Beginnings

Two days ago I wore a Barack Obama for President t-shirt. I have owned it for a while but had not worn it yet for fear of all of the approving looks. That day I thought why-not and wore it to the coffee shop, pushing my son in the stroller. On the next corner, where the laborers sit every day and wait for work, a tall black man saw me and jumped up exclaiming "I'm not mad at you!" approaching me, approaching the intersection. He yelled "I'm not mad at you!" again and then told me he could never vote for John McCain. I told him McCain was far too old anyway.
Yesterday, on Spring Street a portly, blonde, middle-aged white lady accidentally knocked over a delivery bicycle by way of her considerable draft onto a Chinese boy standing at the curb with his grandmother. The blonde woman was horribly embarrassed, while the grandmother, terribly angry, spat what must have been a Cantonese sailor's string of epithets. With every loudly chirped curse, the boy wailed louder still. I walked on.
This morning I witnessed, from the back, a lovely shaped woman with long, black curly hair riding a black Schwinn bicycle down Kenmare wearing a form fitting bright emerald green dress. She rode easily and I found it hard not to admire her from 30 meters out.