after dinner colin, marcy and i sit on the patio, colin has some music in the background, the others are inside passing joints, just kidding, they're just talking and such, i think lin and nathaniel are playing . . . it doesn't matter what they're doing, we're talking about the last time we did a no king's march, earlier in the summer, how this country got into such a mess, colin and marcy see reasons for optimism, primarily based on the young people they see in their line of work, colin at the vineyard, marcy at the hospital and clinics where she practices, she sees young people working hard, being practical about their life choices, their sensibilities, their free time, their innate generosity, in stark, stark, stark contrast with their parents generation, these young people have grown up living with ethnic diversity, gender flexibility, tolerance, it's normal to them, as normal as inking and piercings and expressions of self, they don't care if someone is queer or trans or brown or white or black or buddhist or thin or heavy, this stuff is their normal, these young people are, simply put, hard-working and practical, they have rent and car payments . . . by now its gotten dark, our conversation turns to ourselves, our state of being, marcy and colin as independent-minded single people, career-oriented, while i'm in a committed relationship, don't give a thought about my career, it pays the bills, is boring but i'm good at it, and fits our lifestyle, and so on . . . none of us are ambitious for more than what we have, food, clothing, shelter, marcy and colin don't crave what they don't have, i certainly don't, we wonder what it is that drives people to the level of hatred and bigotry and fear that's exhibited in our sad, dysfunctional country, how someone so flawed could be perceived as anything other than a blight upon humanity . . . at this point we sigh and give up and talk about lesser things, how good the wine is, how pretty the night, how to keep mice from chewing the wires in the car engine, you know, the stuff of life, the mundane, the dull, the real, the wrong, the right.