Dilemma

This summer I went on a cruise to Turkey and Greece with my grandmother, my aunt, and her husband. It was a fancy affair. The ship was mostly full of Americans and they seemed to all be people who had made it. Made it to the top. The top ten percent. That place that we all strive to get to. The American Dream. Or maybe Heaven on Earth. It is the same place actors arrive at when they stop being good actors because they are removed from everyday day life and they only draw from a distant memories instead of experiences. The cruise was lovely, the food was amazing, I was treated like a princess, I got more relaxed than I have been in years, but I came home without any stories. When people would ask me how my trip was all I could say was, "It was nice." I have a friend who fought his way from dirt poor to the top ten percent and, now that he is there, he is bored out of his gourd. Since this summer, after I got to see what Heaven is like, I have been wondering if that is really a place I want to aspire to be. We went to Greece where they are in the middle of economic hardship and all we saw were the pretty parts. The safe places. Then, on Sunday evening, I was walking home from the Castro after watching the Giants game and I almost got robbed at gunpoint. Again. Or a knife pulled on me. Something, but I didn't stick around to find out. I've seen it before and I know what it looks like. The man walking toward me looked to one side, then to the other to see if anyone was around. He looked straight at me while he reached down into a pocket on the side of his leg by his knee. As I was running in the opposite direction all I was thinking was, "I'll take the 10%, please."