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A bleak dawn... Procuring candy... Onto the plane... Procuring breakfast...
It was Saturday, October 4, 1997. It was five o'clock in the morning and I was as awake as I was going to get. I looked out the window; it was, of course, dark outside. I started to get dressed. "The writer rose before dawn. He put his shoes on," I muttered. I cursed. I'd put on the wrong shoes. I was going to Santa Fe for the weekend to see my friends Rob Pfile and Suruchi Bhatia get married. I was only going to bring one pair of shoes, and it had better be my dress shoes, not the running shoes I'd absent-mindedly put on. I changed shoes. I again checked to make sure that I'd packed everything. (I had.)
As I prepared breakfast, I noticed that I was much calmer than I usually am before taking off on a vacation. Perhaps I'd exhausted myself the day before. I'd spent the latter half of the day at work trying to figure out why a program didn't work. The program was written in C++, a computer language I didn't know; the program was written to run on Sokoto, an operating system I didn't know. It was something like hearing a bird's nest described in terms of the coordinates of the endpoints of its component twigs and trying to determine why eggs kept falling out. After work, I'd gone with a with Curtis Yarvin (a co-worker) to see Jan Svankmejer's (sp?) "Conspirators of Pleasure," a movie whose characters' bizarre, seemingly random actions all turn out to be quite purposeful. For instance, at first you wonder why the postal carrier compulsively makes thumbtip-sized little balls of bread, only to find out that she gains gratification by snorting them up her nose (aided by stop-motion animation) and pouring them into her ears (to be expelled later and fed to carp), all to East Indian music. I knew I was even less inclined to eat galoob jamun (sp?) than I'd been before, but my thinking had been altered in other ways. I'd spent my journey home last night looking at the random actions of the people I saw as purposeful. That man standing straight and tall on the corner of Shattuck and Center, vomiting into the gutter--this was a focused, directed action towards a goal I was just not equipped to fathom. The two bartenders behind me on the subway seemed to be discussing their lazy, dishonest colleague, but in truth they were using a sort of code, discussing things that I was not meant to understand. After reaching home, my brain was pretty well worn out. Add to that the mental pressure of dealing with the stares as I walked through the UCSF campus sporting a tired look and a skull-and-crossbones shirt later that night--no wonder I couldn't work up a decent panic now. I again checked to make sure that I'd packed everything. (I had.)
I'd packed an overnight bag, most of which was taken up with extremely potent snacks. These snacks were my guardians against the uncertainty of finding good food in foreign lands. There was a large bag of ginger snaps, a shiny packet of green apple-flavored Jolly Ranchers, two green apples, and a large jar of roasted peanuts. All this had been rounded up the night before, in a torpid wander through the aisles of the local supermarket. I didn't figure I'd need all of these treats for the trip, but I'd been caught up in the atmosphere of the place. Hallowe'en was weeks away, but the supermarket had a big display of candy in place. Presumably, it was there for all the people who planned on giving away treats for Hallowe'en, but only got to the store once a month. In the end, I got no candy from this display. It was full of bags of miniature versions of chocolate bars which were the vice of choice for the dull and desparate--vile concoctions of milk chocolate and vanilla nougat which were not rendered any more appealing in this super-deformed state. There was a bag of assorted Jolly Ranchers--but why settle for an assortment when you can get a packet of pure apple? I'd spent a lot of time at that display, and emerged disappointed. I wouldn't give that candy to my dog. Still, I'd been impressed by its sheer mass, and had exited the store loaded with the aforementioned snacks.
Packing hadn't been that easy. I'd heard that the good thing about black clothes is that they go with everything. Last night, I'd found an exception--a black sock doesn't go with a blue sock. I'd had a hell of a time finding two matching socks that weren't sweat socks. I'd worn sweat socks to the last wedding I'd attended; while it wasn't the worst faux pas I could possibly commit, it wasn't a mistake I wanted to repeat. I'd finally found another black sock tangled up in my long johns. I again checked to make sure that I'd packed everything. (I had.)
It was a little before six o'clock when Dave Otsuka rang my buzzer. He was going to Santa Fe, too. In fact, he'd made all of the travel arrangements. He was driving me to the airport besides. Thank goodness he'd shown up. I was tired of compulsively checking to make sure that I'd packed everything. (I had.)
Pressed for time, we parked in the SFO's short-term parking lot. We hustled to the gate, passing quickly through its security point, eyeing the box full of gas and pepper spray. They were paging us at the counter, we presented our tickets, we rushed onto the plane. We were on our way to Denver, hub city, gateway to Santa Fe.
We settled into our seats. Dave was reading stuff for work, details on cases of labor law. I snuck some peeks over his shoulder. Pepsi warehouse employees in Anchorage were beating up on each other, throwing beverage cases at one another, making lewd suggestions. I decided that I would avoid drinking soft drinks in Anchorage, considering the bad vibes that each can passed through.
One of our flight attendants must have been even more out of it than I was. Everyone in my row got a breakfast but me. I settled down to wait for the beverage cart to come around so that I could ask about my breakfast. Dave asked me what was up, and I said I didn't know. The young woman next to me asked, "Your breakfast didn't show up?" She looked around, seemingly ready to pounce on the nearest attendant. Jeez, why was she so high strung? "I figure I'll ask about it when the beverage cart comes around," I said, and she noticeably relaxed. When the nice beverage cart attendant asked me what I wanted to drink, I said that I'd kind of like a breakfast. She looked down at my empty tray-table. "You didn't get a breakfast?" No, I hadn't. The attendant made a subtle hand signal to one of her confederates. In a teasing voice, she said, "Well, you don't get any breakfast then." I replied, "Well then, to drink, I'd like a stack of pancakes." She liked that. I got my breakfast. Its acquisition was infinitely more satisfying than its consumption.
I read a bit in "The New Yorker" magazine. Dave noticed this. He told me that his sister had a story under consideration for publication in the New Yorker. I said that that was pretty cool. He said that it was, but it wasn't. He explained: they hadn't exactly accepted the story; they'd made editorial suggestions; one could only hope that they'd accept the story when and if these suggestions were acted upon. Still, this story had met with some acclaim, and was going to appear in various collections, including the publisher's best-of anthology for the year. I went back to reading, reflecting that this bumpkin had fallen in with a sophisticated crowd.