it was just yesterday that i was trying to explain to my research assistant why i live in the city (rather than in the 'burbs). i said something about how living in the 'burbs might make me want to kill myself, what with the having to drive everywhere and the blandness of the chain restaurants and the neverending sea of affluent white faces.

she latched onto that last bit, and i said how i liked living in a racially and socio-economically diverse area* and she challenged me on that, asking if i knew/was friends with any of the people in my 'hood who are of a different racial/SES background from me. well, i don't really know any such people, but to be fair, i don't know my neighbors who are of the same racial/SES background as me, either. i tried to explain how there's just a feeling of sharing the same streets that is friendly and nice. but i was doing a crappy job of it.

and then along comes mimi smartypants, who writes about just this exact feeling, at the bottom of this entry

There are moments when one is hideously aware of race and class differences. Then there are moments when all that stuff gets smoothed out, if only temporarily. I love those smoothed-out moments, which may be why I am such a rabid fan of public transportation---it is just a little bit harder for cell-phone-yapping jerks to own their privilege when a homeless woman with small twigs in her hair is screaming how Jesus loved vegetables.

Yesterday I was riding home on a crowded train near four middle-aged, South Side black guys, all wearing various forms of blue-collar dress---work shirts, overalls, hard hats. They all seemed really tight with each other, and were having a loud, lively conversation about the old neighborhood, politics, basketball, and current events. The conversation turned to Michael Jackson, and how jaw-droppingly freakish and guilty he is, and there was some amusing speculation on exactly how long he would last in prison. Then:

Guy #1: I heard he was even messing with disabled kids.
Chorus Of Guys: No way! That's sick! Etc etc.
Guy #1: I mean, it's bad enough to be messing with kids. But messing with disabled kids? He be getting them out of their wheelchairs and shit? Touching their little bald cancer heads? Oh damn, it makes me sick.
Me [trying really, really hard not to laugh]: ...
Guy #1 [looking at me, also starting to laugh]: Am I right? Isn't that sick? Michael Jackson messing with disabled kids?
Me: Oh, it's sick. You got that right.
Guy #1: Disabled kids. Damn.

Then we were both laughing, for hard-to-explain reasons, and soon it was my stop and we exchanged first names and he called me "baby girl" and told me to have a good day, and I wished him the same, and it was just a nice little stranger-bonding moment. It is slightly unfortunate that the nice little stranger-bonding moment took place in the context of the alleged sexual abuse of disabled children by a batshit-insane hideously deformed skeleton of a multimillionaire, but there you go.

*and boy do i ever. there's houses within one block from me selling for $500,000 (in west philly, yo. WEST PHILLY.), others that are selling for $90,000, and others that are abandoned with boarded up windows and trees growing through the brickwork. i KID YOU NOT, there are people who will fork over half a million dollars for a house that is located within a block or two of an ABANDONED HOUSE THAT IS PROBABLY HOME TO CRACK ADDICTS AND FERAL CATS.