Summers I'd read, ride my bike, write letters, occasionally take the city bus to porn theaters downtown or on University Avenue.
Reading: in the park, in the bowling alley, on the grass at Mission Bay Park or occasionally at the Hilton or the Pier in O.B. Perry Anderson, Althusser, Macherey, Marx, Freud, Balibar, Karen Horney, Kafka, Burroughs, Kerouac, Braudel, Le Roy Ladurie, Trotsky, Balzac, Zola, Flaubert. The continents I chose to explore.
Bike: O.B., Balboa Park, Point Loma, Shelter Island, La Jolla, UCSD.
Letters: Lise, Jonathan, Nate, Kathy, Lise, Lise, Lise. If I'd been more assertive we'd have gotten together one of those summers. If I'd been less broken we'd have gotten together in San Francisco in 1989. It's a huge regret.
Porn: Candy Stripers, Debby Does Dallas, Through the Looking Glass, F. Back then you had to work to watch people fuck on film. Getting to the theater took effort. Sitting in the theater with drunk and desperate people took effort. It was better then, because it was seedy and at least marginally taboo.
I remember the taste of french fries at the bowling alley. Sitting in booths studying Althusser. Sometimes with my bike locked up outside, other times arriving on foot after walking the three long blocks, absorbed.
I want a new bike.