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Another day in Berkeley

Any day selling fish on Telegraph Ave is unpredictable. With college kids, utopian dreamers, stoners, drunks, hippies, yuppies, the homeless, the street preachers, a few crazy vendors, and of course the cops, strange is the consistent baseline, and the daily variations can be wild.

Always expect the unexpected, is what you're expecting me to say, but I fooled you and won't say that. Still, as l rolled the cart toward my block on the Ave, something in my gut told me that today would be especially on the edge or even over the top. 

My gut was wrong, though. It was a predictably dull day. Some fish sold themselves, and some pretty women ignored me, and there was preaching, and Umberto and Jasper argued about something, but only for a few minutes and not very loudly. 

Oh, and whatever was going down last weekend must've gone down, because the police are back. Plenty of cops were riding their preposterous 10-speeds bikes the wrong way on one-way streets, and harassing the homeless, demanding ID from people you could guess don't carry ID, and treating the general public with ordinary disrespect and intimidation.

All in all, just another day in Berkeley.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Didn't see Jacque on the Avenue, but when I came home his voice on my machine invited me to dinner and another video double feature "some night soon." He said he'd had a terrific time last night, which surprised me. I enjoyed myself last night more than I enjoyed Jacque — it was fun being intentionally antagonistic and more of an ass than I usually am.

But I'm not really bubbling over with feelings of friendship for the guy, so I called back, thinking I'd say I was busy and can we put it off for a week or three…

Instead of Jacque or an answering machine, though, Lori answered the phone, and we talked for maybe 20 minutes, about good books, French films, idiots in the news, and what it's like being married to an eggplant. Well, actually neither of us used the word 'eggplant', but when I asked how she likes being married to Jacque she said it's wonderful. I wasn't convinced. and she quickly changed the subject.

I'd bet bagels to balsa woof that last night was the first and most intelligent conversation she'd had for a while, and she talked me into dinner and a movie with her and Jacque, on Monday night.

♦ ♦ ♦  

There are no further amusing anecdotes of the day, except that Judith bought seven boxes of generic Pop Tarts a few weeks past their expiration dates, on sale for 25¢ each. That works out to about 4¢ per Pop Tart, and she gave me four boxes for free, which works out to nothing per Pop Tart, so for dinner I had 24 expired but free Pop Tarts.

From Pathetic Life #22
Friday, March 22, 1996

This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.

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