Had dinner with the cuz (see
Vancouver BC girl cop and her horse riding friend. So strange to see my cousin after probably 12 years, and find out that her best friend is the fiancee of one of my good friends of a few years ago.
I used to live in this big weird art house in Portland, along with a ever revolving collection of actors, film makers, activists, bakers and the odd musician. I used to hang out with this intense musician who was really pushing some cool digital music through his Mac SE. He built this guitar with an extra pickup on the neck, like Fred Frith plays. Anyway, he up and got a job down in SF, the first of many for a year or so there, working at a company that specialized in high end audio filtering software. Last I saw of him (aside from seeing Fred Frith with him at the Berkeley museum, kind of randomly, a year later when I was down at Apple).
so now he's marrying my cousins best friend? weird, no?
Anyway, after all that, came home. hung out. went to sleep. or so I thought.
It appears that my upstairs neighbors are "in the artistic way", and are somehow providing a soundtrack to what I can only assume is a jungle movie. Until 3 am last night long warbling hoots and screechs came from upstairs. I lay there quietly furious, too achy sleep to get up and confront them. Knowing .the entire time. that I had to get up at 5 and fly down to San Jose. Bastards
So I did. Utterly exhausted, I shot down to the airport right at dawn (beautiful pink), listening to an old Lush tape, because I was too tired to hear words, but needed loud music to stay awake.
strolled quickly onto the flight (Alaska airlines, quick check: MD80? no.), bought a too hot coffee, breezed on board and sat down.
Deep achy sleep, but it was just getting light. My coffee was still too hot, so I balanced it against the wall with my foot. We took off, and for a few minutes I could see the entire interior of the Olympic Peninsula, including Mt Olympus right in the middle. The rock was all a alpenglow, and looked warm, which it probably wasn't.
Then I feel asleep, and woke up as we touched down in San Jose. As we left the plane, the guy next to me and says "have a good nap?". I can only assume I drooled on him or something. whatever, the way I get sleep (1:45 am as I write this), i gotta catch some where I can, might not happen again.
It always feels really weird to me flying into San Jose. Here you are at this rinky dink airport, walking down steps, across the tarmac into the single floor, then right out the otherside to the parking lot. Meanwhile, you are in Silicon Valley, and are surrounded by Sun, Apple, 3Com, JPL, Palm etc. Kind of anticlimatic, really. and the bar can only fit about 8 people, which really bites.
So I went to Palm for the day, which I can't talk about. But I can comment on their building. Big and bright. Lots of locked doors. Conference rooms named after astronauts. Little golf carts ferrying people too and fro to the main 3Com campus. 90 degrees. humid. starbucks built into the building. swank ass breakfasts. Waterfalls. Nerds in khakis driving lexii. And hell, I'm not even really amused by that any more. Boring rich bastards. kill me before I drive a lexus.
Then down to Los Gatos, where I was once being encouraged to move, but just couldn't pry my self out of this damp crisp climate to move to the urban wasteland. But Los Gatos is very nice, complete with Ferrari dealership.
Spent the rest of the afternoon in a state of suspended animation, then finally made it back to the airport (2 hours early), to have what was one of the more awkward beers in recent memory. Almost falling over people in this fucked up little bar. It's a damn shame when beer is that hard to get.. but the corona was cold, and good.