Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Urban to Suburban

I was with someone who was bringing me to their apartment. I think it was a gang girl (a bit like Snoop from The Wire), but maybe it could have been a Ghost Dog type of guy.)

Anyway, the place was in the midst of an industrial urban wasteland - nothing but abandoned factories and empty lots all around. We went into a run-down building, up a dark flight of stairs, to what I realized was the front door, which looked only like a large sheet of rusted steel. She/he put some kind of key into a barely discernible hole and into the "apartment" we went. Up another flight of dark stairs and into a minimally furnished but pretty unexpectedly nice place, which opened onto the rooftop of the building. I could tell the person really didn't want to be found, so I asked them whether they were ever worried about being spotted on the roof, by police helicopters and such.

The second part of the night, I was in Princeton in the early 1960s, riding in the back of a car driving down Washington Road, kissing Don Draper from Mad Men.

I had gotten a telegram, which was leading us off somewhere exciting. Washington Road was buzzing with people, walking down Prospect Avenue, pushing baby strollers, with shopping bags - both white people and black people. We stopped somewhere (kind of reminded me of Green Hall), because I had to go to the bathroom. And as I walked toward the door marked "Women," it suddenly occurred to me (in a flash of suddenly having my modern psyche) -- I'm not sure if Princeton had Jim Crow laws then, but am I allowed to be in this bathroom? I didn't notice any signs for "colored" but that's where I'd have to go.

At that point, I woke up, having to go to the bathroom.

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