Monday, August 6, 2001
Dinner at home: shrimp and yellow bell pepper stir-fry. Haircut. Today on MUNI I saw a young black kid vandalizing the Forest Hill station and the inside of a MUNI train car. He had a maroon hairpick sticking out the back of his giant afro, and I wondered if it was a fashion statement or if he was a victim of a practical joke or if he considered that a normal storage receptacle and possibly there were other hair care tools somewhere in there. His writing device was a thin-nibbed marker of color, and he didn't write anything legible—just swirls and random arcs all over. The train was packed, and maybe fifty people saw him and watched him deface public property, and no one did a thing because, like me, they all were probably thinking he had a gun, knife, or fist that you didn't want to encourage in your direction. I could feel everyone around me collectively sigh and wonder where the justice was.