My First Time in City Jail

And you should see the bruise I have to show for it.

It's front and center on my right thigh, about the size of an egg with a purple outside and two yellow splotches inside.

It was a raised knot of a bruise for the first couple of days, but now it just hurts to roll over on it in bed, if that gives you any idea.

And all because I was upholding the Constitution.

Like thousands of other unemployed citizens, I'm doing work for the Census Bureau right now, which has not involved going house to house.

Instead, my crew and I are assigned to group locations, like nursing homes, dorms, shelters and, yes, the City Jail.

I thought I'd be in the majority when I blithely made the comment going through security that it was my first time in jail.

Either people had been there to help out a "friend" or they'd been on some wholesome sponsored tour (Girl Scout, school, Cub Scout) when they were younger.

Yet again, my life experience put me in the minority; luckily I'm used to that.

After two days spent at the jail transcribing information about inmates onto Census forms, all I can say is, parents, please think twice before naming your newborn.

What chance does a child have when his given name is Hitler? Or Demon? Or even Lovely?

I made a comment about poor name choices to the Lt. Colonel who was my contact person at the jail and he told me about an inmate they'd had named Marijuana.

"I started to ask if he had brothers named Cocaine and Heroin, but I honestly didn't want to know," he said in a resigned voice.

The process of cataloguing almost 1500 inmates (in, it should be noted, a facility meant to hold 800) was tedious but not particularly painful until the very end.

As I was gathering up all the data we had collected, I made a sudden move to grab a sliding pile of papers.

Immediately, my thigh collided with the keyboard tray on the table at which I was working.

It was just a thin piece of metal projecting out a couple of inches, but I was in full-steam-ahead mode, eager to be finished and escape the basement of the City Jail.

I wish I had a juicier story to explain my jail bruise, but that's the best I've got.

I like to think that I took one for the Constitution, but really all I did was mess up my leg at the start of shorts season.

Let's hope it goes away quickly.

Heard on Grace Street Today

The stretch of Grace Street between Laurel and Lombardy is always fertile territory for a certain kind of passer-by on my daily walks. Today, for instance, three guys were approaching me when one of them stopped dead in front of me, put his hand to his waist and gave me a deep bow, saying, "Hello, Beautiful. You're still walking? You're keeping it tight!" I'm not exactly sure what that meant, but I feel fairly certain it was a compliment.

A block further down, a guy came toward me and said, "Good morning. You are looking sooooo fine!" and there was as much leer in his voice as there was on his face. He looked like an animal licking his chops before devouring something; I kept moving.

But the coup de grace was the guy sitting on a brick wall on Hell Block, taking deep pulls on his 40 oz. at 10:00 in the morning. When he saw me, he said, "If I leave this here, can I walk with you?" Now that's a very generous offer from a man who clearly appreciates his morning drink, but I had to decline. There was no telling if his 40 would have been there when we got back and I couldn't live with myself if I had been responsible for the man's loss.

Do you think it was the shorts?

What is it About Shorts?

I've come to a conclusion: shorts embolden people, especially those of the male persuasion.

I haven't done a scientific study or anything like that, but I think I have enough anecdotal evidence to support my hypothesis.

When the weather turned abruptly cold last week, out of necessity I switched to yoga pants for my daily walk.

But the last couple of days, the pants seemed a bit much, so I decide to go with shorts today instead.

I was a tad cool at first, but once I got going, I knew they were the right choice.

I decided to walk east rather than west, so I brought along my DPU bill to pay on the way.

As I walked by Abner Clay Park, a musician friend whom I see all the time came riding by on his bike, so I said good morning to him.

He didn't even look up immediately; instead his eyes went from my feet, right up the thighs to my hips and then he looked at my face and greeted me by name.

It was classic male stuff.

As I approached City Hall, a man came toward me smiling, so I said good morning.

"You have beautiful legs. Just beautiful! Good morning," he said.

I thanked him, wondering if he makes a habit of complimenting strangers.

Inside the payment office, the clerk called out,"Next," and I approached his station.

Noticing my attire, he asked if I was out for a run or walk and I said I was on my daily walk.

"Well you don't get legs like that without doing something right every day."

He gave me a big smile and handed me my receipt.

So here's my conclusion: shorts rule.

It hasn't been all that long since the weather made shorts-wearing difficult, but if today's responses to a person like me in shorts are any indication, they're already sorely missed.

No further scientific investigation necessary.