Mitt liv som Tobin

Just back at the old Location Alpha after a harrowing night on the Interstate, jockying with 18-wheelers at the speed of 0.00000065c, gusty winds blowing the unloaded, nearly red-lining Vanagon like a bumper car in the lane. (Kris calls it the Silver Zephyr... but I think I'd prefer a name from the Soviet space program.. say, Progress, or, maybe, Buran. Yes, Buran.) Unloaded it's a light-weight craft, yet aerodynamic as a brick. At times it was hard to stay on the highway — after a hundred miles of this there was a helpful electric highway sign that said, ``Caution: Gusty winds!'' Thank goodness for Caltrans. Passing trucks, too, is a bit of a trick when you're travelling at Mach 0.11 in a metal rectangular prism through a thick soup of Nitrogen, propelled and guided only by the small friction provided by the weakest of known forces, between rubber and asphalt. Trucks. Steer away from the vacuum behind them, but then into the bow-wake when passing, and, oh! watch those oscillations. Thank god for closed-loop control systems.

The Interstate Highway System, some would have us believe, is the envy of the world. Whether or not that's true, it's somewhat mind-boggling to think that there is continuous system of concrete and asphalt ramps that can deliver you to nearly any point in this country, and probably not require more than half a dozen routing decisions before you get there. Some of us, I guess, are just suckers for networks of any kind.

It doesn't take long for the San Francisco Bay Area to drop out of view. Bump on over Altamont Pass and suddenly that wonderful station on 92.7 MHz (Party! Your station for continuous [if repetitive!] electronic dance music!) turns into Christian Rock. Scanning the airwaves one suddenly finds nothing but televangelism and Christian Rock. And the Rock stations are interrupted after each song with these little reflections about the Lord. (``And the big message we have to remember from this, the message to take home, is that we are nothing. That's right, we are nothing. We are worthless! We are nothing, nothing, nothing without Jesus.'') What's the godless heathen to do? And why is the demarcation between urban and rural so strong? It's downright bizarre. Stay in your little Buran, friend, and you'll be OK — they're praying for you.

So, now, down in the mirk of the Central Valley you're free to, as I said, jocky with the 18-wheelers, swim with the jellyfishes as it were, only there's a bit of difference in kinetic energy.

The first time I did this trip, — in the other directoin — it was exciting indeed, with Tony, in my then-whole Golf, ditching school to hit up the BeOS developers' conference in Santa Clara, then crash the dead-week festivities at Stanford (yeah, that Junior University across the bay...) and then visit 2018 for the first time. The car having a defective spedometer, my co-pilot marked off the miles and our velocity with a watch and a texas instruments calculator. The Vanagon, on the other hand, lacks clock and gasgauge, so we guess on the gas and ignore the time. It's amazing to me that people used to fly with fewer instruments than this. No co-pilot this time. Just bumping through the night. Now it's a pretty routine (if semiannual) thing — push on till the welcoming glow of Kettleman City with its In N' Out and cheap petroleum distillates comes into view.

Push on over the Grapevine, up through Gorman, Valencia, the fringes of LA, and suddenly there's life again on the radio. The highway widens, the traffic slows, and there's that luminous sky ahead. Yeah, Los Angeles. There's a song on the radio ``Send me an Angel'' and it sounds like they're singing ``City of Angels.'' (Like that Depeche Mode song where they keep singing ``so this is free love'' — I always heard it as ``so this is freedom,'' and I liked it better that way.) Good music, clear night — I can't help but pulse ahead on the highway, flying through the quiet LA freeways at seventy-five, the amber glow of San Pedro opening up on the right, scanning the mirrors hoping not to see the sudden lights of CHP. Since I first left Orange County, I've felt that I should have some kind of immunity here in my native City, you know, ``Oh, I'm sorry sir, it's you, you're back. Be on your way..'' But it doesn't work that way at all (I once had the following interaction after being pulled over in Orange County: ``Did you know you have a burned-out headlight?'' ``No, thanks.'' ``So, been smoking any dope?'' — I kid you not. Apparently ``probable cause'' is spelled ``non sequitur' in these parts). Pulsing along, no immunity. (Four hundred thirty one babies are born in Los Angeles every day.) Los Angeles will always be special, but I am an expatriate. I cannot live there, if only because the air burns my lungs.

Buran comes to the 5/405 separation, I'm in the center lane — It splits and goes both ways. (``If you come to a fork in the road, take it.'') Wavering between the choices. Interstate 5 all the way, urban decay, Disney monstrosity; or 405, wider, faster, through Santa Monica? At the last minute I go to the right. Even the uninitiated could know that this is a legitimate choice to make; because the third digit in "405" is even, you can tell that it reconnects to the main interstate after going through the city. (You can also tell that it goes north-south, since it's odd, and that it's big and probably crosses the whole country, because it's divisible by five.) Coming into south Orange County, the freeway opens up to a full twenty lanes. I've driven the entire California segment of Interstate Five (most of it in the last week, in fact), and I can tell you that it is here that it is most monstrous.

I think expatriotism suits me well. It's nice to have a home, somewhere else, to be a sort of outsider. In any group I end up in a similar position — interested, but unwilling to become totally absorbed, totally dedicated to the feverish subculture. Whatever it is. theatre tech, amateur radio, EECS, there is always something outside. I am a sort of tourist or organiser. Maybe it's a way of staying special.

Down from Castaic, pass the brewery that marks the exit for Haley's house, pass LAX and Aerospace Corporation, pass San Pedro, Fountain Valley, Santa Ana International John Wayne Airport, UCI, Mission Viejo: Next Five Exits. Home. `Location Alpha.' It feels like a ranch to me, a skunk works with space for projects and for comfort. And I'm still breathing okay. That's a good sign, if unusual.

* * *

I didn't feel like I was leaving Berkeley until I came home and half my stuff was tossed out into the hallway. Well, I didn't take move-out day seriously, but I suppose it should have occurred to me that someone would be wanting to move into my room. Suddenly homeless, but not really, since I just ended up staying with Nadia for awhile. I came back to Oscar Wilde this week to a joyful reunion with that house's denizens. It was as if I had left semipermantently but then come back again, and it was nice to see that I had been missed, nice to see all my friends' faces, nice to be back to our funny house where everyone greets each other as `lover!' (pronounce: "LAVA!"). Now, sleeping in the living room again, my stuff packed in bags in the hallway, the feeling of nomadicity was again pulsing in my veins. It's intoxicating stuff, the uncertainty, the crisis of it all, things changing in uncertain but (therefore?) exciting ways. It increases with every root uprooted: Relationship, school, work, co-op. And on the horizon: ten days on the East Coast with no predetermined itinerary.

But nomadicity certainly has its downsides. We know what Shakespeare had to say about parting, and it's true. Sinews and connective tissues, torn apart, snapping, breaking uncleanly. I learned at some point that every living situation is temporary, that each is a moment in time and space that is inherently transient, that at some point will be only a happy memory, unreachable in physical space, un-return-to-able. There was 2018, there was Alaska, there was Sweden, there was Israel, there was Oscar Wilde. I guess people do stick around, and that's comforting. But I remember the pangs I felt when Stina left our korridor in Sweden, how disproportionately much it seemed to hurt. I think it's easier to leave than to be left, because in the former case you can retain the illusion that the thing that was left can be returned to, whereas in the latter case, its dismemberment takes place before your eyes.

I remarked to Jeff that I thought it must be incredibly hard to live in the co-op for many years, watching everyone come and go. Because for me there was really only one set of residents at Oscar Wilde, and when the summer came I missed the old residents and eyed the new ones with suspicion. And then it occurred to me that, somehow, I've become one of the leavers, one of the ones who doesn't stick around. I have mixed feelings about that. I will come back and visit, though, I promise.

All of these places, I've been to once but not returned. Alaska, Sweden, Israel. This summer starts something new, but also it's a chance to return to Sweden; I think that will be my first Return other than to Orange County. I'm excited about that, although perhaps slightly worried that it could be disillusioning.

I will miss Oscar Wilde, though. I really made some great friends there, and, as far as the theme goes, I now feel part of a new community, even if I am an outsider — which is, after all, kind of the way I like it. And even those who I didn't quite become good friends with, I think I admire them more than they know. I was overjoyed this morning to discover one of our house T-shirts in the free-pile, a fortuitous discovery if there ever was one. I put it on immediately and drove home with the typewriter font `wilde' across my chest (and `oscar wilde co-op; lgbt theme house' on the back of my neck) — now I have another home-away-from-home, another place to lovingly expatriate.