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living in Ocean Beach
Saturday, November 14 1998
The new bed Kim bought got put through its paces this morning and let me just say, it's far better than the one upon which we reclined back at the Normal Heights cabana.
On an errand back to the cabana, we stopped at the Bed Bath and Beyond in Mission Valley. The very name of that store repells me, and even Kim says she never imagined she'd be going into a place with such a needlessly domestic name. But we need all kinds of things for our new place, and (at least to Kim) the easiest way to get such things is to go out and buy them retail. I couldn't bring myself to actually go into the store, so I took Sophie for a dismal walk about the parking lot. The poor little Schnauzer found very little of interest, and the same was true of me. Eventually I found my way to a bench in front of the store where I sat wallowing in my boredom, watching the extremely conventional people going into and out of the store. I felt like an utter sellout just to be spending this amount of time so close to the motion-sensitive front doors. As expected, Kim spent a terribly long time inside and when she emerged she was pushing a grocery cart full of cooking gadgets. Sigh.
Up in Normal Heights, back at the cabana, we gathered up most of the rest of our things and tidied the place up. Rita was there and was being very nice, offering us lots of little things we'll need to launch our new lives on Ocean Beach.
Returning to Ocean Beach, we continued setting up our new home. We also met some of the neighbors, one of whom was a long-haired and slightly annoying young man who made an unnecessarily big happy fuss over Kim's "tattooage."
Kim and I ate a Greek Pizza down at Theo's, the pleasant Greek restaurant we frequently patronize on Newport Street (Ocean Beach's bum-infested "Downtown"). In amongst the skate dudes, surfers, punks, and hippies, there's a girl who looks a hell of a lot like Ana, the mother of Nemo and erstwhile girlfriend of Raphæl back in Charlottesville.
I'd been running on a sleep deficit since the company retreat so I took a nice nap in the afternoon while Kim went off to rub bodies at the Victoria Rose. Every story Kim tells me about that place makes it sound like a high-class whore house. But though there is plenty of sexually-charged bodywork going on there, there is nothign overt of that sort, at least not from the women giving massages. Still, at the end of every day Kim home with surprisingly big cash from her tips. It's the sort of thing that gives me confidence in the face of my sudden reassessment of the desirability of my job.
I paced the floor a lot today thinking about the perceived injustice I now felt at the hands of my job. I rehearsed things I might say when asked on Monday morning why I hadn't come early for "Human Development" like everyone else. It made me sick to have to do so, especially since it was sapping away valuable energy that would otherwise go towards the things I'd much prefer to be doing.
I took Sophie for a walk down to the beach, some three blocks away. Along the way there were several inviting parties happening and on the beach itself were a couple groups of partiers gathered around bonfires. I crossed a pile of sand en route to the crashing surf and nearly stepped on a couple sleeping on the darkened sand.
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