2:13 a.m. - 2002-01-10
I think I'll imagine my date with her now...
Tonight, when I was walking downtown leaving work, I happened to fall into step with a homeless man who was headed in the same direction as me. We both stopped at a red light and watched the cars turn left in front of us, each in our own world, though mine, presumably, is more in sync with the general population.

He was talking to himself, randomly making comments about this and that all in a rather jovial fashion.

As the light turned green one last SUV decided to go for it and turned left in a manner that would have taken a less SF traffic weary group of pedestrians out in one big lump. We all took a good look inside the car and gave the mandatory scowl to the driver, who in this case was a young beautiful Asian woman wearing an evening gown.

To this the homeless man said "Oooh, yeah. I'd go out on a date with her. MmmmHmm�" and continued on.

The first thing that struck me was that he noticed the same thing that I did, the woman was fine as well as a being a menace behind the wheel of a sixty thousand dollar truck. The next thing that went through my mind was to wonder under what circumstance he saw himself on a date with this woman.

Was he imagining himself in a tuxedo by her side in the SUV returning home from the opera?

Did he envision taking her back to his swank loft where they would imbibe in a night cap before he seduced her into spending the next three days at his place with cell phones turned off and employment responsibilities ignored?

Or was he thinking that he would take her to the warm spot by the cable car turn about where they would share a bottle of wine in a paper bag~~a bottle of wine with a screw off top.

Chances are, I thought about the date he alluded to with much more attention to detail than he himself did. As a matter of fact, I'm sure of it because I recall him smiling at a sleeping baby in a stroller being pushed toward us not ten seconds later and expressing his approval of that situation as well.

The thing of it is (and there is a thing of it), I realized that I am much closer in relation to the homeless man than I am to the woman in the SUV. I, too, was looking into her truck from the outside and thinking, if not saying out loud, that the woman was aesthetically pleasing to view.

The idea of me taking her on a date, while maybe a step or two up from the screw off cap wine scenario, would be nearly as ridiculous. I doubt gong to see a movie with me, or attending a dancehall/hip-hop club would be much more impressive to her than the cable car turn around, even if I could get us on the guest list.

I don't go to operas. I don't drive an SUV. The gems on the woman's ears cost more than the entire amount that I have been compensated for my work as bar baboon since I started a month ago.

I don't feel bad about that fact, I just felt like acknowledging it. I am much closer to being on the street than I am to buying a new Cadilac.

The beauty of it all is that I got to see that sleeping baby too, and my man was right again.

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