There's something about laundry. I think that everyone has these little hang-ups -- something you can't get done no matter how important and seemingly life-threatening. This week I saw myself contemplating actually buying socks, rather than washing my old ones. There's a washing machine in the basement here but it doesn't turn off so you have to watch it, otherwise your stuff will get washed twice, or worse. Additionally, there is a tube that all the laundry water drains out of it into a shop sink. Since you have to stand by to watch the water drain off, you really can't help but notice how dirty all that water is. Who needs that kind of grief, I said, I'm off to the laundromat. The laundromat is its own particular animal. I arrived rather sheepishly on Saturday morning with about seven loads of laundry only to find two other women with more laundry than that ahead of me. Now, laundromats all have approximately the same numbers of washers and dryers, even though the dryers take twice as long. I think this is because they know that they should really have twice as many washers, but they all come in sets of four or something [like socks or under wear, how curious....] and so you have to lump all the dryers together and the washers together against opposite walls. This leaves a big space on the washer side. If you leave any space at all in laundromats, people will move into them with their entire families and so you have to fill that space up with more washing machines, thus creating futher inequality. Anyhow, to make this experience bearable, and to remind myself that when it's all said and done, I prefer clean laundry to dirty clothes, I took some pictures. back to the journal