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sociologists are gathering
Thursday, May 20 1999
Sociologists from around the world are converging on the latest despairing white suburban community to be shot up by a troubled youth. This time the community is Conyers, near Atlanta, Georgia. Those whose job it is to explain such things are perplexed that the shooter didn't fit the well-established loser-with-a-gun profile. He didn't have a web page. He didn't have any Marilyn Manson records. He didn't even wear a trenchcoat. As far as anyone can tell, he didn't obsessively play violent videogames. Strangely enough, none of the guns he carried are banned by any current or pending legislation.
Partly as a result of weirdnesses from last night, Kim thought maybe I wanted some time to myself. So she headed off to Los Angeles to visit her friend, Terra, for the night. She called me on the way from her cell phone, explaining this all to me. In my mind she seemed to be suffering from a measured, controlled form of hysteria. But this sort of thing really isn't all that unexpected coming from her. I thought she was acting impulsively and told her I didn't exactly want her to go away like that[REDACTED]. I guess whatever I said to her gave her the warm fuzzies and she turned around and came back, even stopping by my workplace, Sophie the Miniature Schnauzer and all. Sometimes I suspect Kim is playing games with me and this sort of seemed like one of those occasions. In the middle of a hectic workday afternoon, I didn't really have a psychological receptacle for her presence, and I felt sort of awkward and on-the-spot talking to her. But the days at work have been steadily improving and my serotonin levels are recharging in the aftermath of last week's funk, so it was okay.
On the ride home this evening, I was watching (as I normally do) the wildlife going about its lazy, slightly whimsical activity in the San Diego River. In the lower channel I saw a two-foot-long fish porpoising (jumping out of the water at regular intervals) while a cormorant circled lazily nearby, uninterested in the spectacle. At around sunset I often see several dozen cormorants, looking like a flock of primitive flying reptiles, roosting on the big power lines that cross the river between the two bridges of the lower channel.
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