3/17   the public knocks me out. like I’m too empathetic or hungry/intrusive--what roles this person is playing in the world, how they are or not typical of their age group and status, as if I’d know typical, other than my decent sample from working at the dmv. everyone comes to the dmv but people who just moved here come a little more often. new blood coming in, from all around the world. While Portland is a pretty white place, my work is the most diverse place I go (2^nd most diverse is the 72 bus I sometimes take, travelling the commercial artery of 82^nd, whose biggest positive to me is the wide range of excellent asian restaurants.) And for a good % of my customers I know their age, where they were born, address, mom’s maiden name.

not that I don’t get vibes from people outside of work, see their interactions, their style and clouds. how I could be them or who I was when in their age or state. as we are all a mix of ages, with the majority aligning with our physical age,

I think of parts from Song of Myself, Ginsberg’s Whitman in the Supermarket. maybe a buddhist compassion arises from opening up to language, needing a proclivity to compassion to be able to open to language, and experience widening mutually. language is of us.

and I have excellent hearing, a fairly phonographic memory except for names, memory needing context. the name you go by is not your name. I’m sucking up language every where it comes from. had a co-worker chastise me for responding to comments not directed at me, a conversation I wasn’t part of. language bait & hunger.