another day/another dollar

Today was a "me-day."  I often try to spend a whole day, or at least, a good portion of a day by myself at least once a week.  It's not an anti-social thing or a form of protest, it's just my own time to do whatever I want, whenever I want.  I think that we as people spend too much time constricted to...time itself.  Everything is allotted a stretch, a span, a season, an interval, a period, a length, a duration of time; punching in at work, meeting up with a friend, a TV show, dinner-time.  It's like the block schedule from school follows us into the real world.  And it's not a negative thing by any means.  It keeps us going and organized.  BUT...it's fun to see what happens if you completely discard all units of time, which is what I try to do on my "me-days."  I will admit that I do actually schedule the "me-days" themselves (for example, I tell myself, Lexi-that's what I call myself-take a "me-day" tomorrow).  The night before I turn off my cell phone and deactivate my alarm in order to wake up naturally.  The day follows with a completely open format.  I just go...wherever I go, basically.  As a result of not having an agenda, the day is full of surprises; either a lot happens or nothing at all.  Today was once where a lot happened...

I started off by taking Camilla (la mia bicicleta) for a ride around Florence and somehow ended up on the other side of the Arno.  I parked Camilla at a pole and walked about 20 paces until I found myself walking into a huge, open room that was chock-full of stuff...it was a rummage sale!  Most of the items were geared more towards old-lady-style, but it was so much fun to go through everything and people-watch while I was at it.  In the very back of the room, away from all of the items, there was a grand piano.  You can probably guess where this is going...a woman walked over to the piano, sat down to play, and started jammin'.  She was incredible.  She filled the entire room with a warm, rich musical sound.  I asked if I could take a photo of her and she said yes:

Next, I stumbled upon a market in piazza Santo Spirito.  I was immediately drawn to a tent that displayed colorful paintings.  As I was going through a box of them, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a man approaching.  He was completely disheveled; his clothes were dirty and falling off of his body, his facial hair was long and patchy, his hair was greasy and matted, and he had a rolled cigarette dangling from his mouth and a beer bottle between his two fingers on his left hand:  he was the artist.  We ended up talking for 15 minutes about his paintings.  Finally, I bought one.  I bought a piece of artwork from a drunk man with a bloody nostril who kept apologizing for speaking poor English because he was drunk.  The art:

Dog poop is common in Florence.  It's everywhere.  Either dogs poop a lot or their owners just don't pick up after them.  It's probably both of those things.  Today I found a piece of poop on the sidewalk, but this was no ordinary poop...it had a sign in it.  The sign (as you can read for yourself) said "stronzo come il padrone," which I believe translates to "shit like the master."  Funny?  Yes.  Disgusting that someone took the effort to write about a piece of shit and then place it in it?  Also, yes.