Usually when I have an appt somewhere I drive over the evening before and spend the night iChat parking lot. It saves stress and frustration for everyone, me and everyone else on the road. My truck doesn’t move very fast and takes forever to actually start moving as well, not something you want to be in during rush hour traffic with angry drivers all around.

So anyway, I usually pass thru downtown after dark, anywhere from 6-9pm. I’ve always been amazed at the nightlife. So many! Every night!
I’ve never felt part of that crowd, I never had the money nor the desire to go to crowded bars full of loud music and strobing lights. (a nice quiet laid back pub I could do though)

But I’ve noticed the last few trips that the people all look “fake” to me. The girls in their jeggings and micro skirts, the boys in their hip skinny jeans and beanie caps. The condo dwellers out chatting on the sidewalks with their teeny tiny apartment dogs. The only ones I see who look halfway real are the occasional middle-ages to older couples I see obviously out for a night together, those make me smile and hope all is well for them.

But the rest, the valets, the parking attendants, the bouncers at the doors to the clubs, the city dwellers, the students, and the young professionals…all give me a feeling of an alternate dimension. They always have, but never so strong as now.

I realized as I thought about this, trundling along in the slow lane at ~28mph, that the people that look real to me are the homeless people.
They are the ones who, to me, seem to know how the world really works. At least, my world, what is now, currently, my world.