I live in a city, for real.

So Squirrel Hill, the neighborhood I live in, is very insular. It's mostly Jews, gays, and college students. As a result, I can walk around holding Rachel's hand and kiss her on the street and not worry. It also means that I basically live in a town with all the crazy people and resources that a city provides.

Then, every once in a while, I remember that I live in a city, and that some of the legends are true.

Today, Rachel and I traipsed down to the bookstore in Oakland to grab her books for school. We ate lunch at Panera (Rachel's treat to me!) and grabbed a bus back home. The 61C, which is my favorite bus, goes to Homestead, which is one of Pittsburgh's many stereotypical poor black neighborhoods. Today, there were four or five female residents of the area on the back of the bus, and they were having a conversation.

Holy sh*t. Some black people are really loud. ...and really funny.

In between the conversation they had about welfare sucking and how many babies everyone had, they cracked a lot of good jokes about crazy people on the bus, bus drivers that didn't know what they were doing, claustraphobia... it was great. Rachel and I couldn't stop smiling.

It's also always a little weird to remember that stereotypes come from somewhere.