2004-06-07 - 1:25 AM
About 3 hours after I wrote that last entry, I was still sitting there, screwing around on the keyboard, utilizing my crazy innernet skills to help Catherine find a cheap flight to New York for her favorite band's farewell performance. There was a buzz at the gate. I bounded to the front door, then walked casually out to the gate door in the alley. Pitch black darkness, I could only assume it was Amber.
"Hey..." I could feel her smiling, several feet away in the darkness.
"I'm afraid I can't let you in, ma'am."
"Awe... Open the door." So I clicked it open and she walked in. I hugged her for several seconds, realizing how weird it was, ultimately, that I'd somehow made my way back to San Francisco, braving several modes of transportation, just to show up in that alley at that time of night, for that hug.
We went in, she put a six of Guinness in the fridge, took one out, popped it open and handed it to me.
"I'd given these to the guys when I found out you weren't coming," she'd grinned at me,"But I got'm back tonight. You must be hungry!"
She grabbed a stack of order-out pamphlets and found one that was open at midnight. She called the number and started giving the pizza guy information, poking my arm and pointing at the little one-page menu. I poked the carnivore pizza, she threw on a Thai Chicken salad.
Ate, caught up, laughed about random junk.
The next day, woke up around... noonish. We wandered down to a Noah's Bagels. Every single restaurant on the block, there were dogs tied up outside, sitting, patiently waiting. Environmentalists asked for a moment of our time, didn't get any. When I looked up, the clouds were moving fast over the buildings. Not just fast for clouds, but fast as in, one could hurl a frisbee and the cloud would catch up to it. Might have just been broken up slabs of fog rolling over the Golden Gate, 2 or 3 miles upwind from where we were. Warm sun, cold day. Shiny buildings, busy people. First day in my life, I decided I genuinely liked San Francisco.
Amber left for work a couple hours later, she had a 4-11 shift. Catherine left around that point too, for the weekend, and gave me a hug goodbye. I really like her, she's friendly. Affectionate in an entirely non-flirtatious way. Really... Authentic.
I had 7 hours on my own. Introvert heaven. Enough time to recharge, not enough to achieve cabin fever. Pretty much I wandered around the house, caught up on all my webcomics, put EdTV in my laptop and fell asleep on her down comforter. I woke up minutes later to the buzz of the doorbell. Weight. The cat, typically only ever seen as a tail disappearing around a corner to hide under the bed, was laying on my back. I rolled over softly and pet her. Marble, incidentally, has 2 or 3 different purrs which occur simultaneously. It's like she's harmonizing with herself. She doesn't allow one to merely pet her, but must switch sides of the body constantly. I got up and went to the gate, nobody was there. Flashback.
"I asked my sister for some Pot for us to enjoy tonight. She's coming by today to drop it off." I checked the mailbox, inside of which was a folded manila envelope that read "Ambie:)".
More napping. Around 10, a text messege from Amber. "Check the mailbox:)" Check me out, I'm on top of things.
When she got back, we ordered chinese and smoked a little (Incidentally: Northern California Mary Jane = Best Stuff EVER), then smoked a little more and got under a blanket in the livingroom and watched Bongwater, munching on Ghirardelli frozen yogurt with mixed in Peanut Butter Cup chunks. Potheads take note: Truly mindblowing experience. Told sordid tales of our lives, which was insanely difficult, because we kept tangenting, and couldn't remember our way back.
It's weird, because it's not in a romantic or even "I'd hit that" type of way, but I really, really like Amber. She's just so... easy to spend such quality time with. There's no real self-conscious worry of how I'm coming off, there's no feeling like I'm at the mercy of some sort of feminine attention span. She wants to be thought of as one of the guys. Seriously, one of the most beautiful women I've ever met in my entire life (That's saying something, from a student at the U of A) burps constantly throughout the night, only bothering with saying "excuse me" the first 2 times. Because she wants to be thought of as one of the guys. And she brought my favorite beer, and bummed pot off her sister and ordered chinese. For me. All, freakin' all, for me.
We talked about Kelly and about being little kids, and about the stranger parts of our year, and at around 3 we went to bed, and lay there staring at the ceiling in the dark, with a goofy, purring cat between us, and she talked about wanting to learn about 2 religions this summer, just to know. She'd decided on Buddhism and Kabala, and I had no idea what Kabala was, but told her to read "Art of Happiness" by the big DL. And then other topics of conversation lost to a gloriously relaxing green haze, and we were out. I think my last thought that night was how the past two weeks had been missing something. Everything good had been familier, everything new had been unnerving. But there I was, high with a full stomach under a uniformly squishy blanket with Amber, who I hadn't seen in 10 months, at almost 4 in the morning, talking about religion and childhood and the new Willy Wonka movie, which she'd known about and brought up even before I did. I wasn't allergic to her cat, and I couldn't figure out what twist of fate had let me detour here on my road back to school, leaping ass-first into the great unknown and going for a quick swim while I was out there, and it had all magically worked out into a complete vacation. Then I fell asleep.
The next day... cereal, a quick trip to an ATM for me while she got ready (read, dressed to the 9's for upscale swanky restaurant) for work.
On my way to the ATM, this large homeless fella leaning against the corner, sitting on the ground. Wouldn't have even noticed him if I hadn't heard a voice as I walked past. "Help the homeless?" Something about him made me actually stop. He was too... aware. When one of my grandma's had spent a few years in an old-folks home, I'd started out feeling sorry for the people there that were sort of mentally on permanent vacation. As the years passed, though, instead I became sorry for the ones that were mentally all there. They knew exactly what kind of situation they were in. That's what tore me about this guy. He was totally aware. And his voice wasn't hammed up for passerby chump change, either. It sounded more like he was trying to hide the sadness. Like it was there but he refused to use it. I dug around in my pockets. No bills. Shit. Not even change. I felt really, really bad for stopping and getting his hopes up, so I explained it to him and offered him half a pack of smokes.
"No thank you sir," he said with a proud, if reserved, smile. "I haven't smoked in 25 years." I apologized about the money thing, and as I walked off, I heard just about the most heartwrenching moment of my entire vacation.
"Thank you, sir. Thank you for stopping." No self-pity, no irony, no thanks-for-nothing in his voice. Genuine, sincere gratitude for having stopped, having noticed him. How many, I wondered, simply hadn't? How many that day alone?
I got back to Amber's and packed my stuff, gave her a hug goodbye and took off for the bus stop. She had no car. It was a bus to the subway to the airport to the desert. Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Nothing much eventful while in transit, except to say SFO, as an airport, is a black hole of flow, without direction or rhyme or reason, and if it had made sense I wouldn't have almost missed my plane. If only I had. On the way back to Tucson, I got seated next to a talker. When she ordered 2 vodkas from the cart, I asked if I was really that bad to sit next to. That's when she laughed and had started talking. Entirely my fault. When I told her my major, she said she had a daughter in CS, and I cursed myself for our having something in common.
I got back in, walked out of security, looking for my ride. Wasn't expecting it, but there stood Coral and Andy. Big grins. Big squishy hug, casual "But I'm hittin ya" manly hug.
Coral asked me how vacation was. I thought about the pimp and the video games and the playground nights, about waking up to Heather jumping on my bed and eating chinese food and frozen yogurt with someone I've known since kindergarten, and I smiled more than I really meant to let on and looked at the ground and said it was good. She peered at me.
"You look very... not like Tucson. You're happy."
Dorky grin. "Yeah. How long you think it'll last?"
"Don't know, we'll see."
That was all last night. Today I did all sorts of nothing, but it was a much less... adventurous... sort of nothing.
Summer school starts tomorrow. But I think I've got enough in the way of "And lo, for before he writ upon the OS, he lived" to make it through.
I know I do.
-Alex
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