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social overabundance
Wednesday, December 9 1998
As I was biking through the cold to work this morning, I had it in my mind to look down the bike lane (which I was traveling, as always, in the wrong direction) to see if any cars were in it and coming towards me head-on. Sure enough, a stupid woman was coming straight for me. I waved my arms and swerved back and forth to awaken her from her stupidity, but her response was to honk her horn as if the lane had been put there for her use. I was so resentful that I almost kicked her car as she went past, but then I looked into her car and saw her innocent children strapped up tight and I suddenly felt sorry for them, despite their evidently shoddy intelligence genes.
At lunch I sat eating my burgers and fries on the edge of the San Diego River. The poplars or cottonwoods that grow along the river have lost most of their now-yellow leaves. I didn't know autumn ever really came to San Diego, but the riverside vegetation is now decidedly bleak. But the coots and cormorants seem to be happy with the weather.
As I was riding the final few blocks home from work, I was joined in the darkness by Rory, also on a bike. In Pacific Beach today, he'd found a long-lost chum named Dave who he'd last seen in Missoula, Montana. Dave, a very ordinary-looking 18 year old hippie-type, was on another bicycle behind Rory. The bicycles were on loan from Dave's sister. Naturally, we all ended up at my house.
I was overwhelmed by the sudden obligation to be a host. I felt cheated out of my precious time. It wasn't really Rory or Dave's fault, of course. I'm just not cut out to be the socialite who I once was. But I went through the motions. We went on a beer run, and later on some kind buds showed up. I stayed up entirely too late.
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