On Return and Disruption

I thought I was going to sit down and write a post about my last days at my proofreading job: the sensation of packing up my desk, the oddity of shaking hands and speaking words for the last or the nearly-last time.

Then I thought I was going to write an entry about being up in Fort Bragg again, and the joys of seeing my parents for a little while.

Then I thought I was going to write something about being home again around the time I actually got home.

Sorry, everybody. I've been busy.

As the above suggested, the day after my last day at the marketing company, I stuffed six days' worth of clothing and three books into a duffel bag, and rode the train up to my aunt's place up in San Francisco, where we had the first and largest celebration from my father's 60th birthday. From there, it was off to my vacation in Fort Bragg, and that is where I was until yesterday, when I rode down in the company of friends. Now I am in my house, and have done a little cleaning, and am about to go sit down with a movie and get some laundry folded, like the domestic creature I am.

Unfortunately, I feel a great deal of things about this past week, but I don't know how to codify them. A trip home to Fort Bragg is all at once revitalizing and melancholy; like I love my time there, but know that I can't stay there and be consistently happy in perpetuity. It's a place I might love to come back to once I'm older and more established; it has an energy like nowhere else I've ever been, except possibly Santa Cruz—though the shared factor there may just be a nostalgia for a time in my life when I had less rigid scheduling and less non-academic responsibility. (Here's hoping the copy editing for the new company will give me a bit more satisfaction on that front.)

I am happy to have been able to spend my dad's sixtieth birthday with him and my mother, there in the home he helped build for us; and I'm happy I got to be home for a bit and just focus on relaxing, with a side business in studying the Chicago Manual of Style a little for new job purposes; and I'm happy to have come home to friends who missed me and were missed in return, with a feeling of having pushed my reset button before a major and somewhat intimidating venture.

That is all I can say for certain; anything further would risk turning into that turgid stuff that happens when I push my muse too far. So for now I'm going to go have a glass of champagne, and watch the final leg of a movie; and be grateful for the sense of a home in two places, and for having so many friends and loved ones in both. I promise tomorrow I'll put the smarm back in full effect.

Maybe I'll even blog about it.

Pretending We're a Travel Blog, Again

Part III: A Pizza and a Return

And just like that, I'm home.

It was a great Wednesday, all told: a break from writing to help my mother with errands, and then pesto chicken pasta for dinner; and with dinner, The Big Sleep and Coraline (both adapted from books, both adapted well, both lacking something the author brought to it in print). I slept restlessly, feeling a clock ticking the whole way—I knew my return came Thursday, but it still felt really abrupt.

Then my mother and I talked this morning, briefly but well, and she went off to a half day's work; and then I was packing up and reading comics (when did Marvel's writing staff get so good) and generally putting the punctuation mark on my latest Fort Bragg experience. From there it was the long drive and the long talk that coincides, and Santa Rosa traffic, and a moon to die for, and a pizza that we almost murdered people to get; and then the too-short ride and the summer night, and the bright bright lights, and home.

It is good to be home, truly, especially when I thought another night separated me and my bed; it's good to have nowhere I have to be tomorrow, to be able to just focus on my own life and my own things; but at the moment I admit I'm a little sad.

It's not that I actually want to live in Fort Bragg again—that proposition only sounds good for reasons I have discussed here exhaustively. But there is a peace to Fort Bragg, a feeling of youth and home, that I don't get here down in Mountain View. Life down here feels busy, occupied, cluttered even, with things to do and things that need doing. Life here feels like bills and responsibilities. And I know that will fade, but right now there's that pre-lingual desire to just crawl back home and sleep some more, and maybe write.

But I have to remember what I saw in Matt Fraction's writing. What I feel when I read about San Francisco, see in Chandler's novels. I have to remember that as wonderful as Fort Bragg is, it's better as a waystation; I can't use it as a home base.

But I can write about it.

Pretending We're a Travel Blog, Again.

Part II: Movies and Drinks.

Two days now on the coast, two and a half counting Sunday, and I have been busy. Somehow, in my time here, I accumulated what feels like a truly staggering number of people who want to see me, and timing worked out such that I saw every one of them either yesterday or today. It's not bad, by any stretch—they're excellent people every one and I'm glad to be getting to spend time with them—but it never fails to stagger me how exhausting a vacation can be.

Monday I woke up bright and early, convinced by some trick of the light that it was 10 or 11 in the morning and I had wasted the first part of my day. Imagine my surprise when my mother was still home. Still, it allowed me to have coffee with her, and it gave me an early start on this week's edits for Not Providence, which was a wonderful beginning to the vacation. From there...began the whirlwind.

We had lunch at the radio station where she works, with her and one of the owners (an old family friend). We had dinner at the Fort Bragg Brewery, an important part of my coming-home ritual, exempted only during holidays. We discussed and discarded me moving back, and talked work, writing, love and life. We watched movies: Secretary (taut, quirky, dark-chocolate sweet), Wonder Boys (delightfully lunatic and straight from the heart), Duck Soup (funny and fundamental), and the newest Harry Potter (good but oddly slow). I realized what a small town this is (a long-silent friend who I met with again this week is married to a man who lived with her ex-boyfriend and just sold my old gaming buddy some dice?). I was told many times it was great to see me, and discussed celebrity chefs and their contributions to the world. I drank excellent beer.

And I felt like a grown-up.

I left Fort Bragg in 1999, returning since then only for visits; more than three months at a time is unheard of. And somewhere in the time, I went from desperate to participate in the adult conversations, to effortlessly getting involved in them. Gone are my bad conclusion-jumps, my awkward insertions, my occasional overstretching for the sake of a joke. I can listen to others' stories now, consider their points; I can read a room without it being painful. I am, suddenly, one of the adults.

And no-one marvels at it. That's the best part. Beyond expected (and heartfelt) reminiscence from my mother, it was a seamless integration. And I've probably been doing it for years without consideration. It is only now, as I talk with the people I thought of as The Adults in my life, that I realize how much I have really grown.

I've been angry lately. I've been tense and wired and overwrought. And suddenly, it's all small stuff. Even the crack in my swanky new hat, which we are hoping we can get fixed. I don't feel like I've got fiddler crabs gnawing at my back, and my breathing is much improved.

I think maybe I needed a vacation.

Pretending We're a Travel Blog, Again.

Part I: Baseball and Meat.

I had intended to update the blogotron a little more regularly these past few days, fire a warning shot or two, but clearly scheduling and my circadian rhythms have been aligned against this idea. The upshot is, Friday evening marked the beginning of a week's vacation, five days of which I will be spending here, in my hometown of (surprise!) Fort Bragg, California. In case you doubted the inspirations for Book Two of Not Providence.

Saturday, the official beginning of the vacation, was started in what might loosely be termed style: my family and I (father, mother, sister, and aunt) were in attendance at AT&T Park for the game between the Giants and the Phillies.

I have never been more than a cursory baseball person, gathering enthusiasm by proxy from my father's own, well, fanaticism; but something about being in attendance yesterday, with the Bay in the background, fans all around, my father explaining rules calls and muttering about the monstrosity of Howard's slugging average, brought me around to the joy of the game. I don't get the strategy yet, but it meant a lot to me to share a little something with my dad besides dreams, and I'm glad to have something new to learn about. I blame Tim Lincecum.

After that was an early night; a foggy, mostly-sepia goodbye to Dad as he headed out to Boston for a gig; and a dream about a friend living along the Muni line and hopping zombie children on Halloween. I woke up somewhere about then, and moved on with the trek to Fort Bragg via Highway 20, which was more threatening than you might expect for a two-lane highway full of redwoods and curve; and then it was into Fort Bragg proper and the lovely, misty, overcast skies I grew up with.

Fort Bragg is one of those curious towns, with a life and voice of its own which is largely not meant for people my age. It is a town for families and retirees and those who oil the gears, with the young population mostly focused on accelerating away from it as fast as they can. It's a very artistic community in its way, a very individualistic one; and it's only now that I'm really, wholly coming to appreciate it.

It's easy to miss Fort Bragg, because Fort Bragg is emblematic to me of a lack of responsibilities; it's where I was when I was younger, sheltered, my needs taken care of, and the tendency of my parents (as with many parents) to take fiscal charge when I visit only enforces it. It's easy to imagine coming here and just writing, just thinking, losing myself in the vibes and the winds and the whole Indian summer feel of the place; but fortunately, it's also easy to remember the vortex effect I often speak of, and how easy it would be to tell myself going nowhere is really going somewhere. My equally potent addiction to San Francisco probably helps.

I am tired, I'm afraid, all my earlier ideas about editing tonight gone to dust; but, I tell myself, I need these days. I needed two days of baseball, and driving, and Polish sausages, and Kobe beef, and discussion of politics and jobs and dreams and the constant chorus of people clamoring for my attention. It is these things which will recharge my batteries; these things which make up the mist that will fill my soul and come home with me to the heat. But for now, what I need most, more than anything, is to sleep.

Part Two comes soon; but right now, my vocabulary is rusted, and my eyes are full of sand. Goodnight.

The San Francisco Experiment: Day 3

There is nothing like a San Francisco morning.

San Francisco reaches a curious temperature in the mornings, a chill just short of wintry I can enjoy in jeans and short sleeves without a trace of a shiver. It makes me want to walk places, or go to the Academy of Sciences for shark-viewing and burritos (nostalgia, pardon me). It makes me love the hills and the quirky houses and the mattresses left out on sidewalks. I want that to come to Mountain View more often.

My old room is still strange, and I had forgotten how much of an aural sledgehammer my old alarm clock was. If that's what I used in college I can understand why one of my strongest memories are of sleep dep.

Something about San Francisco makes me want to watch some sort of bizarre stage show, then go home and blog about it after I've had mysterious see-through cocktails with the people who worked the show, at least one of whom I must know disturbingly well and at least one of whom I should feel strangely comfortable being touched by despite not knowing them. San Francisco makes me think of LED lights and sleeveless shirts and peasant dresses and pancake makeup, all at once or separate. It tastes like fresh lettuce and ginger. I have a particular relationship with the city.

I think, eventually-soon, I need to move back. For now, though, I'll be alright. I just need to visit more often.

Back into the breach; when the grammar is corrected, the riding and the writing can begin, and there is Alan Moore's rendition of Swamp Thing to keep me company.

The San Francisco Experiment, Day 1.5

I came into San Francisco last night, after a birthday dinner with my sister. I slept in my old room, and marveled at the cocktail of familiar and strange down there—walls I know and a closet I no longer use. This morning I woke up about when I usually do, and got a ride with my departing parents to work.

Today, work was work, barring (excitement of excitements) some photo time with a co-worker and his erstwhile protégé (which might actually produce a workable headshot, lucky me, and provided some interesting insight into the photo process—who'd have thought a white car was a useful photography tool?). Then after that shoot, he dropped me at the train station, and I took a ride north I have not taken in over a year.

Caltrain from Hillsdale to Millbrae; from there, a BART ride to Daly City; and from there, a walk up a hill I am fairly certain exists to ensure the world never lacks for sharp angles. Food for the cats, both tame and stray, and food for myself once that was one. And then, some time alone with Not Providence, which ended with 1200 words and some burning questions about what I'm doing in this chapter to advance the plot (an important question which I'm really glad I've started asking with regularity). And now, it is a quarter to ten, and feeling the pulse of worry and doubt, I am going to retire from writing for the evening and go read some Charles Stross before I sleep; I've got a nice long commute in the morning.

Today's thoughts on the experiment are as seen in the first paragraph: this place feels all at once familiar and strange, the associated routines both fresh and unrehearsed and very natural. I was halfway up the hill from Daly City BART before I had to even consider my route. Yet all at once, this house is eerily quiet, and there is a feeling of isolation that I don't have in the suburbs of Mountain View (yeah, figure that out; maybe it's excess debauchery leaking in from Castro Street). I am happy to be here, to be able to help my family, to have a change of pace, and to revisit a house that was home for five years. But I'm also going to be glad to go back to my bed in four short days.

We're Pretending We're a Travel Blog, Part 4

Home safe. Just to get that out there.

The morning started with us calling up Choz (motherfucking) Cunningham this morning, and meeting him at the Pfunky Griddle, aptly described as "do-it-yourself pancake hibachi". You pay about seven dollars for a plastic ramikin (God, I hate spelling that word) full of topping, and all the batter you can pour onto the griddles set into the middle of the tables. Actually quite an experience, I'll do it again if I can.

After that was a nap, which we all sorely needed, and me waking up to feel like someone had tarred my throat. I think the cocktails and the dog hair and the lack of sleep all finally conspired to get me sick. This may require working from home tomorrow and a vast quantity of tea, but I will muddle through somehow.

Then, finally, there came the airport. Security was, once again, painless, though I again made a mistake and forgot to take off my jackets. Go me. The first flight was fine, except for the vague desire to die the entire way, reinforced by the shifting out of Central and into Mountain time on the way to Denver. My experience of Denver now is patches of brown and tan Tetrads, with the occasional suture scar of a forest or gorge, and a somewhat dark, very oppressive airport. I loaded up on Vitamin C, popped some DayQuil and Airborne, and made myself ready for the second flight.

The second flight was, my friends, my first experience with getting onto an open-seating flight and not being the first group on. So my beloved emergency exit seats were taken, and I was forced to take a seat with the plebes who aren't willing to pretend to be John McClane in the event of an emergency. I discovered that Southwest seats are actually all relatively comfy. At least until the guy in front of you reclines his chair into your face and you wind up typing with the laptop keyboard perpendicular to your sternum. So, don't blame me for not getting much done on "Recess", I did my best to improve and grow it under the circumstances. I am choosing to believe that guy's seat really was broken, because the alternative is to be annoyed.

I also had the interesting experience, on board the plane, of talking to a woman who doesn't really read much--she cited John Grisham as her primary literary choice, who is not bad, but certainly not my thing. We discussed crime and procedural dramas until we both got bored, which happened about the time I realized she hated it when stories got intellectual and weird, and decided to let her live as she chooses to live. Me, I still have a mental scar of Ikari Gendo's face as he smiles and says "Congratulations!"

Then, we finally landed, and due to bad planning on my part and an emergency at a friend's workplace (let's hear it for Silicon Valley, home of the *coughcoughwe'reexempt*-hour work week!), I was forced to take a cab. The cabbie was a nice Indian man, his language skills somewhere between pidgin and real eloquence; it was like if Hunter S. Thompson had been an ESL student. I got in and we started a typical airport cab conversation that rapidly paradigm-shifted:

Him: "So, where you coming from tonight?"

Me: "Oh, Nashville, coming home. I was out there seeing friends for the weekend."

Him: "Ah."

Silence.

Me: "So, how's your night been?"

Him: "Pretty lazy so far. So far, this my third fare. I work very hard yesterday, all my arms, tired, but, good tired, you know, you work hard maybe little overwork?"

Me: "Yeah, totally."

Pause. Drink water.

Him (chuckling a little): "Also, I think I overdrank little. Have four, five shot."

I settled in, because this cabbie was officially awesome.

He got me home in record time, though not record price (thankfully), and I trudged inside, where I immediately went, charged into comfier clothes, and sat down to blog, which has taken me, thanks to discussing my epic journey into the renal system of America, an hour. So I will conclude now, on this thought: Nashville is a beautiful bustling town, working its way up to small city, like Fort Bragg with centuries more history; and I realized, as I watched the plane descend tonight, that I live in a sea of golden lights.

Thank you for reading.

We're Pretending We're A Travel Blog, Part 3

1am, Sunday morning. The book release party for Sara is now over. A goodly number of books moved, a few prints sold, and quite a bit of fun had.

Today began with writing. This is never a bad thing. I wish Red Rock or Dana Street had quite the same atmosphere as Crema; I'd probably get a lot more done. Or at least be a lot more excited about having unengaged Saturdays.

Following Crema and writing, there was the Nashville Parthenon. Yes, a replica of that Parthenon. Their Athena is, simply, stunning. It is a correct match-up, except that the architect used his face instead of the original Athenian architect's as the face of Hephaestus (which is fair, until you consider the original Athenian architect was executed for that), and it is amazing. There is not a lot that can prepare you for how impressive it actually is; the entire architecture of the building is designed to make her more impressive, and somehow, those lifeless eyes are actually incredibly vibrant. She is, in all senses, enormous.

After the Parthenon came the Heritage Hotel, which is also quite nice, though I'd say a little more quaint than majestic. Maybe it's the lack of an air of primitive religion in the air; maybe I just have trouble being struck by architecture. Hard to say.

Then it came time to prepare, which was exciting. My suit feels very good, and I'm told looks very good, and I am all in all most pleased with my Christmas present. But the important thing here is the party, which was lovely, and which contained, of all things, my friend Choz, from the Santa Cruz LARP scene. Choz is, it turns out, doing fantastically; and it was so nice to get to talk to that amazing brain without so many things in the way. It is weird to realize how long I've gone without seeing him, and how long I've known him, and, really, how many people I appear to have left a mark on. It gives me hope for the future.

We talked over cocktails, then beers; then we had to take a break for a very funny and innovative magic act, and, my friends, came the clockwork burlesque. Oh yes. You heard that right. The representative of Syrens of the South who came to the party was one of the most skilled dancers I have had the pleasure to see, and the choreography was, to my knowledge of burlesque, refreshingly original. I'll have the look on her face and her stilted gliding in my head as an example of the kinds of expression the human body is capable of.

And now, it is time for bed and the prayers for a hangover-free morning. Tomorrow, I pay someone to let me pour my own pancakes. The things you come up with on those long Southern nights...

We're Pretending We're A Travel Blog, Part 2: Waffle House

I arrived safely, some hours ago, in Nashville, and was immediately subject to a punch in the face that I was no longer in California. Sara and Matt greeted me with a text that asked if I was out of the gate; and when I replied in the affirmative, another that just said "Walk fast!" Huh? Wait, I just walk forward and I will get to the exit? The one exit? There aren't like, eight baggage claims and a dozen side corridors where I can get lost? Wham!

I got back to Sara and Matt's wonderful little 2-bedroom home, which is full of the bric-a-brac and detritus of a life lived in letters and makes me all sorts of envious, and we proceeded to let Sara catch up on Dollhouse (which may yet not suck), after which 20/20 came on and the interviewer proceeded to explain in the world's most comedically stereotyped tone how really, recessions are natural and government spending won't fix anything as compared to just leaving everything in place and riding it out.

And then...then there was Waffle House.

Those of you who know about Waffle House can probably stop reading; I suspect my amazement will mostly tell you how close I've stayed to my front door all these years of my life. Waffle House is something I mostly know via anecdotal evidence from Southern gamers and, of course, Bloodhound Gang lyrics; it was only tonight, March 13th, that I got to experience Waffle House first-hand.

People may tell you Waffle House is "like Denny's" or "like Carrow's" or something similar. These people are lying. They are similar in the same way as a poodle and a bull mastiff. Waffle Houses are not the original greasy spoon, but they certainly all have a piece of that original greasy spoon's brickwork in their foundations; it's the only way to explain the bizarre warp-gate into the Dimension of Plastic and Grease that occurs when you enter.

To begin with, it appears to be a requirement that every Waffle House have precisely one letter in their sign burnt out. The one near the Nashville airport is "Affle House"; the one we visited was the "Waffe House", which brings to mind some kind of grease-bombing zeppelin. We entered and were greeted with about six tables that look like the kind fourth-graders eat lunch on; a long counter that explains where Tarantino and the Coens got all those shots for their movies; and precisely two normal-looking people who are there to remind you how weird-looking everyone else is.

The menu was two sides of a laminated placemat; the most expensive item on there was $5.95, and that was two eggs, toast, bacon, and a waffle, and their hashbrowns menu took up an entire little sidebar, complete with its own lingo. Our waitress was a skinny, hugely-chinned woman in what I'd guess was her mid-forties, and she had the accent that launched a hundred tropes. She called me "baby". She shouted her orders in short-hand that made no sense to anybody, possibly including the kitchen staff. And when I ordered a couple blueberry waffles and some hashbrowns diced and peppered (that's tomatoes and jalapenos, in the language of the Waffle House hashbrown), she looked at me and said "No meat?" My affirmative answer got me a look that I knew meant "Y'all ain't from 'round here, are ya?"

The food was delicious in that way that you know you shouldn't do more than once or twice, really; greasy, heavy, salty, but good in a very traditional way. This is what Denny's aspires to be, I think, underneath whatever bullshit they're flinging currently--a giant bucket of the best-worst parts of home cooking.

We spent most of the meal listening to an incredibly skinny, spiky-haired waitress talking to a woman who I swear was pulled out of the fridge before she could set, explaining about all the weirdos who come into Waffle House at night. Apparently, our table had one night been used to do drugs. And the other booth where we almost sat was where a man and a prostitute had sex.

The woman made of suet (who, I should note, was dressed in white with pink dots or shapes of some sort, I assume because she is trying to pretend she's actually someone's DT hallucination) asked the obvious question, "How did they get away with that?", to which the waitress answered "Well, she was havin' sex with him with her mouth...?"

"Havin' sex with him with her mouth."

God Bless America.

We're Pretending We're a Travel Blog, Part 1

My vacation to Nashville begins, in a sense, last night, at about 11:30; having finished a bit of editing for a friend (well, finished round 2) and a bit of editing for a me, I plopped myself down on the couch to watch Episode 22 of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Two hours later, I turned off the TV, having watched Episode 26.*

Let me tell you, nothing preps you for a flight like staying up until 2, steeping your brain in Neon Genesis Evangelion. I'd say this might become a ritual, but I don't want to wind up swallowing a drill.

This is followed by me getting up so early the sky was still spongy black and the sunlight was doing fuck-all to make anything look brighter. My last two airplane flights, of the approximately five I have taken in my life, both departed from SFO, and were both during the height of the U.S. government's pedal-to-the-metal security measures; one of them was even international. So, of course, this means I overshot how much time I needed to clear check-in and security, especially considering I checked in online yesterday.

Security took me all of thirty seconds. And I was carrying two bags, and made a mistake (I left my boarding pass in the tray with my shoes and laptop; that human instinct to release all objects in one's hands at once). If you can't make it through security in about a minute or less per person, you either have a small child, metal implanted in your body, or, more likely, a piece of your brain missing. This is another place where I can't fathom the populace's overall lack of common sense and/or empathy; I thought Henry Rollins was just an angry man** until I really saw how simple one person traveling alone should be.

So now, I sit here at SJC, Gate A2, and I wait for my boarding to be called so I can jockey for a bulkhead seat with the rest of boarding group A. I am past the parts that make me really nervous, and soon will be past the one part that makes me kind of nervous (if you've met me in person you'll understand why I dread dealing with airline seating), and then it's off to Nashville for a delightful weekend with Sara and Matt. I need to do some writing on the plane, but right now I think I'll start the bidding with some sleep.

My neuroses were full of it. Travel is great.

*A more thorough review comes later. But for now, I will summarize with "..." and a link to Jacques Lacan's Wikipedia entry. Also, both extremes of the spectrum have thoroughly missed the point.

**He is.