Day 42: Laundry Day
A very normal morning and afternoon. A great dinner at the Taj Mahal Indian restaurant in Schenectady. We always judge an Indian place by its tikka masala. This one passed with top marks. The recipe has a homemade, personal touch that makes it extra addictive.
Then it was time to tackle the over-flowing laundry basket in the hotel room. It's been awhile since I did the coin-op thing but on the road that is the most affordable option. So I sat in a nearby laundromat for an hour and a half and tried to read my book while a guy named Jimmy tried to make conversation with me.
He started by asking what book I was reading. "It's called New York," I told him.
"What's it about?" he asked. It was really hard not to answer, "New Jersey." But I always try to understand people and I could tell he was really asking, "Will you talk to me for a minute?" Life has conditioned me to be wary of unsolicited attention; other people's assumptions can be far from my own. But I'm also curious about people and not so reclusive that I don't benefit from some human interaction myself.
Without getting too personal I learned a bit about Jimmy. At first, when I asked what he did for a living, he told me he was "a person who takes problems and makes them not problems anymore." Without any interruption from me the explanation expanded. "Really, I'm an anti-terrorist. That's what I do. I'm in anti-terror. And also, I'm a painter."
"What do you paint?"
"Everything. I mean, I like to paint pictures and murals and stuff. Right now I'm working on painting that new restaurant down the street, Bonefish."
"You're painting a mural there?"
"No, the walls and ceilings. It's a nice job, you know, because you're giving something to people. You're giving people a place of beauty to go and sit and have dinner, and you think of all those people who will come to the restaurant and relax and enjoy dinner because it's a beautiful place, and it feels real good. It's a feel-good job, doing something good for the world. Hey, how old are you?"
"Ha! I don't see how that matters at all!"
"You're right, it doesn't matter. See, I'm forty-eight."
"Well, I'm not forty-eight."
That made him laugh pretty hard. I mentioned my husband shortly thereafter and he went outside for a cigarette. Then his dryer was done and I finally got to read while shirts and boxers and socks and jeans leapt over and over each other, tumbling together and apart in an endless chase like a child and a butterfly, or a fox and a hound.