Why the last? I am moving to Lubbock soon. Jimmy Buffet's classic tune "Last Mango in Paris" was running through my head this past Saturday night as I spent an evening at a Riverwalk restaurant attending a dinner in celebration of the upcoming marriage of a friend of mine. But aside from my friend and his fiancee, I knew nobody else there and had little desire to speak with complete strangers that evening.
Had this been three years ago, the occasion might have been different. Had I not drifted away from my friend over the years, I might have known more of the people there. As often happens, though, people grow apart. And back in the fall of 2006, my increasing dissatisfaction over my job combined with my brother being diagnosed with a terminal nerve disorder, and other personal difficulties that were dogging me at the time, caused me to turn inward and away from those who were once close to me. That was hardly an unexpected development. I've always been an introverted, introspective person - preferring solitude to constant socializing.
Over time, my introspective nature has given me a healthy regard for the privacy of others. I'm hesitant to ask personal questions of people I do know, and never ask them of those I don't. And if there is one personal question I absolutely cannot stand, but that is often asked of complete strangers, it is this one: "What do you do?"
I know that in most of modern-day America, that question is considered perfectly socially acceptable, but I've never liked it. At times, I've been compelled to reply "About what?" - but I was not so gruff this past Saturday. Instead I answered the question through gritted teeth and hated doing so. While I can't stand talking about work in any case, in light of the situation I've recently been through, answering question after question about such with people I didn't know (and as the evening wore on, didn't particularly like) was excruciating. Once the dinner was over I headed straight home, declining an invitation to hang out at a nearby martini bar.
Besides, there would have been little point in doing so even had I not been hanging around such annoying individuals. The San Antonio City Council, in all of its infinite Stalinist stupidity, years ago outlawed smoking in all dining and drinking establishments within city limits. When did most Americans become such docile quakebuttocks? Smokeless bars? The mere thought of such is nauseating.
At least I can still enjoy a fine Perdomo cigar on my own back porch...for now.
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