the phone conversation and subsequent jumpy brain meant that i did not get to sleep until quite late last night. despite this, was in good spirits for almost the entire day—one that shall ever go down as the Day i Got my Monthly Pass (for public transpo). this has been one of those necessities that i was supposed to have from the beginning, but whose enactment had, well, gotten *stalled* somewhere along the way. it's hard, because i know that if it were left up to me, i could accomplish a lot of these necessary evils in about 7 seconds—but then again, i don't want to offend anyone and, sometimes, i simply don't know where to go in order to work this quick magic. now, despite the fact that i have no phone, no internet at home, am not registered with the city, at least i can ride the tramvaje to my little heart's content.

i was wearing my overalls today, and L. explained to me that his mother has and wears the same. later, M. was inspecting my shoes, noticed the newbalance "N" and told me that his mom has exactly the same shoes as mine, only hers are white and "not as dirty." apparently, through neither fault nor intention, i am suddenly dressed like everyone's mother.

on that note, just as i was going to write a post about how i am just about to concede defeat and say that, yes, i am sick of being sweaty all the time (blasphemy), it's beginning to hint of chill here. this means that: today i did not wake up drenched with sweat and did not arrive at work in a similar state.

tired good humour led, as it often does, to hysterical laughter. unfortunately, this could all have been avoided had i understood the assignment that Tijana had given me for last night, involving locative plurals. to make a long and boring story brief and witty, i had put all the nouns in loc. pl (instead of only the ones she wanted). a mathematical/linguistic problem. so suddenly we had lots and lots of persons, places, and things atop each other.

this whole thing with Milošević's wife hasn't made life here any different. it's hard to tell, though, with no media access beyond what i can read while doing all my other online business.