antisocial shut-in

I've entered a dangerous time in the life of my cold. After a lovely 10 hours of sleep, I'm functioning at about 70% of normal capacity, and I'm desperate to get out of my apartment. But I'd probably recover faster if I just stayed here and continued to recouperate. I've never been one to be good with present discipline for future reward. On the other hand, as sick as I am of my apartment (no pun intended), if I leave it, I have to brush my teeth and put on a bra, which doesn't sound very appealing either.

Something called the Love Parade is happening in SF today. Actually, I think the official name is the "LoveFest" but the main event is a parade, and it apparently has its roots in a "Love Parade" protest that took place in Germany in 1989 a few months prior to the toppling of the Berlin Wall. M is very bitter because she wanted to go to it, but she has to go to the review session for Graduate Microeconomics, because they have a test on Tuesday. I took Grad Micro last year, and I remember I was late to the review session because the 5 wasn't running because of the parade (which at the time I knew nothing about). This is one of those things about living in SF that I should probably enjoy and take advantage of, but even if I weren't sick, all of my few friends are busy anyway. Beyond that, I suppose that there's something that seems a little silly and redundant to me about an event like the Love Parade in a city like San Francisco. It can't possibly retain much of its protest-driven origins. What would they be protesting against? The stiffling conservatism of San Francisco? The unreasonable government officials who let them use the grassy square in front of city hall as the LoveFest festival site? I suppose it's a celebration of the sort of city/community we live in, and I'm certainly all for that. I guess I just don't want to be at it. I think part of my problem is that as a frequenter of public transportation, my central impression of parades and protests is as something that makes it inconvenient for me to get where I'm trying to go. The anti-war protests in downtown Portland used to make me absolutely crazy (I'm sure some of you remember my rants: "I don't support the war! NO ONE in Portland supports the war! Why don't they go to central Oregon and tie up traffic and inconvenience people there!?"). Same deal with Critical Mass. I support and celebrate a whole mob of bicyclists getting in the way of all the cars trying to leave downtown, but I'm not in a car. I'm helping to save the earth on a crowded, smelly bus, and I just want to go home.

Three days with a cold and apparently I've become an angry, antisocial shut-in. Except not really, because I did leave the apartment yesterday to meet with M and E (and we had a lovely lunch at a place wittily named "The Crepevine"), and I'll have to leave it at some point today because I'm out of toilet paper, and if I keep using tissues instead I'll run out of them as well.