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Things were a lot quieter in the van heading back North than they had been on the way South. Tim and Hil had a quiet conversation in the back, which I couldn't follow. I was so wiped. I lost myself in daydreams. I dreamt of a giant, gaunt rider on a giant horse thundering along the road, wielding a scythe. I wondered if this was one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, but couldn't really remember their physical descriptions.
I dreamt that a voice said, "This is Bill," and that I was finding myself face-to-unface with a being that pretty much looked human, except that there was just a bright glow of light where his head should have been. "Who the hell are you?" asked Bill. My reply was a tangle of cliches that seemed appropriate at the time: "I am your worst nightmares made flesh. I am the hollows that bubble in your bones. I am the intervals between the signals that travel up your spine. I am the itch that you will never reach." And that dream ended. That was weird, I thought.
I dreamt that there were a lot of windmills next to the road, and that there was a car stopped by the side of the road, and the people in the car were looking at a giant propellor that had fallen down from a nearby windmill. That's not this road, I thought, and that dream was over. There were other dreams, I'm sure. The mind tends to wander on the road. But I remember those dreams.
We pulled over in the small town of Buellton, CA for dinner. There was a Baker's Square there, along with various other chain restaurants. We settled on Baker's Square. Someone pointed out that its parking lot was full, so it must be good. "The best thing going in Buellton," I replied. That got more of a laugh than I expected.
There was, as you may have anticipated, conversation over dinner.
Tim talked about how he'd grown up in Idaho. He talked about how glad he was that he'd known he had the option of getting out of Idaho. The life of a farmer was okay, he figured, as long as you chose it. But a lot of his classmates in school hadn't chosen it. As he put it, your dad drinks two gallons of whole, unpasteurized milk each day and after a while, he's not moving so fast. You find yourself taking over more and more of the farm duties. By the time you're out of high school, your family's relying on you to keep up the farm. There's no way you can just take off for four years to get some schooling far away. Fortunately, Tim's parents were from Rochester NY, and made sure he knew he had the option to get out of Idaho. Plus, his parents weren't dependent on a labor-demanding farm for their income. He'd gotten into programming, had come out to California, and had lured half of Idaho's programming talent out there with him. If I understand correctly, a lot of these people ended up in a group that he's a member of, a group known as the Hungry Programmers.
We talked about how Jessica and Hil had been in a car accident when they were younger. Doctors had reconstructed Hil's nose, and the result was not like the original. However, the original had got her teased, so she sort of got a free nose job out of the deal. Probably not worth getting into an accident for, though. We gave her nose some scrutiny. She claimed that if you looked close enough, you'd see that the nostrils weren't quite the same size. I decided not to look quite that closely. I don't know why.
We discussed the fact that by the time we got back to the South Bay, CalTrain would no longer be running. Piaw generously offered to let me stay at Hil/Jessica/Tim's place. This gesture surprised me; it needn't have. I would soon find out how much well suited their place was to putting up guests.
As we were heading back to the van throught the parking lot, an old guy dressed up a sort of Hare-Krishna-like uniform rode up on a bicycle. He told me that I shouldn't take up the coin if the cost was murder or something like that. I replied that that was always good advice, and thanked him. I got in the van. I wondered if I should cede my seat to this guy. He probably needed to get to Berkeley more than I did.
On the road again, Hilary mentioned that she was thinking about moving to SF. I mentioned the housing listings at USF and UCSF. She seemed somewhat confused. I realized she probably wasn't all that aware of USF or UCSF. I said that if she wanted to check out the listings some time, I could show them to her. Perhaps I could have foisted the job off on Piaw--I'd discovered the housing listings at the same time he had, looking for a place for his cousin to live. But then, I thought, Piaw might not look back on that day of apartment hunting with much fondness.
I think Piaw and Tim might have talked about ideas for start-ups during this part of the ride. It was during some part of the road trip. I wondered what percentage of the people in Silicon Valley spent time thinking about starting up start-ups. More than in Berkeley, I figured.
Hilary mentioned that she wanted to get back into sailing. 'Rayne recommended a sailing instructor in Redwood City--a lot more convenient to the South Bay than Sausalito or Santa Barbara. I think she talked about how she got to know this sailing instructor, how this sailing instructor met their spouse, and a lot of other things, but I was starting to doze off. Though this was my energetic day of the trip, the energetic part was over.
We arrived at the Mpath parking lot in Cupertino. Luggage was redistributed into cars. I soon found myself in the passenger seat of Tim's tiny convertable, my suitcase in my lap. Actually, though it looked like a tiny convertable, it had a lot of head and leg room. At first we zipped along without talking, listening to some music by a band called Prodigy, which I'd never heard before, and which would surprise me when I heard it on KUSF a few days later--I couldn't figure out where I recognized these strange sounds from until the DJ gave the name of the band. Tim and I were on our way from Cupertino to Half Moon Bay. I realized that, even in the dark, I recognized this road. "Hey, is there a big reservoir down to our left?" I asked. Yes, there was. It was the same reservoir I'd gone biking next to with my high school chums. I mentioned this, and talked about the neat little multi-use park there. Tim talked about how there was some kind of wildlife preserve on the other side of the reservoir, with no easy way to get in. He said that there were a lot of nice things about this area. It was a nice place to live. It was too bad that their landlord wanted to evict them.
The landlord for the house where Hil, Jessica, and Tim were living was upset. The lease specified that there would be five people living there, and there were seven. One could argue that there were five people living there, plus two guests who were just trying to find their financial footing. But those guests had been there a while. The landlord was upset and wanted to raise the rent quite a bit. The tenants had actually got a lawyer in on the negotiations, but were starting to get resigned to the idea of looking for new housing.
Tim talked about his wish to rent or buy a big warehouse and convert it into a huge living/work space. At one level, I was wondering if he missed the expanses of farmland of his youth. On another level, his enthusiasm was infectuous. He spoke of large workspaces, drumming space, a T1 connection. I told him that if he ended up doing something like this in San Francisco, I'd be interested.
It was around this time that I figured out that we were seriously in the boonies. I hadn't seen a lit building in quite a while, and was seeing lots of greenery by the road. This was not the area that I thought of when I thought of Half Moon Bay. Suddenly we turned onto a side road, which turned out to be a driveway. We drove for a while up a hillside covered in trees and pampas before coming to the back of what I will hereafter refer to as the mansion. I might have said, "Nice digs." I might have been too surprised to say anything. This was a heck of a big place to get kicked out of. I wondered why the landlord thought there was only room for five people.
Jessica and Hil arrived at the same time we did, and soon I was heading through the back door, through a sort of laundry room, and down a hall that was lined with cabinets. "Nice pantry," I thought. I had a chance to meet Misha the vaguely huskyish dog, who tried to give me a hand with luggage.
I emerged into a bright area, and someone was saying, "This is Bill." I looked up. I saw a figure slouching in a kitchen. I was winding up to say, "Hey," by way of a greeting. "Who the hell are you?" Bill asked. My "hey" died in my throat. Oh jeez. It was just like my daydream. Was it, like, a vision? Obviously I'd forseen the future. But I didn't believe in that sort of thing. Uhm. Now I'd been quiet for a while. Uhm. What to say? "I am your worst nightmares made flesh," I said, and hesitated. This, I thought, was really dumb. "That's all I needed to know," Bill said. "Most folks call me Larry," I finished, lamely. For the rest of my visit, Bill would not make eye contact with me. I couldn't tell whether it might be because he was generally ill at ease with strangers, or if it was merely that I had convinced him that I was a benign idiot. There were a couple of cats wandering around the kitchen who appeared to have a similar opinion towards me.
(I later on figured out that Bill was Jessica's sweet patootie, so I'm sure he has all sorts of good qualities that perhaps don't shine through in this limited portrait.)
I met Kevin and Max, briefly. Max was just back from a rave in Oakland, perhaps in the Port Authority building. I couldn't really follow what he was saying. I was crashing hard. Someone (Hil?) took me into the living room and showed me a couch on which to sleep. Okay. A couch was good news. I looked around the room. There was a huge stereo and a large collection of CDs. I started to stumble over to the CD collection to see if there was anything interesting. Some self-preservation synapse in my brain fired and got me away from the music collection before I could lose myself in titles and artists. It was time for bed. It was not time to spend an hour looking over a lot of albums. Hil showed me where a shower was. Okay. I was set. I had a plan: shower and sleep.
I knew where the shower was. I had a plan. I went back to the living room. The light was out. I turned it on and started to root through my luggage, looking for clean clothes. Soon afterward, I noticed that someone was sleeping on the futon in the corner. Hmm. Should I turn down the light? He seeemed to be sleeping okay. Hmm. He turned. It was Max. Max spoke. He wanted me to know it was okay if I turned off the stereo. It was, he informed me, playing 13 mixes of a song by Moby. That was fine by me, I said. It didn't seem to be a song by Moby that I knew. Though I might not be able to say that by the evening's end.
I got my shower stuff together, left the living room, and turned down the light. I was walking down the hall towards the shower when I heard a voice behind me. Hil had popped out of a door behind me. "You want to use the hot tub?" she asked. I could tell I was tired, because I just said, "No thanks," rather than going into a diatribe questioning why people wanted to spend so much time in temperatures that caused their brain cells to shut down. As it was, I nearly fell asleep in the shower.