[This is a rambling narrative.]

Last night I left work around 4:30 and walked up the hill just the way I used to last year. I crossed over I5 on foot, admired the view of downtown, and continued my sweaty trek up the hill towards my old apartment. When I got to 17th and Madison, however, I kept walking. My friend Echo has an apartment just a block away, and she’d agreed to let me rest there.

And rest I did. I arrived at her houes a sweating exhausted mess. She had bedding and an herbal eyemask waiting for me, and as she hustled out the door for the evening, she handed me a towel so that I could take a shower.

I showered and put on an old tshirt from Echo’s closet. Then I curled up on the couch and watched a DVD of Madonna’s “Drowned World” Tour and fell asleep.

I was roused a few hours later to go sign the least on the new apartment. I tossed on my dirty jeans (they’re currently on their third day of service) and a sweater and headed out the door. I walked the 10 blocks to my new apartment and found that it was warmer that I was expecting, and took off the sweater. I signed my new lease, and on the way back to Echo’s, I stopped bythe co-op I used to live behind to grab a bite to eat.

The checker nodded at the shirt I’d borrowed from Echo and said, “Great shirt!”
I hadn’t put a bra back on after my shower, and wasn’t especially sure I appreciated some guy staring at my chest. When I’d put the shirt on, I hadn’t noticed anything about it other than some butterflies, so simply replied, “Thanks, borrowed it from a friend.”

When I got back to Echo’s house, vegan sandwitch and Odwalla in hand, I turned on the light and looked in the mirror at the shirt.

That fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra was very unnoticable — it was a baggy shirt, and I needn’t have worried about being indiscrete. What was notable, however, was that the shirt was decorated with quite a striking picture of a barely-clothed woman, head tilted back in ecstasy, hands thrown out in orgiastic bliss as she was circled by a ring of leaves and butterflies. I laughed at myself. Great shirt, indeed.

I chatted a little with Echo when she got home. She’d attended a workshop at Toys in Babeland, and the organizers had provided full sign language interpretation for Echo and three other deaf women who were in attendance. Echo taught me some new ASL vocabulary, including the sign for masturbation, which is different depending on the gender of the masturbator. For men, it’s the obvious jack-off motion. For women, it involves bringing your left index finger and thumb about an inch apart (as if you were about to pinch something), and then using your right index finger to vigorously rub the flesh in between your left thumb and index finger. Makes perfect sense, really.

This morning I woke up rested, and walked to work. It took me about half an hour, and I enjoyed every minute of it, except a weird pain in my left foot. As I was walking down the alley where Andreas and I made out the first night we decided we liked each other, I decided to take a picture for the moblog. I pulled out my phone and flipped it open to take the shot. With my headphones on, I hadn’t realized that the phone was ringing when I took it out of my bag, and that I’d answered it inadvertantly.

It was my father. It was good to hear from him.