2004-07-28 - 2:44 a.m.

Yesterday was the start of the DNC--I left work an hour early and got to work an hour and fifteen minutes early.

Today was a little different--from Lechmere, where yesterday I walked my former train route without incident, today the construction at Leverett Circle, completely unrelated to the DNC, forced the footbridge over it to change routes in midair yet again, so pedestrians had to go through the now closed Science Park station. This guy, who looked like a youthful combination of Will Smith and Samuel L. Jackson, smoking a cigarillo, he and I exchanged what the fuckglances and walked through the defunct station together.

Thank god I left early again this morning, as I knew this was going to be trouble. Leverett Circle is one of those parts of Boston that really do need pedestrian footbridges (there�s maybe seventeen different places traffic could be coming from, depending on the lights, and a ton of ground to cover--you�d be an idiot to not take the annoying footbridge), and we found ourselves at the Spaulding rehab center a little lost and surrounded by various flavors of law enforcement--we walked through parking lots hoping to see a little less fence �till a military cop with a Southern accent told us to get out of the area because we were lacking credentials, even though we had followed our route the only way we possibly could have gone.

My new buddy and I walked back the we had came, chatting. He was from LA but came up to Boston to make DNC credentials for other people. Like many folks from LA, he�d like to come back to live here for a few and then move on to NYC.

Back at Leverett, I stood staring at our possible options, which were: retreating back over the footbridge to nowhere, a dirt path that ended in a roadblock, the parking lot/delegate access point where we had been asked to leave, and running across three narrow points in the highway, hopping from island to island. I lit up a cigarette and stared some more.

We chose the highway, and, safely across, I led him behind the State Police station and through their lot, towards the Esplanade, over a different footbridge, through MGH, and the back of Beacon Hill, ultimately parting ways at Government Center. This was so he could get to the other side of the Fleet Center. It took him a half hour to walk around a building (and he never finished his cigarillo). But it was fun--he was a great guy and we kept cracking each other up the whole time.

This whole thing is weird. That�s my big DNC story, and if I didn�t live in Somerville, I wouldn�t have one. Almost everyone I know lives in Allston, J.P., or Mission Hill--where nothing has happened (although I could have told you that ahead of time). And there�s nobody in town. I mean it. Nobody. The delegates and especially the media people with their sexless-swaddled bodies (pinstripes are popular) are quite easy to pick out, and not from a crowd. I mean, it�s just them. Everyone�s gone.

For every Bostonian, there�s three media people and twenty cops. Military cops. Park rangers with very un-park-like black vests quartered in Faneuil Hall. My new buddy and I passed by several stretcher-filled and thankfully empty tent-hospitals erected in case of �disaster.� Marines patrolling what one was my train route over the dam. Coast guard helicopters. Vermont cops walking down State Street. Acronyms I have never seen before, keeping the peace. Big, beefy guys with buzz cuts, four to an unmarked detective car. Eighteen-year-old soldiers milling about subway entrances like we�re war torn, giving everyone the evil eye.

I�ve never felt more safe in my entire life.

I�ve never felt more paranoid in my entire life.

SERIOUSLY--you have been warned.

Smoking a butt outside of work, three transport trucks drove by (of course in a pack), each emblazoned with a huge blow-up picture of a partial-birth abortion, and the Kerry-Edwards logo.

Way to be a complete fucking asshole. Way to be deceptive and mean and cruel. Not only are these prophets the kind of fuckers who beat their wives, they�re they kind of fuckers who stalk them after their wives pack their things and go. They�re the kind of people who are so miserable in their own lives, so pathetic, so angry for it, that there�s no participating in society left, it�s all hate, it�s all nobody�s ever gonna care about me so fuck them I�m gonna drive a truck covered in hate so people can feel my pain too, because why should they feel love when I�m not capable of it. It�s in the end, all I want to do is smear my own shit on everyone, including (and most likely especially) my own friends. They give raving lunatics a bad name. I�m sure there�s people holding signs that are so impressionable that I could have a field day selling encyclopedias to them, but I�m not talking about those poor folks.

Fuck you, you inconsiderate bastards. I feel no pity for you, lying--capitalizing on the fact that people don�t know any better, striving to keep the world a nice ignorant place, making everyone feel horrible, getting off covering everyone in your own shit.

Seriously--if you truly believe that every life is precious, do you really think it�s a good idea to freak out people who are driving around two-ton cars, just to get your tinfoil message across? I mean, seriously--think about it.

And showing a picture of the end result of an operation that is only done in incredibly extreme cases, just to make everybody puke and think about what an asshole you are. It�s quite obvious that you want to kill yourself, so do your friends and family and everyone who knows you the favor of just fucking doing it so you can go to your Jesus.

Sorry to be so bitter. Extreme presentation breeds extreme reaction, and hate breeds nothing but hate. I always try to keep myself above it, but I really needed to get that off my chest.