K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Okay, so I was on my way home today on the red line T, and the high school kids started pouring in. Since I ride the Ashmont line, lots of African-American teenagers filled my train car - many with iPods and Walkmans and similar (and overly-loud and bassy) products. In front of me, two young women were standing between rows of seats, leaning against the poles.

They had a really amusing and flirtatious banter going on between them, and I had a bit of inner dialogue about whether they were friends or 'friends,' if you know what I mean. Part of me berated myself for assuming they were flirting solely on the fact that one girl (they looked somewhere between 14 and 16) was quite (handsomely) butch gangsta and the other was much more traditional Baby Phat girl. But they were so cute to watch, so I kept my eyes on them on the sly as the girlier girl continued to throw playful punches and slaps at the butch girl. When we got to Andrew, the butch girl shrugged her coat up onto her shoulders to get ready to leave, pressed a quick kiss on the girlier girl's lips, and exited the train. The girlier girl sat on the bench across from me at that point.

My grin met her blush in the center of the train car.

Jury Duty Day

Aside from getting up at 6:40 AM to get ready, Jury Duty today was the best evar!

I woke up in the dark and fumbled to the bathroom to take a shower. I noticed that I couldn't see out the bathroom skylight, so I knew it had snowed. I looked out the window and found that it was still snowing, and heavily, and I was SO glad that I was going to get on the T instead of preparing for a day of driving around on slushy, slippery streets. A day with a forecast of 4-8 inches of snow before an ice/rain mix is /definitely/ a good day for public transportation and sitting in a heated room all day with hundreds of my nearest and dearest citizens.

So I got ready and bundled up and walked to the train as my landlord shoveled the sidewalk. I got on the train with minimal incident and noticed a youngish alternagrrl sitting in my car holding the Jury Duty map to the courthouse. When we both exited, I asked her if she was headed to Jury Duty, and we ended up getting chatty. Come to find out she recently graduated from college with a Women's Studies degree and is now an admin. assistant for a fathers' rights organization, so we talked about social justice work and job woes.

I got coffee on the way into the courthouse which warmed (and woke) me up considerably, then settled into The Room and talked with Amanda for quite some time. I also finished reading Cunt by Inga Muscio and watched the snow fall from my warm seat. At about 12:10 PM, an announcement was made that all of the court cases that were scheduled to be heard today had settled this morning, so we could all go home. Every single one of us! No one had to sit on a jury! Everyone was so happy and in good spirits.

I called Jen and asked her to switch her lunch with someone so I could come up to the Pru and take her out to lunch. She took a little longer than usual and I picked her up and we went to the Cheesecake Factory. I'm stuffed to the gills on yummy food and yumier cheesecake, and I got to sit across from the prettiest girl in the universe in the middle of the day. I wanted to take her home with me, but alas, she had to go back to work.

I came home and re-shoveled the steps and the sidewalk before it got too slippery, then shoveled out and cleaned off my car, all before it got dark and cold. I put on pajamas, made some phone calls for work, scheduled an interview for a volunteer helpline position at Fenway Health, and have been happily internetting in my jammies ever since.

This is better than a Snow Day, because I knew about it in advance and didn't have to use sick time to get paid! :)