I finally bought the newish Death Cab CD last night and not a moment too soon. Not only is it the most depressing CD I've bought in the past few months (come on, there's a song about glove boxes; ridiculous? yes. frown-worthy? of course) but it perfectly fit my experiences last night.
After working out, I caught the quick bus to Aaron's work. A few stops away, practically in tears from that goddamn CD, a girl screams out, "What the fuck? That guy just stole my purse!" and rushes out the door to catch him. This, of course, spins off in my head to what I would do in that event (cry, scream, demand everyone on the bus give me a dollar to make up for their purses not being stolen), then I imagine me kicking everyone's ass (not possible), and then I realized that the thief in question had been sitting right in front of me and that, had my purse not been snugly squeezed between my hip and the side of the bus, it would have been me crying and screaming and ultimately slunking to Aaron's work for sympathy and pear cider.
The kid, who happened to be black, couldn't have been older than 20, had horrible acne on his cheeks, and was wearing a black hoodie covering most of his face and black jeans. I hate when stereotypes prove themselves.
Later in the night, after watching Sophie's Choice and folding approximately ten years' worth of laundry, Aaron and I heard an immense fight going on two blocks away. Since we live on the top floor of my building, we rushed to the window to observe. At this one corner in the only pseudo-parking lot in my neighborhood (where no one ever parks for fear of death or grand theft auto), what sounded like tens but was probably only a few people were screaming at and shoving each other around. Some girls were yelling something along the lines of, "INCOMPREHENSIBLE-PROBABLY-VULGAR-CHATTER CHEAT! CHEATER! YOU CHEATED!" and then one guy would yell, "Hey! HEY!" and then another guy would yell, "LISTEN TO ME! I DIDN'T--" and he would be cut off with a, "LET ME GO!" or perhaps a, "LET ME AT HIM!" We called the cops, since it was a public and perhaps a domestic disturbance, and shut the window and Aaron said, "Only in the city."
Only in the city what? Only in the city would a couple and their friends have a fight to the death [of dignity] in public over fidelity issues? Only in the city do you have to worry about getting robbed in a public arena? Only in the city do people turn their heads and shut their windows, glad it's not them this time?
And if that is true, what is it about the city that makes it possible? Is it the anonymity? The frustration with the cost of living? A general misanthropy?
It's been a long time since I lived in a small town, but I know theft and infidelity and abuse exist there too. The difference is, I never heard about it or if it happened to me, no one else ever heard about it. In a city as dense in population as San Francisco, I can't avoid it and I'm faced with decisions such as, do I help her run after the guy who stole her stuff when that guy could hurt me a lot more than I could hurt him or do I tsk and nod to the guy who says, "That's a shame," and turn up the volume on my CD player? And then I get to think thoughts like, in a time when the earth is rebelling against us, why do we have to make decisions like that?
In other news, my ovaries hurt.