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2007-01-27 - 9:45 p.m. Some random writing Just cleaned out the old daytimer. Found some gold. Hope you agree. There is a grizzled old black man standing wedged between two garbage bins who smiles bashfully as I pass. I would not have looked twice, no more than is required to convey my Canadian Burning Man smile-at-everyone ethic, had he not said "Scuse me, I couldn't help myself" as I pass. I thought he was in the midst of rummaging but the lids are closed; one of his hands is visible. His bedclothes lay strewn on the sidewalk a few steps further along. I have interrupted his morning piss in smiling at him. I cut off a man in a large and fabulous hat with a large and fabulous afro and a large and fabulous car, blue with white race stripes, a PT cruiser on the I-80 toll bridge crossing to San Francisco. I was insistent by edging into his lane, and he did his best to inch forward and not let me in. Obstinate youth won out again, so I gave the woman $6 to cover both our tolls. Are there any Caucasian people who work those toll booths? How many African American mothers are threatened over that three dollars? I have yet to hand over my money to a white woman, or a man. And the tenderness of their little latex gloves -- protecting them from the money -- the wonders, the miracles we expect from plastic. Three dollars for a breakfast strikes me as obscene in its thrift. Have I adapted so very much to cities of smaller stature, where rents are reasonable and a house can still be bought, such that I can't imagine not forking over for breakfast? I will never become used to monochromatic money, to thick wads of bills that amount to nearly nothing. I miss discovering the price of a night out in my change purse.
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