I was selecting a CD to put on and I heard the beginning of that last Flaming Lips album start up somewhere outside. So I cracked the window a bit and started browsing through a magazine, waiting to see if the music would be stopped or the volume lowered. The album kept going and it sounded pretty good filtered through the traffic and bird chatter.
I flipped ahead in the magazine to the Andy Richter interview. I’d been reading bits of it earlier, when I was having lunch at the Thai place that I used to go to a lot. But I had become self-conscious reading it in public because the title makes it look like a fringe religious magazine. So I ended up tucking it away in my backpack. I’m pretty sure that some of the staff at that restaurant think I’m a little odd, and I didn’t want to make them believe that I might be taking a lunch break from peddling copies of The Watchtower.
The music coming in from outside became slightly muffled about a minute into the last song on the album. Then the sound receded into the distance as if someone were carrying the CD player away with them. The music was gone before the song had finished. I was just finished with the Andy Richter interview and was thinking about laundry. So I fished around for some quarters. If the washer doesn’t reject the coin with the nick gouged into it’s edge, then I have just enough for two loads in the washer if I combine them into one dryer load. When I’m done with that, I’ll probably have either ice cream or tea. I have a sudden craving for both.