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Rory departs
Monday, December 14 1998
The other day Rory and I were talking about the extent to which our lives hang in the hands of fate. If certain chance things hadn't happened, if certain red lights had been a little faster, his life would now be completely different. The fact that such crucial events happen all the time (and that the number of possible paths for our lives is so vast) boggles the mind if you really put some time into thinking about it. If I hadn't gone with Matt Rogers to the WCBN radio benefit concert, if Kim had decided (as she usually did) to work at Café Zola that Saturday, I wouldn't be in San Diego working as a mid-to-front-end web programmer for an up-and-coming startup online community. I'd probably be on the road somewhere or else still rotting in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Rory is very enthusiastic about the power of fate in his life. Adding even further randomness, this morning he decided to flip a coin to choose his next destination. If the coin came up heads, he'd be hitching to Arizona, otherwise he'd take a bus with his mate Dave from Montana and head down Baja California. We decided beforehand to do the best of three, and after an initial strong showing for Arizona, the coin chose Mexico. Rory was actually a little disappointed, but (as we all know) fate doesn't always generate the most satisfactory future.
After a somewhat frustrating day at work, I came home to find Kim in sort of a funk. She was genuinely sad that Rory was no longer sleeping on our couch. Kim and he had actually become rather close in the past week, spending much time together while I'd been off at work. He'd served as her Shiatsu guinea pig, shopping buddy and dog walking partner. He'd stepped into the void I'd left behind since being sucked up into this extremely busy life of mine.
As a token of their new friendship, Rory and Kim exchanged jackets before he'd departed for Mexico. He took Kim's Patagonia jacket, more suited to life on the road than the stylish plaid English jacket that Kim will now be wearing.
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