Ericaland

So there was a riot in downtown Oakland on Wednesday. I was walking home around 8:30 that night by myself after hanging out with knitting friends after work. I had no idea about what had been going on and later I learned that they had shut Lake Merritt BART down for several hours and had reopened it not long before I had arrived there. The first part of my commute home passes on the edge of downtown, so I started to feel really nervous when I saw at least two cop cars at every intersection and more helicopters in the sky than I’ve ever seen before. I lost count at around 10. I saw some people mulling around and yelling at some policemen standing at corner, but other than that nothing eventful happened on the rest of the way home.

I’ve discussed what’s happened with a few people and I still can’t understand why people would trash their home city and I’m angry at people from outside the city who would come and trash the place where I live. How does scaring people and damaging people’s property help at all?

The only nice thing from all of this stupidness was a friend of mine berating me for not calling her Wednesday night. She said “why didn’t you ask me to pick you up?”. I think someone is a pretty good friend if they’re willing to drive close to a riot and come get you.

The rest of the week consisted of me not getting all that much sleep and feeling half awake. The apartment is looking slightly better though, we have new rugs and there are no more boxes in the living/dining area. I may even take pictures of the place soon.