Change, described through stream of consciousness

It's so nice to have green around again. Spring has finally come, and looking outside presents something worthwhile to see again. I still miss the evergreens from home, but just having leaves on the trees is such an improvement, I can hardly remember what it was like before. While the outdoors have changed, so have the indoors. I've spent the last few days reorganising my room and listening to all of those books on CD that I had always wanted to read.

Beyond my own room's changes are those of my previous apartment. I went over yesterday to wish a friend a happy birthday, who moved in to the same place I once inhabited. When I had lived there, the walls were covered with many overly "enlightened" adornments -- tie-dyed banners with the symbol ohm at their centers, purple cloth draped over the light fixtures, Picasso's Don Quixote, ferns and classic novels, an Indian-style Buddha head, a rubbing of an Old English inscription one might see on the tombstone of a Gothic monk, a wickerwork chair in the style of some ancient American throne. Now, the walls are plastered with band posters, and in the place of a twisted little tree sits a 10 gallon fish tank. The house smells so strongly of dog that I'm almost tempted to ask if they're keeping one, and then I remember that the house is simply smelly. That hasn't changed since we lived there, though my ability to recognise the unpleasantness has increased.

My friend and I met at the Food and Care Coalition, where we both volunteered as lunch servers. What an interesting place that was. I loved when the kids would come in, because they were always the most entertaining. What I remember best, however, was a man in his mid forties who seemed to feel entitled to getting lunch the moment he walked in. At the time, I disagreed, and thought him quite rude. He was. I wonder, though, that I ever thought any living human being could be anything but entitled to lunch. What a strange world this is where I can feel that because I take a shower every day and attend school, I am more entitled to lunch than the rude smelly guy who sleeps on the steps of a local business. What a strange world it is where one's social respectability has anything to do with one's right to caloric intake.

Author's word count: 404