I clocked out from work earlier today, to walk
to the Emory post office and get a book of stamps
so I could mail some bills. As I passed by one of the
buildings on the quad a woman emerged, descend-
ing the steps, cell phone glued to her ear. I heard
her say, with fierceness, "choke the SHIT out of
him...". I wandered on, Doppler shift in effect,
whatever she said after that trailing away into
nothingness relative to me.

At the post office I bought the stamps with a
$20 bill. The woman behind the counter
handed me my change, which included a
new $10 bill, and commented cheerfully,
that I was getting one of the new
ten dollar bills. I remarked that I thought it was pretty.
I don't know why our exchange seemed so
pleasant but her smile and our few words
added to my already good mood.

I walked on to the food court, bought some
greens to bring back to work to eat, but took a
longer way back to the Museum, trying to get
in a 15 minute walk before being chained
to my desk for the next few hours. My last
stop was the Old Admin building, to buy
a can of diet decaffeinated coke. I call it
denatured soda, because it is stripped of
all the stuff people usually want--sugar
and caffeine. Two women were eating
their lunches as I walked in. They were
talking. One said, "so how do they
get from [and here she described
briefly some sort of problem] to talking
about breathing?" To which the other
woman replied, "yes, how do they get
from that to breathing? It's all in the
perception."