laundry.

Monday I had a Mexican Day. Mexican Day is what my immigrant Mexican kitchen laborer friends call Monday. Their one day off, their descanso. The one day when they sleep as late as possible to make up for all the sleep they didn't get because they were working six doubles in a row. The day they wash all their clothes at the laundromat, buy and cook all their food for the week and Western Union much of their hard earned dinero back home. I don't work six doubles a week; I trade my extra sleep for a titillating Algebra class. And I skip the Western Union and just go to the Wells Fargo and cry.

My friend Daniel is from Guanajuato and has a really odd opinion of my life as an American woman. He thinks that because I'm white I go to a lavish, secret, spa-like laundromat where only rich, white people like me go.

The laundromat I've been going to for a year and a half is on William Cannon. It occupies space in yet another Feng Shui nightmare, nearly defunct strip mall with a super ghetto-looking beauty school, a rent-to-own furniture store, a nail salon and a CVS Pharmacy where I once bought condoms and the cashier actually said: "Looks like some one's going to have fun tonight!"

I chose my laundromat for two reasons: 1. its proximity to a bar and 2. the absence of children. When it rains, the drop-ceiling panels leak murky liquid the color of expectorated bronchitis phlegm and then fall in chunks onto the floor. Today when I arrived and with frantic grace began sorting and cramming my clothes into the machines, the old guy who runs the place asked: "Where ya been?" I eloquently responded, "Huh?" Then he said, "I haven't seen you in a while, did you go out of town or somethin'?" And I start thinking, this guy is wack. I schlep my filthy, restaurant-stinkin' laundry in here every friggin' week. He must have me confused with the other white girl who washes her clothes here and then I remember: HOUSE SITTING! Yes! For three joyful weeks I washed my clothes in one of those magical machines, a quarterless clothes cleaning device in a house with a solid roof. Spa-like indeed! "Yeah," I finally answered, "I did go out of town." and he responded, "Well next time, don't stay away so long!"

Sometimes it's nice to be noticed.

lucky.

A friend recently read a passage for me from one of his favorite books and reminded me of how lucky I am. Here are some of a million things that I'm feeling particularly lucky for at this moment:

• my health.

• water. it flows out of my faucet hot or cold when ever I want and I can drink it! as much as I want whenever I want.

• my hearing. I cannot imagine life without ever hearing laughter, music or ocean waves.

• my sight. for every beautiful and ugly thing I see every second of every day.

• my freedom & autonomy as an American woman. I can live alone, chose to get married or not, have kids or not. I can work and vote and drive. I can eat what I want, wear what I want, read and watch what I want. Screw who I want. I can drink; I can curse. I am woman; hear me roar.

• humor. I most definitely would have died a long time ago with out it.

the technological advances in my lifetime. I don't know how any of this shit works and I don't know how I ever lived without it.

•  tampons. seriously!