Yesterday I noticed the same guy walking back and forth in the alley behind my apartment building. Five or six buildings share the same back alley/refuse bin/garage entrance/parking lot, so there's a lot of coming and going. This guy was tall and thin, with a weathered complexion and a straggly reddish beard. His clothes hung off him as though they were too big or he was too skinny, or maybe both. He walked like someone with nowhere to go, and the usual alley traffic carried on past him--three guys searching a dumpster, cars entering the condo building's below-ground parking garage, smokers hanging out by the recycling bins, an elderly man cutting through en route to the senior housing nearby. No one spoke to the guy, even when he stopped directly behind my building, stared at the trash bin and spoke to it for awhile. I watched, a little worried at first, but all he did was pace up and down the alley, and eventually he walked out of view, and did not reappear.
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Today I came around the corner to the Fortress of Solitude and here was a kid, maybe twelve or thirteen, in baggy basketball shorts, trying the door of the office next to mine. He punched in the code--it's a conference room--and I wondered what kind of meeting this kid was in. He was still attempting to punch in the code when I stepped out to refill my water bottle. By the time I came back, he was slumped in the chair opposite the shrink's office at the end of the hall, which was presumably where he was supposed to have been the whole time.
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I bought a ring today, at the Atlas vintage mall for six dollars. It reminded me of the Chanel camellia ring, also pictured above. I'll let you deduce which is which.
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