We couldn't breathe if it was a triangle.

2002-12-27 - 10:54 a.m.

I've learned much today, and it's not even 10am yet.

I meandered outside the workplace as is my ritual every morn for the partaking of tobacco. I didn't have any cigarettes with me, just like I didn't have any money either. Figuring that my normal morning compatriot would provide for me on this occasion, I copped a squat on the usual bench to await his arrival. No sooner had my ass met concrete when I was greeted by that familiar smell of homelessness (a zesty blend of armpit and fermented urine). Standing as tall as I was sitting, this elderly Chinese lady cheerily began blathering on at me, her disposition seemingly unfazed by the plight of the residentially challenged.

She told me a great many things, I think. I didn't understand half of what was coming out of her mouth, half of that being spittle. I must have nodded at the appropriate points in the conversation though, because she went on for a good long time. I'm fairly sure that she told me about the differences of China, Vietnam, North and South Korea. She told me about being a dancer, hiding in mountains, going to Hollywood. She brought up the finer points of why the Earth is round (the finest point was that a triangular Earth would make it hard for us to breathe, though if she explained the logic behind that, it was unintelligible). She made use of the Discovery Channel Store's sign, which has a globe on it, to show me where all the countries she could name were. Since I was not sitting even remotely close to the sign, she graciously raised her voice loud enough so that I could still hear the lessons while morning commuters filtered into work past us.

Somewhere in all of that, the drifter with respectable hygiene that I gave a cigarette to yesterday morning, walked up. He had apparently been doing better than yesterday, as he produced a new pack of smokes from his jacket and gave me one.

So here I am, in my first full day of being 25, learning about geography, astronomy, the arts and Karma, and it's not even 10am yet.