I am always irrationally aggressive around snobs, I just have never liked them, and every now and then, when the snobbish parts of me get exposed, I swallow and appreciate it. I went over to George’s apartment above his art gallery today to see the neew computer that he bought for $500, I was quite prepared to find it a piece of junk. I mean, my computer cost nearly $3,000 and I have never bought a computer from anyone but Apple, I am a computer snob for sure, I was trying to persuade George to get an Apple.

I also realized that George and I were different and when my friend Russell Davidson sent me a link to newegg.com and this inexpensive computer I forwarded it to George and expected the worse. I was taken aback today, George’s computer is fast and powerful, it used to take him 10 minutes just to get to his e-mail, not he just pushes a key. He loves this Compaq Pro and has already figured it out (he is keeping the monitor he got at a thrift shop.) We went to lunch at the Round House Cafe and George and Donna were both in expansive moods, George was riffing on philosophy, the nature of the universe, and the many recent communications he has received from the aliens.

George knew just what to do, he knew what the perfect computer was for  him, he knew much better than me what he needed, and it wasn’t an Apple computer. This one has plenty of power and lots of memory. George is off on the new chapter of his life, and so far, it has cost him only $500. I spent five times that much on lenses in New York last week. It’s another way of thinking, another puncture in the snob’s balloon.

We had a lot of fun, George is so excited about his new book “The Way We Were.” He can’t bring himself to look at “The Way We Were,” he is closing in on $12,000 there.  But I have to check and see where the money is, he just can’t bear to go and look. He’s already choosing photos for the book. I was honored today, George asked me if I would write the introduction to the book and helped with the text, short descriptions of the photographs. I am delighted to be asked to do that, I grateful accepted.

George fell in love with a photo I took this morning, “Sunspots” of Flo the barn cat, he is printing it up for me and framing it. I think I’ll offer it for sale at the Round House Cafe photo show. I am very excited when George praises a photo of mine like that, I think I am getting somewhere.

Lunch was so easy, George off on his riffs about the universe, Donna with her reflections on Buddhism and the world. George said if he reads the messages from the aliens wrong, he will blow up and disintegrate. I wasn’t sure why, but I said to him “George, your world is not coming to an end. It is just beginning.” George was quiet and looked at me carefully, as he does when something penetrates his many defenses and hiding places.

“Wow,” he said. “You may be right.”