Laundry Isn't Political

I almost called this piece 'Unlike Senate Democrats I Don't Fold'. Thank goodness I thought better of it.

I want you all to know I'm not avoiding news of the U.S.'s breakdown. It's on my mind constantly. Ask any Canadian unlucky enough to have stumbled into conversation with me since I got here.

There are other writers on the internet better equipped for political analysis. You should read them if it helps you. I know I need to build out the 'Community' tab on this site, and I'll be happy to consider recommendations from readers as well.

So, these pieces I publish here, they're not meant as distractions, but should be seen in the context of the shadow looming over all of us. And as a reminder that there are plenty of places left in the world where life isn't entirely defined by the news cycle out of D.C.

Sometimes one just needs to do one's laundry and listen to old pop music.

I've been thinking about the poet Frank O'Hara. Frank worked at the MOMA and amused himself by taking walks during his lunch hour. He scratched out funny observations about New York and its people. Sometimes these became poems.

I resisted the cell phone revolution for much longer than most of my peers. I thought they were vulgar and more trouble than they're worth and I often still think that. When texting became commonplace, however, I figured out that it's a lot easier to surreptitiously write about your fellow bus and el passengers when it just looks like you're scrolling through social feeds like everyone else. I did a lot of that in those days. Some of those became passages in a book. A few I sent to women I was dating just to remind them of how funny and mean I can be. Sometimes it worked.

Anyway you already know this is about me doing my laundry and I don't want to keep you waiting on the good stuff. There are machines in this building I'm staying in - one of the features that attracted me to the listing, along with the couch cleverly positioned and lit in the photos to render invisible the stains all over it. I was having a hard enough time not knowing how many coins in the local currency I should be saving up to do a load, and when I finally got the courage to go down into the lobby (set up like an apocalyptic art installation) and into a dark murder hallway where the laundry room is, the coins rolled right out of the slot. Every single one I tried. Loonies, twonies. All of 'em.

I raised the issue to my 'host', who made some excuse like: the building manager hasn't cleaned out the coins in the trays but hey here's a helpful link to a laundromat nearby.

To paraphrase one of my favorite lines from Deadwood: every step a freakin' adventure.

I'm getting better at French but the technical jargon required to exchange loonies and twonies for quarters is advanced class stuff. I can ask where is the laundry place and say hello I have laundry to clean.

Yet my fantasies of long-term survival here persist.

The attendant is friendly and helpful and speaks English first which makes me comfortable. I also sometimes wonder how they know before I even say anything.

I doubt I need to describe the laundromat, at least its primary fixtures. I'm guessing most of you have seen a washing machine. A few items of interest anyway:

Stephen King books stacked on the tables. WiFi password written on a frayed laundry chit under the counter. A sign tells me there's coffee but I'm doubtful.

Once I get a handful of change counted out for me I'm able to settle in and enjoy the ambiance. There's a '90s music channel blaring over the drone of the machines. Stuff I haven't heard in decades and definitely wouldn't have sought out on purpose:

Paula Abdul 'Opposites Attract'. Not just Paula, but pioneering cartoon rapper MC Skat Kat spitting fire. Dude could dance up and down stairs and everything. Prototype AI performer.

'Informer' comes on. In case you're considering it, let me save you some time: reading the lyrics to this song on the page provides no clarity whatsoever. Still, I don't know how this lady with the mask loading blankets into one of the big machines can contain herself. Definitely feels like a dance party is about to break out.

'November Rain' by Guns N' Roses. Gotta love how self important Axel Rose was. And Slash's licks are undeniably sick and melodic. I'm not sure there was a bigger band in the world at this time, at least for people my age and especially the girls. Can hardly blame these guys for their overweight egos I guess.

Deeper cuts from the same era. Artists I can't name, teenage sensations who went on to become realtors.

Here I am pushing quarters through the slot like a genie's gonna pop out and not my damp laundry. If there's a lesson in any of this I'd rather not learn it today.

There was this kid Schwartz. He lived in a big yellow house at the top of a hill and when I came over there was a sense of creepy abandonment. He didn't want me talking to his sister because 'she steals my friends'. We rode our bikes down to the laundromat, him with a big bag over his shoulder. Routine. The kids were self reliant. I was in school with that guy for years and never saw his mom or his dad. He lost a fight to this scummy kid on the playground and was embarrassed. I should have won, he said, I'm 3/4 of an inch taller than him. Then in middle school PE he became a cop, volunteering to run warm-up drills, trying to discipline the rest of us, getting red in the face when we made fun of his earnestness. Years later after we moved and I changed high schools I was working at a sandwich shop in East Lansing and through the window I watched this same guy make a citizen's arrest of a shoplifter running down the street. He came in with a girl and demanded we call the police. I tried to say hey remember me but he didn't care, he was too focused on collaring his perp or whatever. I tell you this because it relates, a little, to laundry, but mainly because it occurs to me that these are the types of guys who grew up to join MAGA. The only laws that matter are the ones they get to enforce themselves. It's no leap to imagine him impatiently waiting for orders to attack the rest of us.

Is this Warrant? Jesus. I know every word of this trash heap. Critical period hypothesis. No wonder our country's so dumb.

Last time I used a public laundry room must have been at Water's Edge Place in Chicago. COVID times. That little room at the bottom of the building next to the boilers that were always struggling to keep up or not explode. It was a tense place and I did my best to only go at times when it was likely to be empty. Like now, every routine activity had a weight to it, a sense of struggle. Once a lady in nurse's scrubs got into a shouting match with a younger guy who said the fuck word and the lack of respect was like knives in the air and I just stared at the timer counting down on the dryer hoping no one noticed me there.

'Ordinary World'. This guy, Duran or Duran or the other one, came into a bar where I worked and real sly-like asked the waitress to have me pour his Prosecco in a rocks glass so he didn't look 'gay'. He still had the same feathered hairstyle and everything. I wanted to ask him if he was the one who wrote the line 'left me in the vacuum of my heart' but there was no way to bring it up without sounding snobbish.

Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg 'Nuthin' but a G Thang'. I didn't watch a second of the inauguration but just knowing Snoop performed for those creatures like a goddamn circus clown brings it all right back.

Laundry is dry, or dry enough. I do not fold - unlike Dick Durbin and Gary Peters.

You're welcome.