Forty-Eight Quarters

January eighth. The laundromat on the corner takes exact change only, which I knew, and somehow still managed to show up forty cents short.

I've been doing laundry at this place since I moved into the apartment, same machines, same orange chairs, same coin machine that occasionally eats a dollar and gives you nothing back and you just have to stand there deciding whether to be furious about it. Today it gave me all my quarters. That felt like a good sign, or at least a neutral one, which is about as much as I'm asking of January right now. The year-end post I wrote last week mentioned, almost accidentally, that I haven't been running consistently since the weather turned. I wrote it quickly, late, and didn't really think about it until I was reading it back this week. It sat there in the middle of the post like a small honest thing I hadn't meant to say out loud. I still don't know what to do with it. Something different, maybe. Or just the same thing with a different reason. I haven't decided.

Folding corner. Sunday ritual.

But the laundry is done. Everything smells like clean fabric and faint dryer heat, and I folded it at the table by the door because that is apparently who I am now: the person who folds at the laundromat instead of taking the heap home and dealing with it later. Small progress.

Quarters. The currency of adulthood.

The apartment is very quiet today. Gerald is on the windowsill. The collapsed bowl is beside him. I think that's enough for a Sunday.