Why packing is a downright terrible idea

I am, by all accounts, not much of a procrastinator. I was always the obnoxious student who started the paper as soon as it was assigned, just so I wouldn't have it hanging over my head. Leaving things to the last minute stresses me out unbearably. Except when it comes to packing. Indeed, it seems that the whole of my ability to put things off has been funneled into this one realm. I'm heading to Connecticut Saturday morning, and I'll probably be cramming things into bags up until the last possible second.

For now, all I can motivate myself to do is to just...move things around disconsolately. For all my inability to actually pack, I am quite excellent at constructing and disassembling large, random, piles. I spent a few hours last night engaged in this pursuit, until I gave up and went out with my friends, hastily chucking the heaps of kitchen utensils and winter outerwear out of my bed and onto the floor.

I woke up around 3:00 in the morning with an inkling that something wasn't right. Sure enough, I quickly became aware of a sharp pain in my right buttock. Further analysis revealed that I was lying on some kind of sharp metal object: which turned out to be...a Lamb of God cookie cutter (from the Resurrection set - because every good Episcopalian girl has one?).

Gotta say,waking up in the middle of the night to discover the image of a divine sheep painfully imprinted on my rear didn't really do much to boost my motivation to pack. It did, however, give me a rather severe craving for cookies. Good thing I'm moving into a house with a real oven in 2 days. Perhaps I should acquire some non-Easter themed cookie cutters in the meantime? It would be another way to delay packing...

I ♥...the subway

Just to clarify: the reason that the only reflective, summing-up post I've written was a snarky list of things I won't miss is definitely not because there aren't things I will miss. Quite the contrary! There are SO many things I'll miss that I can't even begin to confine them to a bulleted list (though, again, that's not for lack of trying). As the blog attests, I have come full circle in my attitude towards New York: from unabashed enthusiasm, to frustrated disdain, to a more informed appreciation. I am excited for the opportunity to try out living in New England...but I can't help but hope that I'll wind up back in Manhattan someday. Not permanently, but maybe for a few years...

So! Things I will miss! The list is endless, really: acquiring crazy seafarer stories, my fabulous coworkers and roommates, the incredible people at St. Luke's, all the amazing cultural opportunities, etc, etc, etc. But one of the things I'll miss the most is also one of the most surprising (though you, my esteemed readers, may have guessed it): the subway. I have spent a minimum of two hours underground every day for the past year. I have had no shortage of horror stories: trains breaking down, accidentally going to Brooklyn, getting drenched in chocolate milk...after all I've been through, I consider myself thoroughly entitled to hate the entire New York City transit system. But I don't. I don't hate it in the least.

I feel like every college grad can point back to The Class That Changed Their Life. It's taken me a while to recognize that mine is not, as it perhaps should have been, the Introduction to the Gospels course that I took my sophomore year, but in fact L'Introduction a l'Anthropologie Urbaine, the urban anthro course that I randomly selected from the incomprehensible course list during my semester in Aix. Thanks to Mme. Abigail Peses (who spoke with such a thick Marseille accent that it's a miracle I learned anything at all), I was introduced to the fascinating world of microsociology - in particular the study of interpersonal interactions in public space. All of a sudden, I had an analytical framework for the largely unspoken rules that govern our public behavior. It is not an exaggeration to say that I have not been the same since.

I have often said that the subway is the perfect microcosm of New York society. It has, thus, proven to be the ideal arena for microsociological analysis. If an empty seat opens up on a crowded train, what factors determine who gets it? How do you react to the person who holds up an entire train by getting their bag stuck in the door? When the time comes to encourage people to move into the center of the car, do you make a verbal announcement, or do you just push? How does the size of a person's 'bubble' change as a train gets fuller? When is it acceptable to strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to you? Is it socially permissible to switch seats if your neighbor is particularly smelly? What can you reasonably eat on the train without attracting dirty looks? As anyone who has ever taken the train with me knows, I am fascinated by these kinds of questions to the point of obsession.

This fond discourse on the merits of the subway system is not to say that there haven't been days when I've longed for the ability to teleport from Harlem to Newark and back. There have. But, at the same time, I know that a huge part of my understanding of and appreciation for this city has come from the time I've spent zooming through underground tunnels, pondering the intricacies and idiosyncracies of New Yorkers' behavior. If I ever live in New York again, I will fervently hope for a shorter commute. But don't be surprised if I take up riding the subway for fun - or if my first book is an exploration of subway sociology :)

5 Things I Hate About You

My muse has utterly abandoned me of late. The number of unfinished blog posts queuing up in my drafts folder bears witness to that. I guess you're supposed to be consoled by the fact that, while I'm not actually producing a steady stream of witty, insightful reflections for your enjoyment, I'm going half crazy trying.

But fear not! As my departure from NYC (and, thus, my arrival in New Haven) looms increasingly large on the horizon, I suspect there will be no shortage of attempts at producing some kind of summative list of what the year has meant, what I've learned, what I loved, what I hated, etc. Hopefully a few of them will make it past the draft stage. Here's one for you now. The theme is cynicism.

5 THINGS I WILL NOT MISS ABOUT NEW YORK. not even a little bit.

1) La Granja. Wikipedia defines it as: "Spanish for 'the farm,' cf. grange, monastic grange," but don't let yourself be fooled by the idyllic connotations. La Granja is Harlemese for "the nastiest business establishment in all of Manhattan." It is, in short, a live poultry store. And I have the twin pleasures of living just across Amsterdam Ave. from it, and having to walk past it anytime I want to take the A train. It almost always involves fording a stream of chicken shit (and a veritable RIVER of chicken shit if it's raining). After seeing the conditions those birds live in, it is amazing that I have not reverted to my high school vegetarian state. Words cannot do justice to either the stench or my revulsion.

2) Newark Penn Station. One of few things that can be said for this transit hub is that it smells better than La Granja - but only slightly. For the past year, I have been lucky enough to get to pass through this fine establishment twice a day, five days a week. It is full of almost every kind of people that society labels as undesirable: homeless people, people who shoot heroin in the bathroom, people who beat their kids in the bathroom, people who expose themselves to you in the waiting area. On my better days, I am outraged that such destitution can go unnoticed by the tens of thousands of commuters who pass through the station each day. But 96% of the time, I avert my gaze, breathe through my mouth, and walk past the miserable hordes just like everyone else. A humorous child's misunderstanding of the Lord's Prayer reads: "Lead us not into Penn Station." The sad thing is, some days I pray it in earnest.

3) Marriage proposals. Getting hit on constantly. Being told I'm too skinny to have kids. Being objectified and sneered at. I have loved working at SCI, but these things? These I will not miss.

4) New York coffee norms. Go to your average Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds, corner deli, whatever; ask for a regular coffee and you will get a chocolate milk-colored concoction containing more sugar than caffeine. The first time I, an avowed black coffee orderer, made this mistake, I was annoyed but tolerant (different strokes...you know...I guess...). The next time I ordered my morning coffee, I was more specific: I asked for "Coffee. Black." To be fair, it was black in color. But it still contained more sugar than coffee. I was less than amused. By now, I have learned that, to get my coffee the way I want it, I need to say: "Coffee. Black. NO sugar. NO splenda. NO milk." This request is always, invariably, each and every damn time met with consternation and confused follow up questions. "No sugar...? You want flavoring...?" It makes me want to tear my hair out. Is it so inconceivable that a person could want black coffee? I simply do not understand.

5) Rush hour. I do not actually believe in hell. But if I did, my picture of eternal damnation would look a lot less like Dante's Inferno and a lot more like Manhattan on a Friday at 4:00. Before I moved to New York, I loved Fridays, for obvious reasons. I was, thus, astonished to discover, as the year went on, that the mere thought of Fridays reliably filled me with dread. It's that bad. The only way for me to make it through Friday rush is to turn my iPod to maximum volume, stick my nose in a book, and turn off my sensory capacities as completely as possible: the goal is for me not to even notice I'm on the train, much less smushed into a corner of an un-air-conditioned car, surrounded by angry, angsty New Yorkers, all of whom are willing to trample and/or bitch out anyone who gets in their way. I have seriously considered investing in a hip flask for additional support. That bikeable commute in New Haven cannot arrive quickly enough.

There you have it. A more optimistic list to follow, I promise.

On Wisconsin!

And now, for a change of pace. Up until now, the mission of this blog has been to describe, depict, and demystify New York City for an audience primarily made up of Wisconsinites (though I am consistently astounded by the unlikely reader locations turned up by my ClustrMap!). But now that my readership has expanded to include a large number of New Yorkers, I thought I'd turn the project on its head and do a bit of marketing and demystifying for my home state, where I currently find myself on a week of much-needed vacation. Because, seriously, New York friends: you have NO excuse not to high-tail it over here and come visit. For brevity's sake, I'll limit myself to 5 selling points (though I'll be happy to provide more via private correspondence to any interested parties!).

The top 5 best things about WI:

1) Lake Michigan. Dear Coasties, New Yorkers and otherwise who think of Wisconsin as "just another one of those good for nothing states in the middle of the country": we are not a Great Plains State. We have over 800 miles of Great Lakes Coastline, including both a breathtaking Milwaukee harbor and no shortage of gorgeous state parks. And FYI? When you look out at Lake Michigan you can't see the other side. It is not your average pond. It has waves. It has tides, even if they're not nearly of the same magnitude as the Atlantic. Best of all, it is BEAUTIFUL. Absolutely, mind-blowingly beautiful. I miss it every day I'm away from it.

2) Spotted cow. Aka, the best beer ever brewed by humankind. Made by the New Glarus Brewing Company, a small, local enterprise that refuses to sell its products out of state. Spotted was the first beer I learned to like, and I have yet to find one that can compete. You would be loathe to find a liquor-licensed establishment within our state borders that doesn't have it on tap. Better yet, it's affordable (having spent the past 11 months in a city where I can only afford to have one drink at a time, I appreciate cheap WI beer prices more than ever)! With these facts in mind, it's a wonder I was ever sober during my college years...

3) The Dane County Farmers' Market. Makes the Union Square market look like a dinky little Greenmarket cart. Held outdoors every Saturday from April through November, the Madison market winds all the way around the Capitol Square, and it is GLORIOUS. It is The Madison community event each week; virtually the entire city is in attendance. Go early if you actually want to beat the crowds and snatch up the best produce (and squeaky fresh cheese curds!), go mid-morning if you want to marvel at how utterly food-obsessed this lively, ultra-liberal city of not even 600,000 can get. Not a summer Saturday goes by when I don't wish that I were back on the Square with my camera and my tote bag. My enthusiasm about being there tomorrow is threatening to reach dangerous levels.

4) The Memorial Union Terrace. Aka, the best place to hang out in all of Madison, if not in the entire state. If you don't believe me, just check out the super cool Terrace webcam and see for yourself. Between the scenery of Lake Mendota, the easy access to Babcock Hall ice cream (made on campus from campus cows! most delicious ice cream you'll ever taste!), the constant free concerts and movies, and the endlessly flowing (and, once again, affordable!) pitchers of beer, you really can't go wrong. It is the quintessential Wisconsin experience.

5) Frozen custard. Now, you may think you have tasted this Most Hallowed of all Dairy Desserts, but seriously: unless you've been to Wisconsin, you haven't. This recently published article from the Village Voice is only half right: "Though first popularized in Coney Island, frozen custard—a soft extruded ice cream rich with egg yolks—is now primarily a Wisconsin phenomenon. In the city, you can get excellent custard at Timmy O's Frozen Custard...and at any Shake Shack location." While I cannot personally vouch for Timmy O's, I can assure you that Shake Shack's products, while tasty, do not even begin to approach the excellence available at places like Gilles, Michael's, or, my personal favorite, Kopp's. Not even in the same category. To get your custard fix, you'll just have to visit the Dairy State in person.

Sold yet?

Pride pictures

...and the internet is magically fixed, so here are the promised pictures (sooner than anticipated! Even I, the world's slowest blogger, sometimes manage to deliver). In reality, I was too busy having a blast to bother capturing the full, colorful spectrum of the Pride Parade, but here are a few random shots.

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Pride!!

This post is a bit late in coming, but with our internet down at home and all the people who could potentially fix it out of communications range for a week, things have been a bit chaotic. But anyway. Enough excuses.

This weekend, I was privileged enough to experience my first New York LGBT Pride. Actually, it was my first Pride experience anywhere, as the queer scene in Wisconsin isn't exactly something that captivates the attention of large numbers of people. I could fill up pages upon pages with exuberant, exultant adjectives to convey how much I loved it, but suffice it to say: it was FABULOUS.

Although the culminating Pride Parade in Manhattan took place last Sunday, Pride technically goes on for a month, with festivities and local festivals in the other boroughs building up through all of June. Since Memorial Day weekend, it's been impossible to walk 3 feet in the West Village (historically the gayest part of the city and also the end point of the parade) without tripping over a rainbow flag, a table full of pride paraphernalia, or someone handing out leaflets for a drag show. Pride in NYC is a big, big deal. Given that I attend a church that is a tremendous champion of LGBT rights, and that organizes more pride events than even the biggest enthusiast could possibly keep track of (and also that I've been volunteering with a church-run program that provides a safe space, arts workshops, and a weekly meal to 30-60 LGBT 13-21 year-olds, many of them homeless), it was impossible for me not to get sucked in.

So it was that I found myself parading down 5th Avenue on Sunday, alongside a surprising number of fellow New York Episcopalians (and a rather spectacular float), decked out in rainbow-themed attire and rocking out to the Lady Gaga that deafened the entire city all day. For a truly eye-opening experience, I recommend doing all these things alongside a dozen priests in collar (a good number of them women), and watching the facial expressions of the onlookers as they try to figure out how a clerical collar and a pride flag fit together. It was both surprising and incredibly encouraging, how many people cheered us on as we walked by. It is so urgent that our society start shaking off the belief that Christianity and homosexuality are irreconcilable, and I was deliriously happy to be able to do a very small something to contribute to that process of disbelieving.

After walking from 38th to Christopher St. (30-odd blocks) in 90 degree heat, I spent the rest of the day rejoicing in the glorious truth that proud, gay Episcopalians really know how to have a feast - pretty sure I ate 3 full meals between the hours of 4 and 6 pm. Turns out they're also incredible singers, as I discovered while losing half my body weight in sweat at St. Luke's Pride Evensong (turns out wearing vestments in an un-airconditioned building is miserable enough to make even me less enthusiastic than usual about acolyting). Good thing there was more amazing food afterwards - I really needed meals 4 and 5 after that.

I'm so very glad that I'll be living a mere 90-minute train ride away from all this fabulousness next year, because I would be rather put-out if this were to be a one time only experience. Pride 2011, here I come!

Pictures to follow as soon as I can get my laptop to a place with fast enough internet.

Yup, you knew it was coming!

Here it is, finally: the post about soccer. I know you were all wondering where it was.

Anyone who has spent 5 minutes in my presence over the past week and a half, followed me on facebook, or who knows the slightest bit about me, really, can affirm that the World Cup has taken possession of me completely. It's a good thing the Weltmeisterschaft only happens every 4 years, because we're talking dangerous levels of enthusiasm here. I pore over my bracket. I read match analyses in every minute of my spare time. I have soccer anxiety nightmares. And, of course, I live for the minutes spent glued to the TV - or, in less fortunate circumstances, the computer or the phone - when I can glut myself on the irresistible action, the waxing and waning of each team's stardom, the scandal, the gossip, the glory. It goes without saying that all this enthusiasm is multiplied by infinity when it's Germany that's on the screen.

Having blessedly been in Europe during the 2006 World Cup and the 2008 European Championship, I've really missed the evolution of the American soccer scene. Whether because the sport really has become more popular or because I live in New York, city of both soccer-crazed immigrants and wannabe-cosmopolitan yuppies who think following football is cutting edge (or perhaps both?) I can't say exactly, but it is gloriously apparent that the beautiful game has finally made it big in the US of A. And, while I still can't really bring myself to root for the US national team (though I will sheepishly admit that they're starting to gain my favor - now that they're not playing Germany in the round of 16!), I couldn't be happier about this transformation.

I could rhapsodize on and on for pages about how I think soccer has incredible potential to bring people together, especially in countries that have been through collective ordeals and need to rally around something, but I'll spare you that bit of soapboxery. Suffice it to say that soccer has finally become the talking point I've always wanted it to be, especially (and somewhat surprisingly) in the port. Soccer allegiances in New York City (and Newark) are particularly fascinating, because so many people here come from countries that never qualify for the World Cup, or that didn't this time. In the past week, I have had people from Egypt, Colombia, and the Philippines tell me that they're rooting for Germany, and people constantly surprise me when I ask them who they support. What's even more fascinating is the ability of a televised match in our seafarers' lounge to bring together anyone who happens to be in the building (which almost always includes me...) for speculation, gossip, and commiseration, even if only for a few minutes. At first I felt guilty for being a slacker and watching the matches at work (in my defense, I always make sure my ship-visiting is done first...), but then I realized that bonding with seafarers, truckers, and port workers over who can kick a soccer ball best is just a different face of chaplaincy. Which is cool. Really cool.

That said, I'm anything but an effective chaplain when the Mutterland's future is at stake. The poor Russian seamen who were trying to use the internet while the Germany-Ghana match was on this afternoon doubtless thought they were in the room with a complete lunatic. It certainly doesn't help that I've been exposed to Spanish match commentary (for some reason, we don't get ESPN and thus must resort to Univision), which means that my incoherent, trilingual rantings and ravings at the television have become quatri-lingual - to everyone's confusion, most especially my own. They snorted shamelessly when I shrieked at Özil's goal and giggled like schoolgirls each of the (many) times I swore. Anyone who tried to talk to me got waved away with a "for heaven's sake, NOT NOW!" and I may or may not have lied outright to shoo away a seafarer who wanted me to activate his sim card (during a match!? you've got to be kidding!!). But, I mean...everyone has their little obsessions, right?

Okay, I'm done rambling - at least for now :) It's just that I try to blog about what's on my mind to keep things as authentic as possible, and I'd be giving you a pretty damn skewed vision of what life has been like if I didn't at least mention soccer. So - let the games continue! And, more importantly:

LOS GEHT'S, DEUTSCHLAND!!!

Sex, marriage, childbirth...you know, the usual

Today marked the first day of my life as a married woman. JOKE! KIDDING! Well, kind of. Allow me to explain.

I wasn't kidding when I wrote, a few posts back, that the arrival of warm temperatures also heralded an onslaught of bizarre, inappropriate, and utterly exasperating sexual comments from the seafarers. It really is like someone flipped a switch. In the past 3 weeks, I have been hit on by what feels like 80% of the seafarers I've encountered. Did I say it was exasperating? Nay, scratch that. It has been driving me completely and utterly OUT OF MY MIND. To the extent that I dread going to work in the morning because, as I poetically ranted at my program director during a meeting last week, "I just feel like a giant, walking vagina!" (It had been a particularly bad day)

So I caved. While ambling about the East Village yesterday, I did what I should have done 9 months ago, and purchased a fake wedding ring. I'd been holding off for two reasons, really. 1) I didn't actually expect it to work - seeing as most of the perpetrators are, themselves, married men, I hardly thought they'd be deterred by a little piece of metal on my finger. And 2) I object to the idea of publicly broadcasting a false statement about myself to cater to social norms that are outdated, misogynistic, heteronormative, and FALSE. I live in the New York metro area in the 21st century, for Christ's sake! I should be able to function professionally without everyone needing to think there's a man in the background!

But getting up on my feminist soapbox isn't going to do a damn thing to change the fact that I have nearly 2 more months of climbing gangways ahead of me, and that it really would be in everyone's best interest if I made it through without murdering someone out of rage. So I forked over $12 for a plain, silver band, swallowed my pride, and entered the imaginary joys of wedded bliss.

To my utter and complete surprise, it worked.

Not only did it make me excited about going to work to see what would happen (since moving to NY, I've discovered that there's no better way to revive flagging enthusiasm than to pretend my life is a giant anthropology experiment), it deterred all but one of the forty-some seamen I interacted with from telling me I was beautiful, asking to marry me, or scolding me for being too emaciated to bear children (the latter insult, which I endured on 3 separate occasions last week, was really the straw that broke the camel's back)! Amazing!

Unsurprisingly, posing as a married woman in an international seaport yields some interesting conversations. Literally the second seafarer I spoke to this morning glanced down at my left hand, sighed despairingly, and said: "So you're already married too...I'll never find a wife..." Whereupon I was delighted to be able to nod sympathetically, reassure him that he was still quite young and would surely find the spouse of his dreams when he returned to the Philippines in a month, and all the while maintain an inner ostinato of "Not! My! Problem!" In a very pastoral way, of course :)

Many of them inquired about how many sons I had (seriously? are we living in the freaking middle ages!?), and were very concerned when I informed them I was childless. The dirty old man of a Greek cook who served me lunch (and was also the sole offender who told me I was beautiful) assured me that his beef would, "Make you very healthy! Good for babies!"

My favorite exchange about my marriage status was sneakily sandwiched into a confused discussion about the differences between Catholicism and Anglicanism. A Filipino engineer was inquiring about theological differences between the denominations and, at one point, asked: "Do you have Mary?" (as an aside, that is without any doubt my least favorite religious question to be asked, because I have an instinctive and unfounded aversion for the Virgin that alienates me from Roman and Anglo-Catholics alike) I awkwardly launched into my spiel about diversity of opinion in the Episcopal Church until he interrupted to ask, "No, you personally?" I waffled for a bit, then finally shook my head and said, "no, I'm not really so big on Mary." Whereupon he gasped, pointed to my ring, and said, "but what about your husband!?" Just in case I needed a reminder that my job rarely, if ever, makes any sense.

The ring is and isn't an improvement. It doesn't change the underlying reality that too many of the seafarers see me primarily as a baby-maker; it just shifts the focus. It will, I imagine, necessitate me spinning what threatens to be a dangerously elaborate tale of how I came to be married, who the husband is, when, where, why, etc. But these past few weeks have made me realize that every human being has a breaking point, and that I have reached mine. Not only do I get nothing out of ship-visiting if I'm constantly angry and frustrated; the seafarers certainly get little (if any) benefit from a tantalizingly unavailable chaplain who does nothing but yell at them. The ring, it seems, makes everyone's lives better.

...including yours! Because, if I'm sure of anything, it's that there will be plenty more amusing marriage stories to come. So keep reading!

Telecommunications

One of the biggest components of my job is topping off seafarers' sim cards. Almost all of the mariners have great difficulty understanding the voice prompts on the t-mobile customer service hotline (for which I can't blame them in the least), so it's much easier for everyone involved if I just do it for them. Of course, this means that I have had to learn how to handle cell phones of all shapes, sizes, qualities, and nationalities - which is both harder and more interesting than you might think.

Complication #1: because of our proximity to Newark airport, t-mobile service is ABYSMAL in the port. Finding a signal is usually a complicated game of turning the phone on and off repeatedly and wandering around the ship until you find a magical spot (the last bit is a blatant violation of security protocol, but no one seems to care.). Complication #2: ships are incredibly loud. The volume of the background noise confuses hell out of the system's voice recognition capacity, and I usually have to try several times before it works. Complication #3: veteran seafarers who are aware of the first 2 complications will often times just chuck their phones in front of me, say "top off!" and then leave. Sometimes they'll pay in advance, sometimes not. Sometimes they'll tell me how much money they want me to put on, sometimes not. It's all a bit of a guessing game.

Of course, the biggest complicating factor is that, half the time, the phones are in other languages. I recently had to ask a burly Russian seafarer for help when I inadvertently accessed his picture library and got the screen stuck on an image of a curvy blonde woman wearing nothing but a santa hat. Not awkward at all.

But today, I think, I made the most awkward phone faux-pas of my life in trying to top off the absurdly complicated phone of a Turkish guy. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how to get the damn thing to dial - random menu screens in Turkish kept popping up, and I kept on pressing buttons, hoping it would go away. At some point, I gave up and returned to the seafarer for help. He took one look at the screen, gasped in horror, and let loose what was clearly a stream of Turkish invective. Much frantic translation revealed that I had accidentally called his ex-girlfriend. Oops. So much for chaplains making seafarers' lives easier.

Francophone Irony

Apparently, I just can't get a break.

I woke up this morning with an awful sore throat and decided pretty quickly that there was no way I was going to make it to work. After going back to sleep for another 5 hours, I finally made it out of bed and convinced myself to go run some of the errands I ought to have run last week, including picking up some dry cleaning (It is worth pointing out that the dry cleaner is less than a block away from my house. That it has taken me almost a week to go fetch my clothes is indicative of the sorry truth that I have not, in fact, been in Harlem at all between the hours of 7-7 during that period of time. I need a more sustainable schedule.).

I walk in and am greeted by a man I haven't seen there before, who turns out to be the owner. While he's searching for my clothes, he answers his cell phone and begins conversing in French with a Moroccan accent. When he hands me my order, I, in a state of illness-induced delirium, completely inadvertently thank him in French. He promptly hangs up the phone, turns to me, wide-eyed, and...begins telling me his entire life story. In French.

In ordinary circumstances, I would have been delighted at the opportunity to speak French. As it was, I couldn't help but be a bit exasperated: I spend all day, every day, trying to convince reticent Filipino men that I can function in a pastoral capacity if they wish to avail themselves of it, to very little success. I take a freaking sick day and the first random man I meet decides that the French-speaking girl who walks into his dry cleaning shop in her pajamas is The Chosen One to listen to and solve all his family problems. What irony.

After half an hour, I finally manage to extricate myself from the conversation. He bids me adieu with strict instructions to come back to chat as often as I like. I sure wasn't about to tell him that I live less than a block away and have to walk past his store to get virtually anywhere. But on the plus side...I made a new friend?

I kind of hope I don't need anything else dry cleaned before August.