Now he’s at the closet, Now he’s opening the closet

I'm back and for the record I didn't die in the tiny earthquake. Y'all will have to pardon my little hiatus, but things have been a bit crazy of late. Work was out of control for a couple weeks (World Cup, new projects with impossible deadlines, my own procrastinatory dumbassitude) and I wasn't feeling much like typing when not at the office.

Also when not at the office, I've been distracted. I spent a shocking sum on a fabulous shelving system and overhauled my closet, for one. Which may seem a trifle, but when it's the only closet in the apartment and so must serve to hold my clothes, coats (of which there are many, living in San Fran as I do), linens, shoes, camping equipment, luggage, snowboard gear, etc., etc., well that's a tall order for a 4x4 space. Anyway, that has taken more time than I expected. Because buried in that closet were piles of clothes and boxes I hadn't seen in years... literally. It frightens me how much of a fucking packrat I am and how hard it is to part with stuff when there's some remote possibility that it could come in handy in the distant future should I ever start that project, or in case it might come back in style, or just because I liked it when I could wear it which hasn't been for 5 years. But I did give a bunch of stuff to Goodwill. And I also had to overhaul my bedroom once there was space to put things away properly (more or less).

Then last week my family was in town (yay!), so look forward to photos.

Anyway, now that all the excitement of closet-cleaning is over (yup, that's my thrill-a-minute life), it's back to business as usual.

That's great, it starts with an earthquake

5:23 am. The sky is turning light in the east. The birds have already begun their morning chatter on the wires. Traffic noises are gradually increasing beneath my window. I'm only remotely aware of these things as I slowly surface from a pleasant dream.

5:24 am. The bed begins to thump against the wall as the building suddenly groans and creaks. I open my eyes wide and lay there gripping my pillow as all my furniture rocks gently and the things on my shelves start to rattle. No sooner am I perfectly aware of what's going on than it's already over, my heart the only thing left thumping, my nerves the last thing left rattled.

There's nothing quite like a jolt of adrenaline to start the day. It's just too bad it didn't happen about an hour later so I could have slept a little longer.

Bright College Years

Let me elaborate a little on my reunion which I had earlier called a giant mind-fuck: it was as though I spent the weekend in a perpetual state of déjà vu.

In one sense, it was seriously like I had never left school. I don't think I'd ever given a conscious thought to the scent of my freshman year dorm's stairwell, but the instant I opened the door to Durfee entryway B, the subtle smell yanked me back through time with such a jarring swirl that the woosh was almost audible and I had to pause to steady myself before climbing the steps. Later that first night, Bryan, Ben and I went to Yorkside for a slice (actually, I had the garlic cheese bread which tasted precisely as I unexpectedly expected it would), and as we lingered over the bill, I felt the creeping worry that my study break had already been too long and I needed to get back to my reading packet.

The sense of familiarity with my surroundings was overpowering, but it was as if I was in a some bifurcated bizarro parallel universe where almost everything was identical except that it rained donuts. Not only were we in Durfee, we were staying in the room next-door to my freshman year room (Bryan's suite). Everything was exactly as I remember - the 14-foot ceilings, the furniture, the nappy blue curtains... but it was all opposite of my frosh suite: the fireplace was on the wrong side of the common room and the bathroom was near the front door instead of at the end of the hallway. And the chairs had angled backlegs so you could rock back without falling over. Toads and Au Bon Pain and Ashley's were still there, but the Co-op was a Barnes & Noble and J.Crew and Urban Outfitters sat where some other miscellaneous shops should be. The Lipstick still stood in the Morse courtyard, but there was fancy leather furniture in the common room and Bryan's ex was now Dean. The lions still stood guard outside Wright Hall, but I'm fairly certain the flowering dogwoods framing the Durfee entryway don't belong there. The nave of the library was still flanked by card catalogs, but the central courtyard was instead a beautifully-enclosed music library. And what was that large modern building across from DUH on Hillhouse?

Similarly disconcerting, every time I turned around I saw familiar faces. You know what it's like to recognize someone but not be able to place how you might know them? Does she ride my bus? Is that the guy who works at Jamba? Did I work with that woman once? Is he the one from that party? Well nearly every face under the class tent was like that, though I never knew most of them even while in school. I saw people I felt like I should know and thought, wait, you went to my college? And of course many folks were a little thicker around the middle or a little thinner up top, had children in tow, dressed better.

Clearly, there were plenty of reminders that ten years really had gone by.

And now I have a new layer of memories associated with that place, which will surely make the next visit even more of a head game. What remained exactly as I remember, however (aside from the craptastic weather and sidewalks submerged by turbid puddles the size of small inland seas), was the great enjoyment of genuine friendship. Honestly, waiting with Ranie and the gang for a burger at Louis' Lunch, revisiting Zoe's tale of dating woe, meeting the newest member of Kristin's family, being jealous of Ben's chapeau de morses, waiting for the train with Bryan, I realized just what were the most important things I took away from school ... and I'm glad they've been there ever since.

To summarize (part tongue-in-cheek and part tear-on-cheek):

Bright College years, with pleasure rife,
The shortest, gladdest years of life;
How swiftly are ye gliding by!
Oh, why doth time so quickly fly?

The seasons come, the seasons go,
The earth is green or white with snow,
But time and change shall naught avail
To break the friendships formed at Yale.

In after years, should troubles rise
To cloud the blue of sunny skies,
How bright will seem, through mem'ry's haze
Those happy, golden, bygone days!

Oh, let us strive that ever we
May let these words our watch-cry be,
Where'er upon life's sea we sail:
"For God, for Country and for Yale!"

Pressed between the pages of my mind

The last time I was at Yale was the day after graduation, as I emerged onto Old Campus in a daze, feeling as though I had just had the rug pulled from under me. Trying to process the flurry of activity and events and goodbyes and obligations and hoping I hadn't left anything unfinished, I dragged my luggage across the uneven flagstones and saw Ben (the Big) standing forlornly in the quiet quad, overlooking the remains of our college years as workers began to stack and store the neat rows of chairs, pick up the bits of paper, plastic cups and other detritus, and gradually restore a dignified peace beneath the towering elms. A final hug and I was hurrying out the High Street gate, into a cab with my sister and dad, and off to the airport in a panicky dash to avoid missing the flight thanks to the notoriously fickle New Haven taxis.

Over the ensuing 10 years, the well-worn pages of my memory book have faded with age and disuse, and I strained to recall place names, faces, instructors, courses, specific events, old haunts. There were people and things I had forgotten without even knowing I had ever known. And so, last weekend I returned to campus for my 10-year reunion and what turned out to be one giant mind-fuck. But in a good way.

It began as soon as I got off the train from Boston, emerging from Union Station and clambering aboard the alumni shuttle bus to be surrounded by oddly familiar faces, people clapping each other on the shoulders, shaking hands, hugging. And by sheer coincidence, Bryan showed up fresh off his train from DC so we could join in the preunion. Once on Old Campus, Big Ben was there to meet us and somehow, quite unexpectedly, as I rolled my luggage across the uneven flagstones, 10 years melted away as if they'd been a strangely vivid daydream.

Record time

I'm a terrible picture taker. Yes yes, I have a few really nice shots and several I'm especially proud of given my crappy little snapshot camera (which was super amazing when I got it), but in general I take too many photos of things and not nearly enough pictures of people. And while things are sometimes pretty, those shots are rarely as pretty as the thing was in person, and the snapshots of people are the ones I wish I had because they spur such great memories of whatever the experience was. And so, I'm making the effort to take more shots of people from here on out.

Similarly, I'm going to try to include more of these sort of shots in my ramblings on this here mess of a blog, because it's as much for me (my attempt to fend off the fog of failing memory) as it is for the infotainment of you, dear reader.

And with that, in a brief blog crossover episode, let's all take a moment to say Happy 1st Birthday Nolan! and to enjoy the difference a year makes.

Rats!

So much for staying on top of my writing duties. But this time I have a good excuse: I spent last week out of town and with limited computer contact. I was on my annual Back East tour, visiting Caroline and her family in Boston, and then on to New Haven, CT for some serious past reliving. I will write more on this in the next few days, but I've been busy at work catching up on e-mails and projects that have been lagging behind, and the weather has been so nice in the mornings and evenings that I haven't been taking the time to sit in front of my keyboard and screen.

Tangentially related, I've been toying with the idea of taking up running (next year's San Francisco AIDS Marathon or this winter's Honolulu Marathon, perhaps... Am I crazy?!), and later we can delve into why that may happen if I fully commit to it, but since I haven't formally exercised in years, I actually went out on a trial jog last night when I got home from work. It was a beautiful sunny evening in the low 60s, and I ran/walked down to the Wharf and then around to Levi's Plaza and then climbed the cliffside staircase up the east face of Telegraph Hill and back down to home. It wasn't a long distance and I was only gone for 45 minutes, but I gotta start somewhere.

Anyway, while pausing for a drink at the fountain near the base of Coit Tower, something came bursting out of the underbrush towards me, and I thought at first it was a chipmunk or squirrel or one of the rodents I'm more used to seeing scurrying around in the wild. But no, this isn't the woods, this is a city, and as it brazenly streaked past my shoes I saw its long thick hairless tail and recognized it at once as an enormous rat. Fortunately no one was around to witness my little don't-chew-my-toe-or-climb-my-leg dance.

Given that I haven't seen a rat in ages, it was weird then, that this morning as Janet and I walked to work, there was a second gigantic rat, though this one considerably more dead, laying in the middle of the sidewalk just outside the Clown Alley burger joint where I shall now never eat. First spiders, now rats... I'm a little afraid of what may be lying in wait for me next. If it starts raining snakes, I'm moving.