Delicate Cycle

Don't let the title confuse you. I do not think I have ever washed anything on a delicate cycle. Today's laundry strategy involved putting every article clothing and towel I own in a suitcase, wheeling it to the laundromat and stuffing it all into one machine regardless of the spectrum of colors.

I figure if you run the cycle on cold everything will be fine. My whites may not be the whitest and my brights may not be the brightest, but hey, I have clean underwear.

I have actually never had to frequent a proper laundromat until now. All the other times I have lived in an apartment situation, we had facilities tucked away somewhere in the same building I dwelt. Having to trek a half mile with my soiled vestments creates a sort of ritual. I can't say I look forward to the ritual. It is a tedious chore that I put off until the last possible moment, but when it comes down to buying new clothes or washing the ones I own, I opt for the cheaper and gear up for the experience. I grab a book and consider how I will pass the roughly ninety minutes among the whirring machines and stench of detergent and kitty litter.

And once I actually make it there, I sort of enjoy the time. Even though today the soda machine ate the dollar I had intended to spend on grape soda.

This song may have (read: definitely) influenced my opinion of laundromats for the better.
Beware: The dogs in the music video made me cry. Not necessarily sad tears, but if you watch it, you'll see.

The music video is lovely and the song made it on to my official "Quarter Life Crisis Soundtrack." It also was the obvious inspiration for the title of this post.

For those of you who listened to it, don't you just love when Kimya sings about how there is something like "a sense of community that comes from hauling your big old load out in public and airing  your dirty laundry in the company of other people who don't have the same type of amenities"? And it gets you thinking that maybe it isn't the best to live in a place "that is so set up that you never have to leave"?

Anyway, while in the laundromat my literature of choice was Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. I'm sort of in love with the idea of Ernest Hemingway. An adventurous, booze-loving expat with a soft spot for Italy--sign me up as his sidekick. But this is actually the first book of his I've ventured to read.

Then he starts throwing out racial slurs like it's 1926, and I think he could use just a little modern enlightenment. But, hey, the authenticity of an age is captured.

But reading about Parisian walks and bar-hopping makes my feet itch to be on distant soil. My opinion of the actual book is forthcoming. Seventy pages in, I am still forming opinions on its literary merit.