I parked my car in a dark, scary alleyway last night. As I was walking out of the alleyway after parking, I passed a bum sleeping in a doorway.

This morning, I walked back down the same alleyway to pick up my car. It was a completely different world; the sun was out, people were walking their dogs, and the bum from the night before was awake, curled up in his doorway reading a novel.

Reading a novel!

I guess somewhere, deep down, I had some sort of deep seated belief that all bums were illiterate, because this floored me. Kathryn the small-minded.

Heck, if I were a bum, I'd be happy to spend my days sitting in the sunshine reading novels. Homelessness can happen to anyone, or so I've heard -- why should I file homeless people away into some sub-human pocket in my mind, even subconsciously? Why should I assume that homeless people couldn't or wouldn't want to spend their free time reading boooks?

Feh.

Girls are so much softer than boys.