|
|
|
out with the boys
Wednesday, January 20 1999
It occurred to me last night that the taboo associated with horrific acts in history creates an environment conducive to such acts happening again. We never really understand the minds of the people who carry out these acts since their works are reviled, destroyed and left mostly unstudied. As I poked the inedible layers of an onion down into the garbage disposal, I was thinking about the workday of a concentration camp guard during the days of the Nazis. What must it have been like to shoehorn dozens of Jews into a gas chamber? Could such work ever be enjoyable for someone? Suddenly I felt the urge to read the diary of a camp guard, but it seemed unlikely that the victors would have taken the pains to preserve such a disturbing document.
There were low clouds and wet streets as I set out this morning on my usual morning commute. As I headed inland, the clouds thickened and drizzle began to fall. There wasn't terribly much precipitation, but in the context of my lack of fenders, the streets were plenty wet. I found myself executing a trajectory that minimized the amount of water being thrown up by my tires: across the roughest asphalt and the seams between concrete gutters and the street. Obviously, the easiest solution to this "challenge" would have been to equip my bicycle with fenders, but in San Diego one never really considers the possibility of rain.
By the time I made it to work, I again had a humiliatingly well-defined stripe of sand down my back.
This affected the rest of the day, not so much the workday, but what happened afterwards. Since I needed a ride home to avoid getting drenched, I saw Al as my car-driving salvation. Complicating matters, however, was Kevin the troublemaking Database Administrator. He wanted to go out on the town tonight to drink some beers and "pick up some pussy." Somehow, against my better judgment, I found myself included on this excursion, even though this was not an especially free night for me. Kim had specifically requested that I come home before 9:00 pm to help out with the covering of all our possessions. On Thursday, you see, the landlord was to invade our house and rip up floorboards to try to track down and fix the source of a powerful water main break that has been roaring distractingly for well over a week now.
Al, Kevin and I found ourselves back at Kevin's place at La Mirage, standing around on the balcony looking out over the foggy busy electric scenery of Mission Valley below. We were mostly talking about work and how good an investment our stock options are, though Kevin also made mention of a beautiful girl who lives in one of the apartments diagonally below him. He looked down there once and saw her buck naked. Despite his best hopes, he has yet to see her again.
Inside Kevin's apartment, the stereo was pumping out a nauseating series of modern soul-influenced pop music. Music must really be awful if it still sounds bad even when you hear it while under the influence of, say, marijuana. Al tried to change the tunes, but was stopped cold in his tracks by the extra-fancy 100-disk CD changer, the only kind suitable for a Database Administrator. "One day that thing will fit on your wrist and cost $10," I observed.
Because of a recent spate of mailbombs and hackings from disgruntled members of the online community we maintain, we found ourselves talking about the FBI, an agent of whom has been in close communication with Al. My creativity was running wild, and, after glancing at Kevin's electric paper shredder, I said the following:
Did you know that the FBI has a machine that can put shredded documents back together? It's like a combination of a cotton gin and a computer scanner. It has little fingers that tease the shreds out of a pile, suck them in, scan them, and enter them into a database. Then it goes through its database and puts the shreds back together virtually. They're working on building a machine like this which can do the same with burned documents.
Both Al and Kevin were enchanted that such a machine could be built with modern technology. I never told them that I was kidding.
Note to self: when I go to Kevin's place, he always gets me fucked up but good.
The plan was for us three to hang out for awhile at Kevin's place and then to meet Kevin's boss and the tea-totalling network engineer down at Gordon Biersch, a large brewpub near our workplace. It was a straightforward enough social outing, except for the fact that it's always stressful to hang out with your boss when you're fucked up.
For some reason tonight was a busy one for Gordon Biersch. Kevin tooled around the parking lot (and several adjacent ones) for a good ten minutes looking for a spot. I have never been in a situation where an empty parking lot was such a cherished commodity. I could imagine a world in which the endangered empty parking lot had been reduced to a single lonely individual out there somewhere eluding the hordes of circling motorists. When we finally found our spot, we had to act aggressively.
On the way into the brewpub, Kevin rallied our animal ambitions, saying, "Let's go get us some pussy!" Then he proceeded to go through a couple surprising rituals designed to temporarily make himself more attractive. He slapped his face a few times to put some colour in his cheeks and then he flexed his arms to pump up his biceps. I've never seen this done before; my social circle is vastly different now from what it used to be.
Inside, Gordon Biersch was completely packed. As expected, there were plenty of fine women. The reptilian functions of Kevin's brain were in heaven. Most of the time I could see his gaze shooting over my shoulder, demanding the attention of one foxy lady after another. "I feel sorry for the next girl I get my hands on," he said. Everyone else was much more low-key about things sexual. Discussion focused mainly on work. Since this group consisted mostly of engineers, I found myself saying my interests lay mostly in low-level technological issues, as opposed to the fancy front ends I build for our much bally-hooed gizmo releases.
Unanimously it was agreed that I should break my curfew. And since I had no control over my transportation, sure enough I did.
When I came through the door "like a drunken Stanley" as Kim put it, I apologized for being late, but did so with a resentful tone of voice. I was resentful that I should feel the need to be apologizing at all.
At the time Kim was quietly hanging out with Ludimilla the Brazilian Girl and didn't know quite what to do with me. I'd invited Al inside, but Kim wouldn't put up even the thinnest veneer of friendliness for him. I had to remind her that it was partly my house and that I was the one who had paid for the "refreshments."
Kim was angry with me, but not as angry as I expected her to be. By the next morning she was understanding, realizing that it's impossible for a guy to promise he'll be home by a certain time when he goes out to a bar with the boys. She also understood that my transportation options had been limited by the rainy weather.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?990120 feedback
previous | next |
