This about sums up my life, and well, life in San Francisco.

I’m walking home past the Laurel Heights strip mall with a copy of Harry Potter and the HPB sans dust jacket tucked under my arm. It’s thick and has the hard black cover with the title in gold on the spine. Ahead of me, I can see a guy standing by a little make-shift podium with a big poster on it demanding the resignation of Dick Cheney (“and the jerk or the dweeb or the shrub (I forget the words) can go second”). He has a clip board and a smile so you know he’s looking for signatures.

Although I have some agreement with the sentiment, I doubt this is the way to go about it and so I walk briskly past, not looking at clip-board guy. But he’s trying to get my attention of course, so he says to me, “Hey! Is that Plato? Are you reading Plato?!”

Now mind you, I don’t know this guy from Adam and vice-versa. I scurry on my way.

Well, you know, it could have been Plato I had tucked in my arm.

Nah, that book sits on my shelf for show now, next to the equally impressive-looking Aristotle and Heidegger hard-bound volumes. I read Harry Potter on the bus.