03.24.2003 - 2:48 p.m.

(Oh, look, I can post stuff! This one'd be from last week sometime...)

Often when I come in for work I cut through the campus center. Often the maintenance staff is at the Daily Grind, drinking coffee or eating cup-o-soups or packed lunch food as they are just finishing or starting their shifts. Today there was an animated discussion among most of the grounds staff about somebody�s wife and how she had to suck it up and play the role she�d signed up for. There was a lot of loud laughter, and although we usually exchange smiles or nods or waves when I pass, I was just motion in the background today.

Outside, one more maintenance guy, Jim I think his name is, is on his cellphone, pacing in his scuffed workboots, reaching up every few seconds to adjust his bright green hat. I am eavesdropping again. It�s a bad habit of mine which I excuse by calling it �writerly curiosity.�

�It�s just that sometimes�� he is saying, and I am walking slowly down the access ramp towards the stairs, ears burning, �Sometimes I just want to cuddle, you know?�

Do you see why I can�t help listening? Huh? Do you see?

Humanity is just too beautiful to miss.

-stonebridge

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