Glowing Promise

[Had a largely pleasant 45-minute walk from Potrero Hill to the newer downtown area south of Market yesterday evening. I was going to meet Chris; I had the time, and I knew I needed the exercise. Down the hill on Vermont, then along Rhode Island Street and the design showroom area (new Borg cubes stylishly refer to the repurposed brick warehouses); past the old railyards where Mission Bay is slowly going up; down Folsom past (past!) the adult bookstores and an old workplace; and into downtown. All the new green-glass boxes glowed in the gathering gloom, and I was moving through the spaceship at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.]

[As gently psychedelic and slightly Christmas-y as it felt to stroll through all that wealthy modernity, I felt myself doing a slight Diana Morales, digging right down to the bottom of my soul. Not too long ago, a friend encouraged me to get professional, to join the world to which my law degree (and yet-to-be-achieved Bar membership) is supposed to give entree. He compared the free margaritas that were a perk of Friendly Neighborhood Cabaret employment to the implicitly high-priced, infused-vodka martinis I'd be enjoying with my well-dressed, well-paid and (one assumes) well-hung peers. (High-powered sex being a perk of corporate life, as Alexis Carrington taught us all.)]

[I thought of the possibilities of that world as I walked down Howard toward Main, and saw the larger-than-life letters C-H-A-R-L-E-S S-C-H-W-A-B shining like a row of tin stars of Bethlehem. I'm not too good for that world, heaven knows; I'm not a snob in that way, and I'm certainly not averse to personal wealth and luxury, or even getting out of debt and meeting my basic needs. But shouldn't I want what this world promises? The work as well as the rewards? Because when I did my Morales, I too felt nothing.]

[Except maybe how many schools and lunches and doctors appointments all those profits might have bought the kids...but not even that so strongly that I had a sudden resurgence of the never-strong fire that drove me to choose New College in the first place. "Just fucking pick, already," another very dear friend recently told me. Offer me an attractive choice, and I will.]

[(Then there was a bright smile welcoming me at the end of my walk, and then I felt something.)]

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