accustomed as i am to the towns and cities of the pacific northwest, kansas city took me a bit by surprise: i had to walk blocks and blocks to find a starbucks. but find one i did, and sipped a grande christmas blend while muzak played "chestnuts roasting on a open fire." at the next table a japanese free-lance marketeer (mostly wireless networks, i guess) was networking with an indian marketeer, who used to work for "fairy dust." in the new economy (read post-meltdown) no one is hiring, so free-lancing sub-contractors have to hustle.
it's a strange new world. in topeka the police and their dogs inspected the luggage on our bus. they took off and questioned a seemingly exceptionally nice grandfather based on the smell of one of his checked bags. the man who had spent the entire trip talking to condoleesa rice and robert macnamara about the vice president's need to leave the earth on december 15th, left the bus when we arrived in kansas city. a concerned fellow rider had asked him whether he would like to go to the hospital."robert" told "oboy" that he should get off the bus, because the man was definitely a secret agent. although he (they) had a ticket to new york, he left with his powder blue blanket and pillow, quietly talking so the other people on the bus would not hear where they were going. a woman, nearly totally hidden in a black leather coat with a fur-lined hood, had fled in terror into the laramy cold. her ticket had been to michigan, but she felt hot.
so, in this culture of make believe in have pretended to eremeticism, but i am eating ginger bread rather than fasting. i can cast out no demons. here in the starbucks of the kansas city financial district i am surrounded by people who in their worship of the economy are much more devout than i.
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