objects in the rear vision mirror

[substitute]

I miss Saturdays on the patio at Diedrich. It hit me hard today that I really wanted to go there and see my friends, hear their stories of the week and tell mine, talk about everything and nothing, maybe go for a meal later or just spend the evening talking.

I want those people back and that place. But it's not what those people need any more, and the place is gone.

It is probably not very grown-up to want and need that big social group and the hangout. Certainly the others in that group grew out of it into something more satisfying to them, and I want them to be happy.

I suppose I should figure out what it means for me that I miss that experience this much.

Comments

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

> It is probably not very grown-up to want and need that big social group and the hangout.

I dunno; it's the way humans have lived for most of our history as a species - in packs, hanging out. On a patch of veldt, in a village longhouse, in a tavern, on a streetcorner or a stoop. The coffeehouse in particular is the characteristic scene of half of European culture.

Groups sitting around in some sort of public leisure activity, playing games, drinking (a stimulant or a depressant), chatting. It's the way most cultures still live much of their adult lives, particularly the men (women being locked away doing awful domestic chores - the world still needs an armed Betty Freidan-ist movement). That we all have to pair-bond and fade away into household oblivion, never to be seen again, is a bizarre conceit of the American suburban class.