After consuming a slice of Joe's New York Style Pizza (which is only New York style in the center, for some reason) I went for my daily walk down to the World War Memorial Bridge, that Rt. 1 uses to cross from Portsmouth, NH, to Kittery, ME, or vice versa depending on your point of view. Today was my 41st trip across the bridge on foot, the first time being in the days shortly following my employment at my current job.

When I walk, it is usually with scant attention paid to my surroundings. I devote enough brain power to my environment to keep myself from being flattened by large trucks. Small cars usually don't escape my interest either, and I only notice people around me enough not to run into them. I like to be alone with my thoughts, and I can be alone with them no matter what the size of the crowd of people around me. Today, however, I was as sharp-eyed and attentive as I could possibly be. I sucked in every detail I could. People are interesting. We see them every day, and we are so accustomed to seeing them that they and their manners and dress and speech escape our notice. We do not ponder people, because we take it for granted that this is simply the way people are, and how could it be otherwise?

Congress Street, in Portsmouth, is this one way street with about three lanes (but it's hard to tell, because there are no road markings that say so) that cuts through the densest part of the old part of town. Portsmouth was settled in 1623, and it shows. The sidewalks are narrow, and the older buildings are right up against the sidewalk, except for a small stretch where there is a small plaza-sort of area on each side of the road that permits space for benches, a fountain, and outdoor seating area for a cafe or two. In the spirit of older towns, the names of the streets frequently do not make sense. Congress Street becomes Islington Street when it passes through a four way intersection, and before it became Congress Street in the first place, it was Daniel Street. It's a straight road with three different names in the course of about four blocks. One of streets perpendicular to Congress Street is Chestnut Street. It is not possible to drive the full length of Chestnut Street at once, because for one block in the middle of it, it is a parking lot with no through traffic.

So I was walking up Congress Street toward the Rt. 1 bridge, and I came to an intersection at a spot where the narrow sidewalks are the only things separating the road from the buildings. As I came to the corner, a group of young high school students burst out from around the building to my right. The first one, a male with oversized clothes -- a shirt that hung down to his thighs and shorts made for people twice his size -- soared through the air into my view and smacked his head into a stop sign with an audible clang. It apparently just grazed him, because he did not appear hurt. He shouted, "Ohh!" and that was it. His band of friends, close in tow and consisting of about two boys and two girls, cracked up. Some of them said things, but the only line I made out was from one of the girls, who said, "Hey, I just snorted, did you hear me snort?" As is common amongst a small throng of high school students, she spoke without placing great importance on being heard and understood. Indeed, she received no response from her friends, who were busy laughing or saying other things that were not especially meant to be heard or understood.

I passed a bench in the plaza area. A woman about forty was sitting on the bench. She wore pastel colors -- a yellow underthingie with straps and a blue button-up shirt over it that wasn't buttoned up. Slacks and heels. Bags of shopping on the bench to one side, and on the other was presumably her daughter, about ten years old. The little girl was small enough that she could sit on the bench without her feet touching the ground, so she sat their swinging her feet and devoting the whole of her attention to her candy: one of those sheets of wax paper with colored sugar dots pasted on. The mother was looking up at a friend, another woman about the same age who was standing in front of the bench and looking down. The two women were engaged in an amiable conversation of some sort, probably about weekend plans or jobs or husbands or interior decor or some such. They weren't paying any attention at all to the little girl, and she wasn't paying any attention to them. They were interested in their conversation. She was interested in her wax paper and swinging her legs in the air. Curious how one's age dictates one's interests so strongly that not even the bonds of family can always bring them together with common interests.

In the plaza proper now, I glimpsed all sorts of interludes occurring in plain sight yet unnoticed except by me. Two thirtysomething females, dressed for warmer climes, marched briskly past, their high heels clacking loudly as they went. From the way they were walking, they apparently hadn't expected such a cool July day, although it was no cooler here today than it was yesterday. Down a side road, a man sat on a bench, Indian style even though the bench was barely deep enough to accommodate his legs in such a position, and was reading a newspaper intently. On the steps in front of a church was a small gang of rough-looking kids with excessively pierced faces, torn jeans, tattoos, and cigarettes. It's surreal, but the steps of this quaint New England church are almost always populated by a half dozen such people. Today they were more conservative than usual -- none of them had fluorescent mohawks. Portsmouth is a funny town. The buildings, the streets, the harbor, and the scenery are all stereotypically New England-like, but the people that inhabit it are the antithesis of stereotypical New Englanders. The few dry, thickly accented, laid back, true New Englanders there are the exception, not the rule. The small gang, mostly guys with strangely shaved facial hair, lounged about on the steps and engaged in cheery revelry and toyed absent-mindedly with their assorted props. The guys always have props -- a guitar, a skateboard, a cigarette, you name it. The girls don't. The girls, outnumbered three to one, were quiet and comparatively subdued and seemed not to notice the mannerisms of the guys, exaggerated, subconsciously I'm sure, to vie for attention.

Finally I reached the Cafe Brioche, one of a great many cafes in Portsmouth but this one blessed with an especially conspicuous location and lots of outdoor seating space. Again, age brought to light many contrasts. Four clean-cut twentysomethings sat in the stiff metal outdoor chairs like they were recliners, slouching back, one with one foot propped up on the seat, another with both legs splayed out in front of him. Two sixtysomethings, presumably a husband and wife, sat very properly at another table, consuming their sandwiches and coffee at a snail's pace but clearly enjoying themselves in spite of their stoic faces. No coffee at the twentysomethings table -- soda for them. The twentysomethings conversed merrily and obliviously. When the sixtysomethings spoke, it was to mutter something very quietly to the other, who would grunt a reply before both fell silent again.

And then I left the plaza and was on Daniel Street, though I had turned no corners, and well on my way to the bridge. I passed a man who was sitting on a bench and talking to his dog, who sat obediently by his feet. When he noticed me pass, he cut himself off in midstream, possibly embarrassed that he had been caught talking to his dog, but I would not have been embarrassed if he had caught me. The dog was relaxed and well-behaved. He had a very contented expression on his face and could not have been less concerned about the people and cars and noises around him -- whereas the man was *too* concerned with his surroundings and what image he projected to passers-by such as me, who likely would never see him again, nor recognize him again anyway.

The crowd thinned out as I neared the bridge. On the way over, I passed five men who worked on the bridge. One was talking shop with the other four, giving some kind of job-related information or instruction. They blocked the walkway, but when I approached, the two nearest the edge paid me only enough notice to move enough to give me room to pass. Afterward, they absentmindedly drifted back into position. On the way back across the bridge -- this time on the other side -- I passed an excessively freckled, excessively endowed woman, scantly supported, jogging the other way. If she was dressing to attract attention, it may have been because she had so little of her own to give. Joggers, I find, are far less likely to smile a greeting to a passing stranger than more conventionally paced pedestrians.

Back on the sidewalk again, I passed the owner of a barber shop -- a gray-haired Italian who had no customers for the moment and so stood outside his shop to observe the goings-on. He was the only other person I saw who seemed to be paying attention to his surroundings. He greeted me, and I greeted him back. He cut my hair once. I don't know if he remembered me or not.

A humongous guy with tattoos on his arm was sitting on a bench. He was fat but also muscular, and his skin was weather-beaten. He had only a little hair on top, but his beard was thick; what portions of his face were not covered by it were covered instead by sunglasses with broad, impenetrable lenses. I walked past, and he did not turn his head, but I have no idea if his eyes followed me or not. Sunglasses afford their wearers privacy of observation. In New Zealand, after Dave broke his sunglasses, he once caught himself staring at a pretty local as he walked past. She gave him an affronted look in return, and only then did he realize that he was not wearing sunglasses, which would have kept secret what his eyes were focused on.

Back at the Cafe Brioche, two fortysomething women, pocketbooks slung around their shoulders, passed me from behind. They were trying to find some place. The shorter woman of the two was leading, but only physically. She was more anxious to get where she was going, but she deferred to the taller woman, turning back to make sure she was still there and hesitating at corners to make sure she approved of her thought about where to go next. At the cafe, where a main road comes in from the side, they stopped and looked around, pointed and peered down side streets, and exchanged information about what they remembered of directions they once had. They rounded an information booth to see more clearly, smiled at each other like they both just got their bearings, and moved on -- with the shorter woman first making sure the taller was following before continuing on.

At the cafe tables, the twentysomethings were still there, but the table was clear. They were done with their lunches and killing the rest of the lunch hour with idle chatter. The sixtysomethings were still working on their food and still not saying much. At yet another table, a young father was picking the tomatoes off his daughter's sandwich. At still another table, a man reading a newspaper withdrew his attention from it only long enough to turn the page, during which time he casually scanned the goings-on around him to see if anything noteworthy was happening. Finding nothing of interest, he delved back into the newspaper. Meandering around the tables was a pudgy old gentleman dressed like he was on his way to the opera. He was so distinguished-looking I half expected to see a monocle and a top hat. He was wearing a suit such a dark shade of blue it looked black, a bright white shirt, and carried an umbrella like he might a cane -- the sort one never uses but merely carries confidently about as part of an image. He struck up an amiable sort of conversation with the jolly old woman at the information booth. She was plump -- not so much as he, but he carried it better -- and wore a broad smile. Her eyes betrayed such an eagerness to please, she might as well have been Aunt Bea. Certainly she was in a job ideally suited to her personality.

The small gang was still on the church steps, talking loudly yet mostly unintelligibly. They were absorbed in their own little world and mistaking it for *the* world. One of the guys, wearing a baseball cap turned backwards, used the slang term "broad," which I thought was outmoded two generations ago. The guy he was addressing was a third his size and seemed a bookworm type instead of a football player; about the only thing they had in common in their appearances was that the bookworm also had a backwards baseball cap on.

At the intersection where the rabble of high school kids had stormed through a while before, the Congress St. light changed to green, and three unmarked lanes of traffic started moving through. A woman in the far lane, a dark haired, tanned woman of about 35, looked around through her side window, perhaps confused as to how many lanes of traffic there were supposed to be. She had New Hampshire plates, though, while a car with Wisconsin plates seemed more confident about maneuvering through the roads.

I popped into a snack and magazine shop. They sell serving-size chips, candy bars, gum, 16 oz. bottles of soda, cigarettes, newspapers, lottery tickets, and that's it. The place smells like unburnt cigars. The wooden floor is uneven and creaks as you walk over it. The shop is narrow anyway, but it is divided into two aisles with a magazine rack in the middle, so it's hard to maneuver around if anyone else is in the store. I pulled a Mountain Dew Code Red, a new cherry-flavored soda, out of the cooler and approached the counter with my buck ten. The cashier, a husky middle-aged man with a ratty t-shirt, cut far too low in front, was talking to a lean woman of indeterminate age. She was tall, wore glasses, and had one of those faces that looked like it was held in place only by the concerted effort of all her facial muscles pulling it together. She was thin, not just at the waist but in her limbs as well, and she held her bony arms folded tightly before her, like she feared she'd fall apart if she let herself go. She said to me, "Go ahead, we're just chatting," and waved me toward the counter. I handed my money to the cashier, who *wasn't* folding his arms and *was* falling apart, or at least seemed to be in the process of oozing into some less structured physical form, and he took my money. We exchanged an awkward sequence of "thank you"s that is typical for a meaningless exchange between clerk and customer. (Should the customer thank the clerk for serving, or should the clerk thank the customer for his patronage? Should the clerk thank the customer for money, or should the customer thank the clerk for the change?) And then I departed, leaving the husky man with curly gray chest hair to resume his conversation with the brittle woman composed of dry sticks.

On my way out of the store, I spotted a magazine with a woman on it in a pose of questionable modesty. She was crouched on all fours like a jungle cat and stared at the camera like a predator eyeing its prey. The neckline of her outfit was strategically low, and contours one generally conceals were not. Her skin was without blemish, her mouth was moist and slightly parted, and her eyes glistened with color and dominance. In bold letters above was the word, "TEMPTRESS."

In the half hour just past, I had observed a pretty diverse cross-section of people from one of New Hampshire's most diverse towns (admittedly, that is not saying much, since New Hampshire is one of the least diverse states in the union). I saw the young and old, male and female, fat and thin, attractive and ugly, vain and oblivious, upper class and lower class. I did not see the TEMPTRESS.

People are interesting. We see them every day, yet during my lunch hour it was just me and the barber that seemed to notice. Most days, it's just the barber.