at one point a clerk announced to the crowd that if you were just here to renew your license and don't need a new photo or an address change, there was a special line. by then my number was so closed to getting called, i didn't even bother, and besides, i had an address change and wanted a new photo. you'd think after all that waiting i wouldn't be able to crack a smile, but you'd be wrong. in the first photo, i was smiling, but it wasn't a toothy smile. a smile isn't a smile without some teeth, the more pearly whites the better. so i took a second to compose myself, which amused the two old chinese men waiting behind me in line, to see a native son taking his driver's license photo so serious. i flashed the camera lens my best mary lou and $55 later i left the RMV with my temporary driver's license and my voter registration receipt (party affiliation: democrat). besides the winning smile, my hair was also lightly tossled in a stylish manner and there was enough facial growth on my face to reinforce my bohemian credentials. so that's what being 30 years old looks like!
i was starving at that point, even though i had a bowl of oatmeal before i left the house, and in the office i ate a banana and a plum. 
i wasn't really in the mood for chinese takeout, so i figured i'd go to my usual pastry shop and get something cheap to go. wouldn't you know it, they're closed for vacation. so i went to the pastry shop across the street, the same place you go to get your fung wah tickets. i waited in line behind two women who were taking their time with their orders. after a few minutes of waiting, i turned right around and went out the door, taking my business elsewhere. i ended up getting some "egg biscuits" ($2.50 for a bag) from an old woman on the first floor of the chinese food court. it was tasty but it didn't feel me up at all. since it was late anyway, i decided to stick it out, feeding my cravings with some gum.
earlier, like arriving at work early, i was once again impressed by the great plume of smoke billowing from a rooftop chimney, an artificial cloud in the making. 
smoke only gets like that when it's really cold, instead of wispy, it has a definite shape, just like the condensation that comes out of your mouth. i could spent a whole day out in the could playing with my breath. let it not be said that i can't make my own fun! the streets approaching chinatown was littered with the tattered red debris of new year firecrackers.
after an extended stay at the office (i was in my hurry to leave, no place in particular to go), i came home, where i took a shower, washed the dirty dishes in the sink (some mine, some not) and cooked up some spicy korean ramen with a tea egg and some chicken drumsticks that my godmother gave me last week. 
i watched traffic: the miniseries on the USA network. there are two more episodes over the next two days, from what i've seen, it's really good. i didn't find the movie particularly interesting, but the miniseries is different. instead of mexican druglords, in this version it's afghanistan heroin dealers, chechnyan refugees, asian slave traders, and one rogue DEA agent. i love elias koteas, he's got a real intensity about him (like sean penn, like christopher meloni). there's also cliff curtis, whom i've seen in a bunch of films but never been able to distinguish, from a latino gang member in training day, to a maori father in whale rider, in traffic he plays an illegal chechnyan taxidriver waiting the arrival of his wife and daughter.