California Dreamin' On Such a Spring's Day

Quarter after four, Friday morning. Two hours of sleep, thanks to remembering to pack some critical items. (Toothbrush? Pillows? Shorts? Sound like good ideas to me.) Snow on the ground. Water crystalizing on my beard. Mount the AB (the glories of a free buspass).

Halfpast five or so. Spend less than five minutes in line to get a boarding pass Wander about the termainal for a few minutes, noting that one security checkpoint has a k-long line, one doesn't. Purchase a far overpriced bagel and spend less than five minutes to go through security.

Just after six AM, arrive at my gate for 8:30 flight. "Allow two hours?" Smeg. I could've caught the 6:35 to LAX. Showing up there would've probably annoyed my hosts, though... Having slept but two hours, I couldn't read very well. Kansas in the early morning looks pretty, though. (For the unfamiliar, there are two things wrong with the name of Denver International Airport. First, International is misleading -- don't try to catch a flight to, say, Russia or Nepal. Second, it's not actually in Denver. It's out in BFN, aka Kansas.)

I need to brush up on my golography, I was having trouble distinguishing CO, UT, and NV from the air. They were all rather brown, white, and mountainous. Cooler than flying over the Appalachians, though. I think the clouds belonged to California. I don't think Nevada is allowed to have clouds... Emerging from the floating white, I discovered green. Green, I tell you!

My Homerdrool of green continued on the ride from San Jose to Santa Cruz. "There's more biomass in that acre than on the entirety of my campus," I say as we trundle down the freeway. It took me several days to get over the fact that people had palm and lemon trees in their yard just three degrees south of my home. And later I got to see campus. "You didn't tell me you went to school in a Redwood forest." Inconvenient intraclass transportation aside, Santa Cruz must have one of the best campi in existance.

The week was spent with mlechan and hanging with her housemates and homo homies. I am frequently amazed at MLE's ability to hit it off with just about anybody and her impressive skills of friendship, abilities geeks like I hardly comprehend. A big Colorado smile to them all and a thanks for being such great company. Left to my own devices, I rarely "hang out," but fun like we had makes me wish I did more often. (The reasons for this disability are a subject for another post.)

Along with MLE's friends and palm trees, I was also introduced to the Specific Ocean, Eddie Izzard, Margaret Cho, such interesting products of contemporary Japan as Tare-panda and Yatta, and various combinations of fish, rice, and seaweed.

Green instead of snow. Neat products of culture. Cool people, fun games, interesting chats, tasty sushi (who thought I'd have such a good meal on my half birthday, especially when I didn't even realize that's what it was? Ditto Chrisslyn (sp?).). All excellent pursuits for a spring break designed to escape scholastic responsibility. But the main reason I got up at 4am on Friday was to spend some quality time (with a capital W) with the ever wonderful Emily. And so it was.

We were loopy together. We made in-jokes that only we understood and in-jokes that the other didn't get. We talked about various international cultures, psycholinguistics, loafing about, college life, computer peculiarities, liking the other sex and talking to gays, pain, sun, sex and its psychosomatic byproducts, and whether Japanese men write kanji in the snow. We fondly recalled friends, freaks, teachers, classes, hot babes, and classmates' houses from high school. We spoke fondly of each other's family. We had a wonderful and touching talk about romance between two teenagers posessing varying combinations of scared, confused, creative, smart, silly, poetic, perfect pair, and odd couple. We got a chance to apologize, each surprising the other that we felt the need. We gained new perspectives on strange behaviors. And, of course, hugged a lot. (MLE is my second favorite hug target, after my dad, the portable back straightening machine.)

The Ash of the MLE Crack Pipe still remains in my lungs. It brings that special feeling back that makes me all flighty, smiling, and dreamy. If vrelis is right and the possible options are crush, intense infatuation, and friendship, this must be a doubleplus goodfriendful relationship. I don't consistently get this feeling anywhere else. I need to find a good outlet to bubble over into. <sigh>

On the way out, I noticed how ritualized air travel is. Employees wear ceremonial garb, speak the same lines thousands of times, and perform the same actions over and over again. For purposes of launching and landing airplanes, this is a Good Thing (tm). This ritual anality seems to have spread to the flight crew and airports, though, which is annoying at times. (Incidentally, why do they have different voices saying "Do not leave bags unattended. Unattended bags will be confiscated immediately" at different times? Wouldn't it be less annoying to alternate?) It'd be absurd to show a safety video every time someone got on a roller coaster. Most folks can figure out how to exit a crashed airplane, and those that don't can learn real fast. Besides, the flight attendants ought to be good for more than giving passengers a cup of ice and small packet of peanuts. But at the ghetto that is San Jose International Airport, I found some folks who haven't succame to the monotony of air ritual. They didn't preface every verb by "do." The guy at the ticket counter spoke casually, hooked me up with a flight four hours before my scheduled departure (extra thanks to Sam for the ride!). He also ran to the restroom in the middle of the transaction. The guy at the gate complimented me on my hat and got me a seat with more legroom. Of course, this niceness was offset by the psycho security. I can't wear my hat and sweatshirt through the metal detector? It gets set off by a 14 spiral notebook and I have to empty my pockets, remove my shoes, get a full wanding and pad down, and have such dangerous items as a pad of sticky notes get X-rayed? Did Tom Ridge get a red stiffie recently? (Comparison: the wonderful folks at DIA waved me through in October without trying to figure out why my hat was beeping. It had safety pins.) Or maybe San Jose just has an inferority complex. (Incidentally, even with an employee bathroom break and anal security, two hours was quite unnecessary. It took me about half an hour to go from door to gate.)

As soon as I got back to the less oppressive atmosphere (20% less weight on my shoulders!) I felt an infusion of energy. I strolled, waltzed, and strode through DIA, enjoyed a surprisingly good BigAssBurritoForOnlyABuckAndAHalfMoreThanItWouldHaveCostInBoulder, and watched the beauties of a windblown prarie at sunset. I checked two pieces of baggage on my return trip. My suitcase was one of the first on the carousel. The weather I brought back seems to have stuck around.

Granted an extra four hours of free time on Wednesday night, I was able to acquire a new watch and sunglasses and bike to the Bakery. I hadn't powered two wheeled locomotion since about late October, so that was quite refreshing. Turns out Keith's trip to San Jose last week taught him that he didn't want to remain at his job, so he's now a freelance writer with a few interesting projects in the pipeline for a cool company or two. This change may translate for more roleplaying for me, including a chance to play Feng Shui. On Sunday night, we may watch The Killer by John Woo with Chow Yun Fat and What's My Name?. (Is that how it goes? I couldn't catch the joke.) The Wednesday night ambiance has firmly shifted from Games and Gossip to Games, Gossip, and some-synonym-for-baby-that-starts-with-g. Played a game of Filthy Rich another creative use of media by Richard Garfield.

Anyway. Time to get some sleep. I'm on duty from this coming morning through Sunday evening. That oughta earn back the money I spent on plane tickets and drive me fully out of my mind. More meta musings from my magical moments this week will follow soon.