reasons

reason #31,927 to love the bay area:
valentine's day pillow fight in justin herman plaza.

reason #86 why i feel old:
when i got off BART with a pillow stuffed in my messenger bag (not a nice down one, but one i thought would be softest for hitting people), i kept getting passed up the escalator, through the station, on the street, by packs of visibly giddy kids half my age carrying pillows towards the embarcadero. it was happy riot energy, and meanwhile i moseyed down market st in my clogs and sensible wool cardigan, wondering what it meant that i was the oldest person in my train car with a pillow.

reason #4 why i feel young:
for some reason little kids kept targeting me to initiate their pillow fightiness while i stood on the edge of the fray. one exhausted little girl reached up and hit me with her big stuffed monkey, and i very softly hit her back. she then sort of shuffled away. i think she was too tired by that point to lift her arms. i turned to hit another kid after he'd hit me in the back. after i hit him, he stopped, and i said, 'oh, was that too hard? that was too hard.' to which he responded with a full-on attack of unsmiling, crazy pillow smackdown. (i must've reminded him of his mean babysitter, or maybe that asian girl who snubbed him at recess yesterday.)

reason #1 why i may not do this again next year:
while most of the girls were giggling hysterically as they swung their pillows around in the vortex, most of the guys preferred windmilling away like they were hardwired to whack people in the head for maximum concussion damage. after i ran into a friend (who is about my height), we went in swinging together and pillow-slashed our way back out shortly thereafter because of many elbow blows to the head and aggro boys wielding their pillows like sacks full of rocks. my experience in mosh pits has been much friendlier than in the pillow pit. though they are equally stinky. next time i'm bringing a posse; it looks heaps more fun that way.