January 25, 2010
I’m writing this from the place where dreams are made: a Comfort Inn in Pittsburgh.
Jon’s and my first stop on our cross-country was, oddly enough, our old high school. This was a convenient meeting place, since it’s halfway between Jon’s house and mine, but it also had a certain begin-at-the-beginning poetic logic to it, which was definitely needed to turn our itinerary into something more momentous. Thus, before hitting the road for the first time in my adult life, I visited my former teachers and mentors, to say something like “hi, you taught me, I’m now unemployed, etc.” and relive old times. They were all (except one) outwardly pleased to see us. Now that we are alumni—and thus no longer part of any student-teacher social contract—they were strangely honest, and two of them mentioned how much they disliked the school and wanted to quit. Others were much the same. Of all the things about adult human beings, what do you think has the most potential to change? I’d say their hair.
Being back was, as expected, awkward, and there was much smiling, shifting, and deflection to go around. When you visit your old high school as a (semi-)adult, and without the cover of a reunion, the social dynamic very explicitly requires you to explain your existence, which for me was a little aimless. Jon has a job waiting for him, but for me it’s a vacation that has the possibility of turning into something more. Basically: no plan in particular. So in describing the trip, I would seek out a good pop culture metaphor, to nail the point home. Something like Fear and Loathing without the drugs, or a platonic all-male Bonnie and Clyde without the robberies. In other words, it would be two friends throwing aside responsibility, embracing the freedom of youth, and driving through Pennsylvania for six hours straight. (Note: the “all-male” and “platonic” qualifiers were added to the Bonnie and Clyde analogy after its ill-thought-out use raised an uncomfortable question with our history teacher). When I told one particular teacher about the trip, and before I could slip in a pop culture metaphor of my own, he exclaimed: “It’s like that famous novel! You know, the one with the long road trip. What was it called? Oh, Lolita.” (Not what I was going for, but ok.)
(Other possibilities: Two Lane Blacktop, where they actually get there at the end.)
RCDS has grown. Physically, I mean. The main building is sprouting glass-and-steel appendages that jut into the athletic fields. Revisiting a renovated old setting is a strange experience: with no active construction, the human element is gone, and it becomes like the buildings have multiplied on their own. With this makeover, they’ve also added a new security system: the front entrance to Rye is now video-monitored. I asked a teacher what spurred this on. Apparently, the answer is paranoia.
(Stranger Than Paradise, with nerds instead of hipsters).
On our way out of the school, it had started to sleet. Do you ever get the feeling, I asked Jon, that it seems impossible that everything that’s happened to you is all part of the same lifetime? It seems more fitting to say that you lead a series of micro-lives, each set in a different place with a different tone and a different series of concerns, placed end to end but incapable of forming a cohesive whole. He said yeah, sometimes.
Wrapping it up quickly: pictures of clouds, heavy metal, and Thai food.
(Thelma and Louise with men and no cliffs, but that might be too easy).
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Califor-ni-a
Growing up in an east coast suburb, it seemed like there was this unspoken perception that, whatever "normal" life was, this was it. Ours was the archetype. We had houses with picket fences. We raked leaves in the fall and shoveled snow in the winter. December was hockey, May was baseball. George Washington had passed through our town (some say), and the pilgrims had had the first Thanksgiving nearby. Everyone was either a Democrat or a Republican. Half the fathers in town commuted into New York, which is probably the most archetypal city of all. This was the normal perception of life.
The perception was bullshit, of course, and you probably feel it no matter where you grow up. But I find myself thinking about it after transplanting to the Bay Area, which, more than anywhere else I've been, feels like a place where all bets are off. I've been living here for almost half a year now, and northern California has yet to become "normalized" for me. Which is not to say I don't like it, but simply that even after 4 months, passing over the same ground every day still feels like a bizarre act of discovery.
I offer, then, for anyone unfamiliar with the area, a relative newcomer's guide to life around the bay, compromised of three points to keep an eye out for.
1) The random stranger factor
If you come here, you will be accosted by random strangers more in the bay area than probably any place else you've been. Not just strangers, strange strangers: congenially odd people who will approach you and begin a conversation with something like:
"I'm doing a survey. What do you want in life?"
or
"A guy might come by, and I'm going to have to beat him up. While that happens, can you watch this painting and make sure no one steals it?"
And then they're gone, and you'll wonder which one of you was the real random stranger.
2) The roads
I have a theory that the roads and highways in the bay area were designed by a man who didn't have an eraser and wasn't allowed to start over. Everything is a tangle of bizarre intersections, knotted highways, and lanes that appear, disappear, and merge without warning or reason. Practice driving accordingly.
Also, the area becomes more or less impossible to travel by car on every weekday between 4 and 7. If you want to get from the south bay to the east bay on a Wednesday afternoon, you'll have to take backroads, and even then it'll be like a salmon swimming upstream. I asked some longtime residents about this regular immobility, and it seems that everyone has just kind of accepted it as part of life. (They say they're mostly happy it's not L.A.)
3) The weather exists outside of time.
The seasons seem like they shift and blend and swap places. In the summer, it can be literally 100 degrees in the east bay and literally 60 degrees in San Francisco itself. Even the clouds look somehow different, and the nearby mountains have proverbial shrouds of fog at odd hours of the day.
The perception was bullshit, of course, and you probably feel it no matter where you grow up. But I find myself thinking about it after transplanting to the Bay Area, which, more than anywhere else I've been, feels like a place where all bets are off. I've been living here for almost half a year now, and northern California has yet to become "normalized" for me. Which is not to say I don't like it, but simply that even after 4 months, passing over the same ground every day still feels like a bizarre act of discovery.
I offer, then, for anyone unfamiliar with the area, a relative newcomer's guide to life around the bay, compromised of three points to keep an eye out for.
1) The random stranger factor
If you come here, you will be accosted by random strangers more in the bay area than probably any place else you've been. Not just strangers, strange strangers: congenially odd people who will approach you and begin a conversation with something like:
"I'm doing a survey. What do you want in life?"
or
"A guy might come by, and I'm going to have to beat him up. While that happens, can you watch this painting and make sure no one steals it?"
And then they're gone, and you'll wonder which one of you was the real random stranger.
2) The roads
I have a theory that the roads and highways in the bay area were designed by a man who didn't have an eraser and wasn't allowed to start over. Everything is a tangle of bizarre intersections, knotted highways, and lanes that appear, disappear, and merge without warning or reason. Practice driving accordingly.
Also, the area becomes more or less impossible to travel by car on every weekday between 4 and 7. If you want to get from the south bay to the east bay on a Wednesday afternoon, you'll have to take backroads, and even then it'll be like a salmon swimming upstream. I asked some longtime residents about this regular immobility, and it seems that everyone has just kind of accepted it as part of life. (They say they're mostly happy it's not L.A.)
3) The weather exists outside of time.
The seasons seem like they shift and blend and swap places. In the summer, it can be literally 100 degrees in the east bay and literally 60 degrees in San Francisco itself. Even the clouds look somehow different, and the nearby mountains have proverbial shrouds of fog at odd hours of the day.
***
There's a place here in Palo Alto called Lytton Plaza. Currently, it's an open space with benches, a fountain, and live music as often as not. And when no live musician is there, easy listening music is pumped in at a pleasurable volume from discretely placed speakers, which is unsettling and relaxing at the same time. On the northern side, there's a pizza parlor called Pizza My Heart. I'm told that the plaza used to have hedges and be the shady place where stoners met, until they took the hedges down, added the music, and tried to make it family-friendlier. The internet also tells me that back in the 1970s, a group of Maoist revolutionaries dubbed it "the People's Plaza" and used it as a meeting place. According to the city's website, it's one of Palo Alto's "designated free speech areas."
I mention this because the other day, a man had set up a booth there with a big banner that said: "9/11 Truth and Cookies." It's a synergistic combination, and its at least a sign that conspiracy theorists are willing to meet us halfway. About a week before that, a man was standing outside the Häagen-Dazs waving a Bible and warning about the road to Communism. (I should say that there are far more fundamentalists and conservatives in California than the stereotype would expect you to believe.)
Down the street from Lytton Plaza yesterday, someone had parked the most bizarre car I've ever seen. It was bolted together, apparently from scrap metal, and looked like how people imagined 2010 back in 1960. It was something out of the Jetsons, by way of someone's garage. People were taking photos.
In the public discourse, "California" is talked about almost as if it isn't part of America—like it's as much a fringe of thought as it is a fringe of geography. I respectfully disagree. I think California is, in an odd way, very representative of America. It's a fragmented heap of people and ideas. It's a place where arrivals from everywhere else drop roots and grow out at odd angles—where the big winners, losers, and consolation prize recipients of American capitalism all have to share space on the highway. If you compressed America into a California-sized area, it may very well be California. I haven't gotten used to it and I'm not sure I'll stay, but for now: welcome.
There's a place here in Palo Alto called Lytton Plaza. Currently, it's an open space with benches, a fountain, and live music as often as not. And when no live musician is there, easy listening music is pumped in at a pleasurable volume from discretely placed speakers, which is unsettling and relaxing at the same time. On the northern side, there's a pizza parlor called Pizza My Heart. I'm told that the plaza used to have hedges and be the shady place where stoners met, until they took the hedges down, added the music, and tried to make it family-friendlier. The internet also tells me that back in the 1970s, a group of Maoist revolutionaries dubbed it "the People's Plaza" and used it as a meeting place. According to the city's website, it's one of Palo Alto's "designated free speech areas."
I mention this because the other day, a man had set up a booth there with a big banner that said: "9/11 Truth and Cookies." It's a synergistic combination, and its at least a sign that conspiracy theorists are willing to meet us halfway. About a week before that, a man was standing outside the Häagen-Dazs waving a Bible and warning about the road to Communism. (I should say that there are far more fundamentalists and conservatives in California than the stereotype would expect you to believe.)
Down the street from Lytton Plaza yesterday, someone had parked the most bizarre car I've ever seen. It was bolted together, apparently from scrap metal, and looked like how people imagined 2010 back in 1960. It was something out of the Jetsons, by way of someone's garage. People were taking photos.
In the public discourse, "California" is talked about almost as if it isn't part of America—like it's as much a fringe of thought as it is a fringe of geography. I respectfully disagree. I think California is, in an odd way, very representative of America. It's a fragmented heap of people and ideas. It's a place where arrivals from everywhere else drop roots and grow out at odd angles—where the big winners, losers, and consolation prize recipients of American capitalism all have to share space on the highway. If you compressed America into a California-sized area, it may very well be California. I haven't gotten used to it and I'm not sure I'll stay, but for now: welcome.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Nontroduction
A wise man once told me that when you meet someone for the first time, you shouldn't ask any of the basic getting-to-know-you questions, like your major, hometown, interests, etc. Instead, he said, you should ask something unusual. Something random and unexpected. I never caught his name, but he had shown up without an invite and it seemed like he knew what he was talking about.
So in that spirit, and as an introduction for the journal posts to come, I present the answers to random questions about myself that weren't actually asked:
-2nd of 4
-1981
-Plaid
-Being bit by a duck
-"Safety Dance"
-Once.
-No.
So in that spirit, and as an introduction for the journal posts to come, I present the answers to random questions about myself that weren't actually asked:
-2nd of 4
-1981
-Plaid
-Being bit by a duck
-"Safety Dance"
-Once.
-No.
Monday, May 24, 2010
In Medias Res
January 1, 2010
The first day of the new decade was something of a rarity for me: it was a moment that felt exactly like what it was. Often, milestones and watersheds are almost surreal in how mundane they feel (possibly because by the time we hit milestones, we're fairly tired).
But this was different. The world felt rejuvenated. Even the streets of Philadelphia seemed clean and fresh and bright—which may rile those with east coast regional biases—but there it was, and it was new. As Jon and I walked to the train station, we decided that this feeling of renewal was probably owed to the fact that a) the weather had improved considerably since last night, and b) the streets were empty since everyone was still at home hung over at 2 PM. I wished it were like that everyday.
Jon, an old friend of mine since high school, had invited me to spend New Years Eve with him at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering. I said yes. It would get me out of the house and out of the state, and it was a chance to see what people who dedicate their lives to science and rationality do on New Year's Eve. Reading that back, it seems fairly clear that it could go one way or the other; it went the other. My chief memory of the night was being trapped in a second-floor apartment while a guy named Rish, who reliable sources tell me is actually really nice, violently banged on the door from the hallway. We were told not to let him in. I spent the time counting the almonds on the floor.
After darting a bit through Philadelphia in the slush and rain, which my sneakers were very ill-suited for, we ended up Jon's old apartment. It was half-empty, he was moving out. But there were still sofas, and we found some uneaten crackers. Soon everyone else left, and it was just me and Jon. We'd both just graduated as December grads. I'd left school only two weeks prior and entered the world armed with a humanities degree and an unprecedented lack of expectations. This was something new. Jon and I talked about the future and prospects. We talked about the new zeitgeist of the Obama era, solutions for the world's energy problem, and the shortcoming of the Star Wars prequels. The amount of lucidity pouring out at 4 AM seemed uncommon. It was all so simple. By the time I woke up, I'd forgotten most of it. Soon we had to go to the train.
That evening—a confused daze, loud pondering, and inappropriate footwear—is more or less emblematic of post-graduate life for me, and it reverberates back behind it and, presumably, in front of it as well.
Within a few weeks, Jon and I would both leave on a trip out to California: him to a job, and me along for the ride to see the country and maybe come up with a plan. This blog is my log of the places, people, and incidents that followed. It will be a mixture of stories, anecdotes, and thoughts that will probably come in no particular order, out of a mixture of postmodernism and laziness.
We hope you enjoy.
The first day of the new decade was something of a rarity for me: it was a moment that felt exactly like what it was. Often, milestones and watersheds are almost surreal in how mundane they feel (possibly because by the time we hit milestones, we're fairly tired).
But this was different. The world felt rejuvenated. Even the streets of Philadelphia seemed clean and fresh and bright—which may rile those with east coast regional biases—but there it was, and it was new. As Jon and I walked to the train station, we decided that this feeling of renewal was probably owed to the fact that a) the weather had improved considerably since last night, and b) the streets were empty since everyone was still at home hung over at 2 PM. I wished it were like that everyday.
Jon, an old friend of mine since high school, had invited me to spend New Years Eve with him at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering. I said yes. It would get me out of the house and out of the state, and it was a chance to see what people who dedicate their lives to science and rationality do on New Year's Eve. Reading that back, it seems fairly clear that it could go one way or the other; it went the other. My chief memory of the night was being trapped in a second-floor apartment while a guy named Rish, who reliable sources tell me is actually really nice, violently banged on the door from the hallway. We were told not to let him in. I spent the time counting the almonds on the floor.
After darting a bit through Philadelphia in the slush and rain, which my sneakers were very ill-suited for, we ended up Jon's old apartment. It was half-empty, he was moving out. But there were still sofas, and we found some uneaten crackers. Soon everyone else left, and it was just me and Jon. We'd both just graduated as December grads. I'd left school only two weeks prior and entered the world armed with a humanities degree and an unprecedented lack of expectations. This was something new. Jon and I talked about the future and prospects. We talked about the new zeitgeist of the Obama era, solutions for the world's energy problem, and the shortcoming of the Star Wars prequels. The amount of lucidity pouring out at 4 AM seemed uncommon. It was all so simple. By the time I woke up, I'd forgotten most of it. Soon we had to go to the train.
That evening—a confused daze, loud pondering, and inappropriate footwear—is more or less emblematic of post-graduate life for me, and it reverberates back behind it and, presumably, in front of it as well.
Within a few weeks, Jon and I would both leave on a trip out to California: him to a job, and me along for the ride to see the country and maybe come up with a plan. This blog is my log of the places, people, and incidents that followed. It will be a mixture of stories, anecdotes, and thoughts that will probably come in no particular order, out of a mixture of postmodernism and laziness.
We hope you enjoy.
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