| Jul. 12th, 2007 @ 02:07 am Timing, Home, and Hippies |
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Lat Saturday night I was still up on minimal sleep. I was online chatting with somebody and the next thing I remember is waking up, with my computer suspended because it'd sat. And the lack of sleep must've caught up with me.
Sunday I woke up and went to work. Since the boss had been gone all week, I spent all day tying up loose ends so she wouldn't be pissed when she got back. I felt sick in the morning, but tried to shake it with Dayquil and caffeine. I was somewhat successful. I cut out of work about 15 minutes early, and headed home. On the radio I heard there was an accident on the 210 headed westbound, just west of the 57. Right in my path. So I took the 10 west instead, and then cut north on the 605. Back on the 210 traffic was a parking lot (even though I completely avoided the accident), but I made it home. Once home I had a few things I needed to do, and about 45 minutes to do them. My condition worsened rapidly, and I felt sick again. I popped dayquil and took an airborne, but it was too late. I quickly packed my bag to head back to the Bay Area, cleaned the dishes I had left, changed the cat litter and filled up her food and fresh water. I locked up my house, and did a final check to make sure I had my things, and headed to the Burbank Airport.
I was expecting horrible traffic on the 210 West (again) but it was smooth sailing, and so was the 134. 5 North was a bit tight, but moving ok. I got from my house to the gate in about 45 minutes. Nice. I had time to spare, so I listened to some stuck-up hipster kids chit-chat about Sebastopol (which was amusing). They looked exactly alike and had the same glasses. I considered entering their conversation at a few different points, but decided I was way too fucking cool for their little cliche scene and cliche discussion. So cool that I didn't want to be seen listening to them, much less talking with them. So I got up and left.
The flight is so short. My condition continued to worsen, sore throat and stuffy nose and feeling like shit. And the next thing I know it's night time and I'm in Oakland, freezing my ass off in shorts and a t-shirt. As I walk out to the passenger loading area to meet my parents, I work my CalPoly sweatshirt out of my bag, but can't get it on before I see my parents pull up in the Volvo and I hop in. The drive home is long, and my condition continues to slide. By the time I'm home, I make a couple calls to let people know who've been waiting up for me that I feel like shit and I'm just going to go to bed.
The next morning I wake up early, but go back to bed and sleep in for awhile. I wake up in my familiar bed and shower in the familiar shower... I noticed the towel bar got ripped out of the wall at some point, but don't bother to ask anybody about it right then. I go downstairs and drink some coffee with my mother. The house looks the same, but the cats are both in poor health. They're old, and Helen has an thyroid issues that make her eat and eat but she's always skinny and in alot of pain. Cody can't walk right. They've had him in an our of the vet, and his back legs just don't work. And the vet is sort of baffled. It's sad, because we got Helen about 15 years ago when we first moved to California, and she's moved with us since.
I'd agreed to pick up my sister and her friend from highschool at the Junior College, they're both taking a couple summer classes there. I open the garage and walk around my Cougar before firing her up. There is a sort of tortured soul in that car, and I think we relate well. She rumbles and I back her out of the garage carefully. And for the first time in more than I year (I think) we're cruising down 4th Street. The plan to take Bryden/Pacific is cut short when the road is closed for the day due to construction. So College Ave. will do, and then up Mendo. I wait in the parking lot of Taco Bell before they stroll up. Her friends is cute, with huge blue eyes. And she smiles, alot. She's going to Sonoma State, but I've already been warned about her. Jessica said she's quiet and socially awkward... and boy, is it true. It's a dead quiet car ride, aside from me trying to stir up a little conversation here and there. Her friend's smile is constant and it becomes a bit confusing and discomforting. Luckily I get her home, and she says bye. Jessica and I go home. I kill time until JP and Joe show up. We hang around and shoot hoops (wow, we really sucked) and I bid them farewell around dinner time.
I pick up Liz at her and her boyfriend's apartment. It's the little place at College and 4th, which had a reputation for ripping people off. I thought her boyfriend was coming with us, but he was nowhere to be found. I had met her through Kragen. I never worked with her personally, but I'd seen her around and talked to her on the phone some before I dated one of he friends briefly, and we ended up out on a double date with her and her boyfriend once. It never worked out between me and her friend, but me and Liz kept in touch. I also think it's worth noting that she's another Libra who I had "chemisty" with. Anyways, I picked her up and we cruised down to Mary's off Summerfield and had an authentic Sonoma County dinner. It was good, and after that we drove around for a little while. We cruised up Mendo for memories, and we discussed the history of our on-and-off contact with one another and eventually we sort of confessed and came to the conclusion together that we like eachother and we're into eachother, but everyone one of us was single the other was dating somebody. Which is a shame, but you can't force timing. It was nice to see her and that was doing well. She no longer works at Kragen and has a 7-5 office job now, so she had her bedtime. I dropped her back off and bid her farewell. I was heading home, and 9 PM was approaching. I pulled into the Safeway/Longs parking lot near 4th and Farmers Ln and made some phone calls. Amy picked up, and I asked her if she'd liked to go out to grab some coffee. She accepted.
Amy was a girl I crushed on near the end of highschool. I didn't really talk to her until the final weeks, and the summer before she moved. It is notable that she is between Libra and Virgo (September 22, if I remember correctly) She moved away to attend Sacramento State. So I pick her up in the Cougar (familiar feeling) and we head down o Aroma's, more because it's the only place I know of that's still around that's still open. We sit down with our drinks until the close at 11 PM, and then we head back and sit in the Maria Carrillo parking lot (our highshcool) for a bit before we drive up the street to her house and park in front of her place. Throughout the whole thing we're catching up on music, life, and relationship stuff. She's been with this guy out there in Sac for 2 years now. This time she brings up the element of timing. It surprises me, because we dated and stuff, but when I approached her more seriously back then things sort of fizzled, I figured I just wasn't right for her. But she spoke nostalgically, and said that she'd distanced herself from me because she was confused back then, and that she was in the middle of moving and everything. She tells me she wishes sometimes that she'd moved to LA (not for me, I know and I don't mean to give that idea) and that she wishes we'd met earlier or later... or sometime when we would've been in a better position to day. And by 1 AM, she says she should go and I watch her walk to her door and drive away into the night and back home.
Tuesday I sleep in a little bit again. I'm lame, and sleeping in (to me) is like 9:30 or 10:00 AM. I spend morning time with my family and we do some shopping. I get much needed shorts and a couple t-shirts. We head back to the house, and I head up to check out Joe's place around 4:00 PM. We watch We Were Soldiers, and I'm glad to see that Joe has a decent place to live and is taking care of himself and his home. I get dinner with my family at Roundtable, and after that we get home and I am lonely. I call Nicole because I have to, and because I've been putting it off. She's out at one of the local bars with her friends, so I leave it alone. A few more calls and Amy calls me and tells me she's going to stop by. We sit out in front of my house for awhile chatting about various things and listening to music.
Wednesday morning I'm actually up on time (8-8:30) and I meet Nicole and get the check signed I need signed by her. They still won't take it unless she's there in person. She's got some guy in tow, so it's even more awkward. We get it taken care of and I go home. We eat a quick lunch and me and my dad leave for Oakland. Traffic is worse than expected, and after security runs my bag twice it's full on sprint to gate, where I barely make my flight.
Back in LA it is warm and smoggy. The people look more alive. Each time I go home I'm reminded of just how rootless I actually am. Home is easy to paint as HOME when I'm here, but I go back there and the ties seem weaker each time. And I'm hesitant to call this HOME.
Santa Rosa once seemed so progressive to me, but I've come to the realization that it's not. It's backwoods, in the shadow of San Francisco. It's the same hippies driving the same imported cars with the same cliche activism they've been stuck on for half a century. No one is forward thinking. The high water mark of their ideas is somewhere in the late 60s and early 70s. And then a Republican came and ended the war, and they were rejected and their counter culture became the stagnant square nostalgia that would plant the seeds for various other counter cultures in the late 1970s and 1980s. It's all recycled failure. If they had been original, perhaps something could've been mounted against the Reagan administration or the first Gulf war. But only the same signs and ideas and recycled agenda came. So what the hell is so progressive about that? Nothing, I've realized. Nothing but a bunch of nostalgic hippies that cling to a fizzled movement that was the defining moment of their time, and passing that on to future generations so they will grow up believing they are the prodigal sons and daughters of an American hope that failed before they were even conceived. Damn fools. |
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