8:55 PM 4/18/2007

Monday at work, we had a visit from Joe Murphy. He worked with us for many years, then he got a job in California. I had some warning that he would be around. It turned out that a group of people were hatching a plan to have dinner, and by dint of working late, I managed to get invited. Turn your head slightly, and we would have arrived in a parallel universe where I didn't. But as I was packing up to leave, Tony and I piled into Joe's borrowed car and we headed for DC.

The big storm had just torn through, so on our way we had to detour around a closed section of East-West highway. I suppose some large trees came down in the wind.

The motivated faction in this group had decided on 2 Amys Pizza. Somehow I never knew about this place. It's in the Cathedral neighborhood of DC, and I thought I knew my way around pretty good. There's barely one block of restaurants in that spot, but since I have no need to pass along Macomb Street anymore, I haven't looked down the block.

When we walked in, I recognized the hostess. There we are, eight current and former employees of Olsson's, assembling for dinner, and we bump into Debbie, who was briefly a cashier at the Georgetown store. Last I knew, Debbie was working at Pizza Paradiso on P St. but that was years ago. I figured she was long gone. Tony and Joe never worked with her, but she had already recognized some of our party and shuffled them back to the bar to wait for a table.

And wait we did. That place is crowded. The eight of us were trying to stay out of the way, and doing a terrible job of it. People had to squeeze past us to make it to the bathrooms. I started salivating over the plates of food landing at the tables nearby.

Being with people - even coworkers - is odd to me. There, I've said it. Work is about me at a desk with a computer. Three days a week I share the office with my supervisor. We cover the seven days of tech support between us. I leave the florescent lights off and use only my desk lamp when it's just me. (Heck, I'm alone in semidarkness in my kitchen right now.) But I bring it up because these events where I socialize with a group. Can take on vivid significance in my otherwise solitary life.

Once late at night after many drinks, I was lying next to my girlfriend and she asked me: "Why are you such a loner?" In Vino Veritas - But if you'll pay attention, you'll see that I'm not always alone by choice. Or at least the choice I did make had nothing to do with it. Being alone is a consequence I didn't look far enough into. I chose to be myself, and when I was alone, I chose to indulge in what activities were handy - the things I was happy doing alone. So I don't play team sports, I prefer cycling; skiing; long walks. I play music, but never in groups. I write to match how I think, which is about the things that seem only to interest me. Am I trying to change all this? Yes. But gradually. Otherwise, as I wrote earlier today, I feel too much like an observer on your planet.

Soldiers' stories from Iraq on PBS

When I got back home, I was revved up from the wine and the conversation. I turned on the TV. Don't hate me for this - the news was all about the Virginia Tech shooting that happened that morning. I didn't care. School shootings are serious tragedy, it's true - and this one probably the worst of its kind. But with a lot of the tragedy that strikes these days, it doesn't really affect me, does it. I can't predict it or control it, and the odds are good that I won't be a victim of it. The first day of a spectacular event is always the worst for factual revelations. 9/11 will always be my benchmark: I feel like telling the television reporters to not to rush it: Go investigate and don't come back until you can explain the truth to me. But that's the flaw in the model: They will do neither. Newspaper is your best bet for sober analysis. I don't go in for flash. I don't need my news quick, and I really don't need it wrong. Even if the lies are corrected later, somewhere deep in my head the lie will live its own life forever.

I turned to PBS and found soldiers reading poetry. The voices meant a lot to me. I don't like it that we are in Iraq as an army. I wish there was a way to be there more diplomatically. It proves to anybody looking that we have no imagination. We need a way to show others the good life, not to point guns at them. I think we could learn from each other, but we won't. We lock ourselves in this struggle, and that's the first mistake.

There was also a dimension to it - I never finished rewriting the bit I lost about Babel when my battery died - but somehow I connected the two. Is that what the filmmakers intended?

I also thought: There are times when you have to be tough to get what you want; or just what is right. But killing is never right. And, don't think it's okay to kill in response either. In this one moment the term "Peace Studies" that I had always snickered at made more sense to me. We could be the good example, or we could just go on killing. We could find a way out - we could bring everybody to some future - but, why bother? We brought guns. It seems a shame not to use them.

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