, so that means I can write in any damn name I want who I think deserves the office and leave the voting booth with a clear conscious. Hell, I just may give it to my dog, Bob. Midge supports Clinton, Joe just hates Republicans, and isn't shy about saying so.
It was such a beautiful day I thought I'd go into Boston, but with Sue being sick I got halfway there and wished I hadn't. I thought she might need me, or just be lonely and feeling alone. It's no fun without her anyway. The usual crowd was on the subway, all the Sox fans clogging the subway and not getting the hell away from the doors. What do people think? Are they afraid they'll get trapped in the subway? I was going to check out the new Apple store and maybe play some guitars--always on the lookout for that one honey--but I ended up in Newbury Comics. Walked out with Uncle Tupelo's Anodyne, Whiskeytown's Faithless Street, and Son Volt's Straightways. I guess I'm kind of stuck in a rut, but I love that stuff. Right now Faithless Street is cranking in my brain through the headphones. Earlier I made some soft-boiled eggs for Sue, and I had Whiskeytown on and I asked her what she thought of it and she said, "It's a little hillbilly." She loves me anyway. We're seeing Son Volt this coming Saturday.
Took Bob for a walk when the sun was going down. Quincy, I realized, is the kind of town that if I were raised here I'd get out as quick as I could. Funny that I ended up here, because in so many ways it reminds me where I was raised. Maybe that's how I ended up here. I told Sue when we were trying to figure out if we wanted this apartment that I like it here because it's not trendy. Just regular folk. And Chinese. Or Chineece, the way Sue pronounces it.
Anyway, I noticed tonight how many fences there are in this town. Everybody has some kind of fence--chain link, split rail, hedges, or big board fences--keeping in their front yards that are not bigger than a parking spot on the street. What the heck are they trying to keep out? It's a tough place. The shopkeepers are friendly, but the natives aren't. You can't get anyone to even nod at you, which I can do on Downtown Crossing with all the African Americans and Latinos. These people around here just kind of glare at you while sitting in their lawn chairs on their front porches or balconies. Behind their fences. The townies are getting encroached upon. This is like little Chinatown. In the barbershop there was a guy in the chair next to me, and you could tell he wasn't too happy with the conversation. At one point we were talking about a place that was kind of like a Chinese market, and he just muttered that they'd serve you dog meat there. Kind of sounds like West Virginia right about now, doesn't it?
But a lot of the people around here have seen their town change so much. Some of these people don't even leave Quincy. Or they go to South Boston. They won't even go all the way into Boston. The shipyard is closed, and their fathers and a lot of them counted on the shipyard. And it's like a little Detroit around here. A bit of the rustbelt in the Northeast.
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