There's an old joke: what do you get if you put two nerds in a room? An argument.
My friend Nick's father passed away unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago; a shock to us all. While I didn't know him personally, it and a few other things put a lot of stuff in perspective for me. Nick just came down to the Bay. He was all set up to be a law student here come the fall semester, but there was some doubt about whether that would come off, what with the tragedy and all. It's a touchy situation. I don't know what to say to the guy. I wish I had some wisdom, but I've never had to deal with death in that way, and moreover I have never had a strong father figure in my life the way he has; don't know what he's lost. I had a couple dudes who were both better than decent at giving me the dad-juice, but neither is really a driving force behind who I am and what I do in the way that Nick's father was for him. So I'm more than a little lost in the face of his pain.
He's here now though, and we had good pizza on his mom's dime and we ended up talking politics, which inevitably rolls around to the sorry state of the electorate and body politic vis-a-vis the 2000 election and my voting for Nader. Nick believes that there's something wrong with people, with third-party voters, with anyone who'll follow their impulse to express themselves over and above their responsability to be pragmatic. I tend to take the stance that there's something wrong with the party, with the Democratic party, with an ossified instistution that has ceased to mean much of anything to anyone. We're both right, and both wrong. But it's a tough thing, having a heated discussion. I'm argumentative by nature, competative. I don't refrain from laying into someone because they've suffered personal tragedy. Maybe I aught to. Maybe I aught to listen more. The argument reveals as many flaws in my character and ethos as it does anything else. Me and my ego and my anti-establishment neruosis. Plenty of food for thought.
Earlier today I did another big ride, taking an enduro-trip to the tip-top of the biggest hill overlooking Berkeley. I got smoked on the way up by a couple of pros; passed like I was standing still on the uphill by guys with ultra-light bikes and spandex body suits. I roll in cut-off jeans on a 40-pound Shwinn, so it's not a real hit to my manhood, but I wish I could outperform them still. It was a nice ride though, the best views yet. Me longing for a camera way up above it all. There's definitely something to going through the physical exertion of climbing a hill and then being rewarded with the wind and the vista, something like being a god.
