Two small things today.

1) File under the heading of small things that you have blind spot for (like blinking!): Gum. On the streets. Absolutely freaking everywhere. I thought about it this morning as I got off the train because I musta stepped in some sort of gummy fruit thing (not actually gum). And then when I emerged from my stop, I look around and all over the sidewalks are the little black dots of gum-having-been-there evidence. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Absolutely everywhere. Who does that? Who just tosses gum on the street? And usually, you never see a fresh piece. I wonder how long some of that gum has been there. Of course, I think it's more stunning for me, because I trained myself long ago to just swallow gum, because, hey, it's smaller than most food you swallow and pretty slick and I'm PRETTY CERTAIN it does get stuck in your appendix for 18 years or however long it's supposed to be there until they have to remove your giant chewing gum tumor through surgery. But yeah. Gum on the streets. Total blindspot. And yet it should be pretty obvious that our sidewalks are not sidewalk-colored but in fact totally spotty almost all the time. I like seeing stuff that I usually ignore. Makes me feel observant or something.

2) For some unknown reason, I've been carrying around 10 useless keys with me at all times for about a year or so. Everyday, I only ever use ONE key. It opens my door to my apartment. That's the only key I ever ever ever use. And yet, I've been lugging around an excessively heavy keychain, and it didn't occur to me until yesterday that perhaps, oh, I should cull that down to a few less keys. Which I did. Now I carry around just one key. And I feel smarter. I like simplifying my life. Next stop: cleaning out my fucking backpack. It's heavy for no reason. I'm going to figure out why.