From the Inside of the Loop

I may not have a lot of things... but now I've got venue.

I could walk to a jazz club. I am surrounded by trees that are older than my parents.

I had a telling experience this morning that I'm not in the "suburbs" anymore. I went to the cleaners for the first time down here. So I just turned into the first place I saw in the lakewood shopping strip. I rolled in and plopped down my shirts and saw an elderly gentleman at a desk, but a middle-aged woman approached me and asked my name and starch preference and proceeded to WRITE IT DOWN on a slip of paper.

It's like I've gone back in time! At my cleaners I used to go to in the Suburb, it was brand new, it had a drive through, it was enviro-friendly, they had a fancy database hooked up to new dell computers with flat screens and a young chinese owner who gave me a receipt from the database for pickup with my name, reference tracking number, estimated pickup time, and even my starch history clearly printed on it.

I have to admit, things are different down here.