This Time, Years Ago

This time, one year ago, I was biking through Golden Gate Park at 2am, when everything is still. I'm riding home from Karyn's place. My heart aches a little, and I'm smiling on the inside. The lighting from the street lamps makes everything look flat, almost black and white. The air is cool and I feel prickly as I start to sweat. I stand on my cranks and pedal hard to get a running start at the last bit of hill. I have to wake up at 7am for work tomorrow.

This time, two years ago, I was eating a pile of breaded, deep-fried something with a scoop of mac salad on the side. The diversity of Honolulu makes me feel at ease. I like that people wear Hawaiian shirts without any irony. After having malasadas for breakfast, I feel a bit disgusted with myself.

This time, three years ago, I was having tea. The teahouse is tucked into the mountains above Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies. Everybody's a tourist and the squirrels sneak off with bits of scone when no one is looking.

This time, four years ago, I was looking at the stars. I'm shivering in the cold at 12,000 feet, but that doesn't matter because I can see the Milky Way. Everywhere it is dark except for the light of distant stars. Laying down on my bed of granite, I feel like I am made of stone. My legs are stiff from hiking, and I'm too excited/uncomfortable to fall asleep. I will wake up at dawn tomorrow and hike to the top of Mount Whitney.

Two Weekends Ago

From doctorpon

Outskirts of Eugene, Oregon. Friday morning, 5am. Ramon's Mercedes, our diesel-powered chariot of the night, comes to rest in the Denny's parking lot. Ramon gets all you can eat pancakes. Ramon can eat two pancakes. David drinks watery coffee. He sees the free refills as a personal challenge. Tommy and Karyn eat sensible meals.

From doctorpon

University of California, Davis campus. Monday, 2pm. Karyn and I are waiting at the shuttle stop. We will ride the bus for an hour and a half. Our next stop is reality.

Casa Zimbabwe

I just moved into my room for the summer at Casa Zimbabwe, the first co-ed co-op in the United States. I've been pretty disappointed to find out that I won't have time to go abroad during college, but lately I've been feeling that the experience of living here won't be that different from being in a foreign country.

Casa Zimbabwe, also known as Krackistan, has a population of roughly 130, with partying as its number one export. Homegrown weed was former number one export before the rooftop growing operation got shut down.

Here's my place as of my move-in day:

Seems like the guy before me left in something of a hurry. There was definitely a neat little pile of nail clippings in the keyboard tray of the desk that was waiting for me. The desk had a sprinkling of weed bits and dust, and the drawers variously had condoms and loose change scattered about them.

Well, at least I have my own room! Let my reign over the Kingdom of David begin!

Davis, CA

I spent the last two nights in Davis at Ramon's place. It was a nice way to end the year. I rode the train up, and the pacing of train travel helped calm me down after what has been a somewhat hectic academic year, a year that left me practically carving tally marks into my bedroom wall (instead, I wrote blog posts).

Anyway, it just so happened that I showed up in Davis the same day as the Tour of California. Pictured above is Lance Armstrong (!).

After the start of the Davis stage of the tour, Ramon and I ate at Fuji's, an all-you-can-eat sushi boat restaurant. The lunch special cost twelve bucks each and the Asian inside of me made it a personal vendetta to get my money's worth, even at the price of physical discomfort (because what feels better than a good deal?). Pictured above are our stacks of dishes. Mine is the one on the right (!). Ramon is thinly suppressing a look of utter pain. We were getting looks from the other patrons sitting at the counter every time I tried to entice Ramon into eating "just one more" plate of sushi.

(The sushi boat rounds the corner. The tail of a tempura shrimp sticks out from the end of a small roll of sushi, topped with roe and what appears to be coleslaw.)
Both: Oh my God...
Me: Do you believe in love at first sight? Because I do. (Grabs the plate from the sushi boat.)
Ramon: I don't know, you can have this one...
Me: No man, we saw it at the same time.
Ramon: [Sigh.] (Picks up a piece with his chopsticks and barely fits it into his mouth.)
Me: Yeah? Is it good?
(Ramon looks queasy.)
Me: Keep chewing, hang in there. You're more than halfway; you only need to eat six more plates.
Ramon: (With a mouthful of food.) No!
Me: Dude, it'll be easy. Watch this. (Shoves the endpiece into his mouth. The tail of the tempura shrimp barely makes it in.)
Me: (With a mouthful of food.) Holy crap this is decadent. This is why the terrorists hate us.
Ramon: I can't do this.
Me: That's defeatist bullshit, man. (Gesturing with chopsticks.) Now get in there and eat some sushi.

All told, we made pretty good account of ourselves. Between the two of us, we ate twenty plates of sushi, two dishes of fried red bean balls, two dishes of cake, and a dish of oranges.

The bike ride back to Ramon's house was not a pleasant one.

Day 50

Today I decided that I want to thru-hike the JMT Sobo (translation: I want to walk from Yosemite Valley to Mount Whitney, non-stop).

It's something I've wanted to do since I was 13; I promised myself that I'd hike the whole John Muir Trail as I stood on Half Dome, looking over the Yosemite Valley. I think it only hit me today that I've finally accumulated the skills, equipment, and independence to do so in the six and a half years that have since elapsed.

BART

He took a seat on the coffee-stained upholstery. He let his head rest against the place where thousands of heads had rested before his. He fidgeted a little bit with his bags. He got out a book that he read with enough interest to keep him distracted for a stop or two before his mind started wandering again. He just couldn't help himself from eavesdropping. He overheard a first-person account of a man's harrowing experience of seeing the gross gay couple from across the hall kiss.

He sat there, half-interested in the middle part of a paragraph he couldn't seem to finish, and half-interested in the angst of another man's homophobia.