Monday, May 21, 2007

What are you doing?

Chris Colin, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle's SF Gate, hes been wondering what on earth everyone is doing lolling in the park in the middle of the workday in San Francisco. So he decided to find out. He just asked people why they weren't working, which seems to me a risky question given the delicate fiber of etiquette today. He skipped school-age kids and obvious tourists, going for the most evidently employable types.

He meets one fellow who's reading a short story manuscript and says he was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome 14 years ago and has been on disability ever since, working on his fiction writing. An older man is in hospice care, enjoying being outdoors when he can.

A choice respondent:

"John," who is 18 and was strolling through Yerba Buena Gardens one Thursday morning, laid out his typical itinerary: "Watch the grass grow, get high, hit on the ladies."

How does he pay rent? "If you ask 100 girls for $10, that's $1,000, that's rent," he explained logically.

How does he get them to part with their $10?

"I tell them I can't live without them," he answered, with some disappointment at the caliber of question, as though he'd been asked how many moons our planet has.

One of Colin's most interesting observations is that very few people understand why other people are like them:

A funny thing about these swarms of daytime layabouts: They are quietly self-reflective swarms. Almost all of them admitted to me that they often wonder about their fellow malingerers. The funny thing is, everyone has an answer for themselves but is baffled by everyone else. Possibly this is like life itself.

Posted by Evan Hughes at 02:42 PM

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