Today was Shannon and Kimberly's 70th birthday party, a number arrived by adding their birthdays, anniversaries, and cats' birthdays. It was what I would describe as "an interesting party", not so much a party really, as an informal get-together. I've known Shannon for years and it's amazing the way he's changed because of Kimberly; not saying it's good or bad, as I'm not qualified to make that call.

I got there at about 15:00, after waiting to see if Dave would show up so we could go together. When I arrived, Eric was just leaving and the only people there, besides Shannon and Kimberly, were Shannon's mom, stepdad, and two brothers, plus some foreign exchange student from Japan. Here's my impression of that side of the family: they read a lot. Shannon's two kid brothers, Robbie and the other kid, are avid readers; so is Shannon's mom, Bev (short for Beverly?). Shannon's dad, Bob, and the foreign exchange girl, whose name I forgot but it start with a Y, were both rather quiet and it was hard to tell if they were bored or not.

After that more people arrived: Donald, Dave Pick, and Wendy. I think they were the only people who brought gifts. Dave Sweet brought food, but that doesn't really count. I heard Bev say that she would get Shannon a cordless drill so that he could anchor the many bookcases he and Kimberly have in their new house (it's an old house in Berkeley, you can't get a new house around there, but it'll be new to them). And then a bunch of Kimberly's friends arrived over the course of an hour or two.

I guess I won't mention names, since my descriptions are not going to be all that flattering. Listening to these people talk, along with Kimberly and to a much lesser extent, Shannon and Donald, is like stepping into another world. This is the kind of stuff that you only see in tv shows, or movies, or really, an Independent Film. Everybody is well read, graduate students. All they talked about was various obscure and not so obscure fiction books. Deriving the meaning of words, coming up with weird historical facts.

They seem to be rather nice people, and I suppose if I was into their interests I'd get to like them. But to me it looked like they were just trying to show off their years of college education, trying to one-up each other in just who is right about some obscure factoid. Raving about this writer or that book, its social significance or how well it shows off this aspect of 1930's America or whatever.

I wonder if that's how my group of friends looks like to people who join our games for a week or two. We have a common set of shared experiences, which we talk about without explaining. There is all these conventions and social rules that we have that must seem daunting to a newcomer. When I joined the group it didn't seem that bad. I just stayed quiet and observed for a year or two before I started to loosen up. And I suppose I could do that with Kimberly's friends, but why would I want to?

And listenting to these people, who are the very definition of Berkeley literati and liberal thinking, I'm amazed to see how Shannon has changed. Once a bastion of conservative attitudes, he's gotten to be quite liberal. To be sure, he was starting to go libertarian from being around Eric for years, but the change has been quite dramatic since he started seeing Kimberly. Once again, I'm not making a judgment. I do wonder though, if I could remold myself for love of a good woman. I used to think I could, but I guess I never imagined what that would entail. And now I'm not sure if I could change, even for love.