2005-05-13

I went running again tonight, though not on some nostalgic fueled revisiting of my past and the city. I couldn�t read, TV did not hold my attention, and the rain outside was not some peaceful white noise to calm me. I�m always keyed up when I get back from visiting family. I was anxious about my silent Sunday, the vapid conversation at lunch on Monday. The long silences and unspoken words hanging between us the entire time. And not even at the airport, when my father slipped me four five-dollar bills for cocktails was anything of import said. And so, after stewing on it for two days, I went running.

I ran down Duboce though, and around Fulsom to California. I hate the area around Costco, and the Nordstrom Rack and other accoutrements of banal middle classness, or rather classlessness. The Best Buy well lit beside the elevated freeway. I ran by these suburban boxes because I didn�t want pretty pictures in my head of painted ladies and romantic architecture. I wanted dirt and squalor and construction and leather bars. I wanted my glowing white iPod to be a beacon of my social standing, thereby making me a target. I was angry, and I wanted someone to take it out on. Instead though I used up the pavement, went through all the things I�d left unsaid. Speculated about the things that he�d left unsaid. I skipped through what seemed a thousand songs, to impatient for most things, not at all in the moment. It�s not like the random let me down even, it was just me. I ran up Mission, ignoring the Metreon and the park, then up Van Ness because I was tired of being alone, of raging at the world and having the world ignore me in my rage. It wasn�t until I hit the outskirts of North Beach that I managed to calm down a little bit. I put on Yellowcard and pretended I was a Volkswagen in a commercial. Sleek engineering capably handling the trials of life. Again, marketing as a metaphor. Go me. I ended my run exhausted rather than refreshed. Soaked to the bone, which I didn�t mind as the chill on the outside matched the chill I was cultivating on the inside.

I�ve managed to avoid pouring myself a drink. Another night maybe, but it smacks too close to how the rest of those silent southerners deal with the uncomfortable emotions their lives have brought up late on rainy nights. Besides, a hangover always makes me irritable the next morning and I have visiting sales staff in. I�d hate to turn their oft repeated witticisms around on them. Actually, I�d probably love it, but it�s the cruel streak I�m on at the moment. A streak that no amount of listening to Dah Dah Dah is going to get me out of.

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