Sandra Bernhard//"Everybody's Young"

Holy shit, this conversation I had with this old lady at the diner tonight. When a conversation with a complete stranger BEGINS with "Mayor Dinkins had all the streetlamps replaced with dimmer light bulbs as revenge on all white people," you sit the hell down and follow this all the way through to wherever it leads. In this case: why and how she doesn't like black people, the different "kinds" of "orientals", the Bible, heaven (actually a galaxy of hundreds of different planets, and each "different type of people" get a whole planet to themselves), horses in heaven, this book she's reading, angels (8 feet tall, some with wings, some without), Art Bell, how much she hates this diner (though she is here ~literally~ every night), how bad the food is at this diner (although, again, she is here ~literally~ every night), money, what I think about Trump, what she thinks about Trump, whether or not there will be another world war (because the Bible), the skin under our fingernails, atheism, reincarnation, her friend who "died" but came back to life five months later (I assume she meant that he was in a coma or something, not that they had to dig him back up or whatever, because FIVE MONTHS?), born again Christians, "seeing the light", "living in the spiritual realm", how much she hates Catholics, how badly she hates this world, Chinese food, Chinese restaurants, Chinatown, how much she likes "the orientals" ("because your eyes, they're like cat eyes"), how crazy it is to be charged $3.80 for her tiny cup of...rice pudding?, and next time she'll just get a sandwich like I did because she thinks the FOOD-food here is terrible. Have I mentioned how much she hates this diner? It was a goddamned symphony. I'm not going to be able to sleep for months.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart//"So True"

"If you don’t lose some skin for the things you believe

How do you know that you really do?

And I know that you really do

And I know that you’re really so true..."

But then the song ends with the lines, "But I could never be, I could never be so true."

Are you not an activist, do you not care if you're not willing to risk your life for the things that you believe in? We live in a world with so many concerns, clashing and intersecting and interfering, I often don't know where one begins, where one ends, or the limits and borders of any of them.

I often wake up in the morning and don't know who I am supposed to be today. I'm not even talking about activist stuff.

The last couple days literally every woman I know (and many men as well, come to that) have been posting to social media their #metoo harassment/assault/rape stories, and behind every one of them the unspoken question, "So what can we do about it?", and behind every unspoken question the unspoken answer, "I don't know."

Kirsty MacColl//"Terry"

I don't believe that I will ever drink hazelnut coffee again, after I leave this place.