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I tiptoed back into the living room. The music had stopped. So much for my chance to hear some more Moby. Hil was there, trying to fold out the couch into a bed. She asked me if I had an idea of how to do so. It looked to me like a futon like others I'd unfolded, and it looked to me like she was doing the right thing, so it was probably jammed or something. I couldn't really figure out a way to phrase such a complex idea right then, nor formulate a series of steps to figure out which part was jammed. "I can just sleep on the couch," I said, "Goodness knows I've done that before." I pulled on a corner to bring the couch back into its couch form.
Hil asked me a series of questions, which I suppose had something to do with pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, night lights, and lullabies. I didn't have a mirror, but I'm sure I know what my facial expression was at that time. I've seen it at times when I asked a houseguest too many questions when they were ready for bed. "I'm so tired," this face says, "that I am beyond blankets. I have gone past the point of pillows. Glasses of water--not a factor. Merely point me at the couch and give me a little push." It was dark. She couldn't see my face. "I'm well taken care of," I said. I wished Hil good night; I wished Max good night; I achieved unconsciousness in minutes.
I don't think I dreamed. That was fine by me.
Half Moon Bay... Home
I woke up slowly. There was a strange squeaking noise. Where was I? Oh yeah. On a couch in a living room in a big, big house. What was that squeaking? I sat up. I looked around. My, what a big stereo, I thought. That's when I looked beyond the stereo and caught a bit of the view out of the window. I got up and stumbled towards the window. I saw green hills covered with trees, greenhouses, and fog where there might otherwise have been an ocean. Good morning, world, I thought. I looked down to my side. There was a terrarium there, its floor covered with some mulch-like substance, a corner of which was rising and falling. Hello, hamsteroid, I thought. I looked at the view a while longer. It warranted some looking.
I stumbled out into the hall and made my way to the kitchen, opening the kitchen door and startling Hil in the process. We exchanged drowsy morning conversation as she did breakfasty things. Max showed up, ate something. Hil and Max were running late for work, and soon rushed out the door.
I looked around the kitchen and figured out that it must be two-thirds the size of the whole flat I shared with two other people. The room was cluttered with things. There were a few bags of garbage--probably it was a bad idea to put your food garbage outside in this wilderness. There were containers, spices, appliances, foodstuffs, and implements scattered across all available counterspace. The refrigerator door was covered with more fragments of magnetic poetry than I might have believed possible. I sat against the wall upon a chair whose back was missing--it reminded me of a similarly bereft chair from the pool room in the back of my old Marin St. house. I took some notes in my travel diary.
One of the cats came into the kitchen. I pet it for a while, then sat back. It wandered off. I washed my hands, ridding them of allergens. I like cats, but try not to pet them unless I'll get a chance to wash my hands soon after. Fortunately, I was in a well-stocked kitchen. My hands clean, I returned to my perch. The cat came back and rubbed against my leg. Okay. I can take a hint. I pet the cat some more. It wandered off. I washed my hands. The cat came back. I looked askance at it. It started to crawl up into my lap. Okay. I let it, and started petting it again. This time, it didn't try to wander off. It was comfy.
It was at this point that I noticed motion outside the kitchen window and figured out that it was a courier van. I'd heard no activity around the house--people were no doubt still asleep. They might not be too pleased to have the doorbell ringing at this hour. I should answer the door. I looked down at the cat lying in my lap. "Sorry, dude," I said, and slid from the chair to a kneeling position to get my lap close to the ground, and dislodged the feline.
I went to the front door where I met the courier, seconds before Scott (who'd I'd met briefly the night before) walked up--he'd been smoking outside. Scott was pleased. This was a package they'd been waiting for for a while. Okay. I signed for the package--it was for Time--and brought it into the kitchen and set it down. I looked around for the cat. I realized I was pretty sleepy. Trying to recall the events of the past day and note them down was difficult. Petting a cat might be my intellectual limit for the morning. The cat was nowhere in evidence. I tried to re-apply myself to my diary. It was no use. Scott breezed through the kitchen. He was wearing a Sun security badge. I guess he worked at Sun.
I read a bit further in American Dreams. I heard a car pull up. I saw a couple of spritzy hairdos go by the kitchen window. I hoisted myself from my perch and arrived in the front hall as the doorbell rang. So much for preserving people's slumber, I thought--but Tim was already up and about and answering the door. I ambled back to the kitchen.
There was a swirl of activity. Later that day, reporters from MS-NBC were coming to the house to interview one or two of the residents about their experiences as Mplayer beta testers. Now a couple of people from Mpath's marketing department were here. Hey, I'm in my company's marketing department, I thought. Hey, I should get to work soon, I thought. Hey, I am seriously out in the boonies. Hey, I'm not thinking too fast. Hey, this is a difficult problem.
Was it Tim or Jessica who came dashing through to wake up Chris, a resident/beta-tester/interviewee? I think it was Tim, and I think that's when I pointed out his package. It was a Ricochet wireless modem from Metricom, he said. Okay. It was really cool, he said. Okay. He was torn between opening up this new toy and going back to help with the marketing effort, but managed to tear himself away.
Someone came through the kitchen. This, I surmised, was Chris. We exchanged greetings. He stepped out. Then there were a lot of people in the kitchen, more than I could keep track of. Jessica, Chris, and Bill were all around at various times, preparing food and coffee for visitors, for themselves. I marvelled that anyone could find what food they wanted amongst the large number of cabinets, but they managed. I think they were talking excitedly about the upcoming interview and the Ricochet. I helped figure out the coffee machine. Perhaps I was too tired to follow modem tech talk, but I had experience in figuring out strange coffee machines under drowsy conditions.
After a while, everyone else went back to talk to the marketing folk except for Jessica who settled down for a breakfast of cereal. The cat from earlier this morning showed up. I related my earlier history with this cat, the washing/petting synchronization problems. Jessica considered. "You don't have to pet him, you know," she pointed out. I mumbled something about how that hadn't seemed like an option at the time. And there the matter rested. Done with her cereal, Jessica put the bowl with its remaining milk down where the cat could drink it. Jessica and the milk were soon gone. After a few seconds it dawned on me that I could have asked Jessica for help with getting back to civilization. I had been too out of it to think of asking. It occurred to me that these last few days hadn't exactly been overflowing with alert minutes for me.
Chris came through, and we talked for a bit, exchanging personal backgrounds and philosophies. I didn't really learn a whole lot about Chris beyond the fact that at the moment he had a lot more pep than I did. I felt like an iguana contemplating a hummingbird. We were operating at different speeds, we could observe one another, but not truly interact.
Chris was gone, and Tim came in. He started to unwrap his new modem. I asked about getting either a ride to a train station or else directions to give a taxi driver to reach this place. Tim would give me a ride. I fetched my bag. People were in the kitchen burbling over the modem. Let them. I was going back to a place with strong coffee. I was going to a place where I had a pair of jeans that was free of brine and ginger ale.
I hauled my bag back into the kitchen. Tim was pulling cables and adapters out of the modem box. I watched, entranced. I didn't know from cellular wireless modems, but this was still intriguing. After a few minutes, Tim again tore himself away from his device and led me back to his car.
We talked about the resident's conflict with the landlord. Tim talked. I grunted. We talked about landlords. Tim talked. I rattled off a speech about landlords that I could have repeated in my sleep, and in this case perhaps did.
Tim deposited me at a train station. I waited for a while, looking out at this desolate spot. Trees, scattered single-story homes, fields of weeds. How could this place be worth a train station, I wondered. After I'd boarded the train, I bought a ticket from the conductor. "Where did you get on the train," he asked. "Its name started with 'Hill;' beyond that I'm not sure," I replied. The conductor nodded and sold me a ticket. It was okay if I didn't remember the names of these campsites in the wilderness of the peninsula; I was on my way back to civilization.