Tales of the Furlough #2: temporal displacement

Tickets are booked to Paris; tickets are booked to San Francisco.

We will be six in San Francisco, with tagalong extras depending on the day and the inclination of our local friends.  We have nebulous plans:  look for us in the cheap seats at the Giants-Astros game on July 4.  I'll be the one in the bleachers with the beer; that's all you need to find me in the crowd, right?  We'll do a night tour of Alcatraz and I'll relearn the San Francisco bus system and pictures, pictures, pictures!

A week in San Francisco.  We'll celebrate Suzan's birthday and tag along behind Asai in Chinatown.  Asai learned last night there's a temple there; amidst the touristy time and stomping all over the city, we'll probably take a few minutes for prayers. 

We still haven't decided if the answer is to see BT or see Sander Kleinenberg or maybe, insanely, both.  We'll cramp ourselves into our apartment and probably forget to bring laundry soap and live in each other's back pockets and get into hijinks that will never get written about on any of our websites.

We will be six in San Francisco until the evening of July 4, when I will hug Brian and Asai and Suzan and Jeff and send them to red-eye planes that will take them far away from me, and then we will be two:  Adam, and me.  We will stay one last night in San Francisco, tired and footsore, then we will pack up the car with city memories and say goodbye to new friends and head slowly, circuitously north.  We have countryside to see and hours to pass through it.  The 101 called; it beckons a slow, leisurely traversal.

I'll be on the beach, somewhere between San Francisco and Seattle.  That's all you need to find me, right?

I have a red-eye of my own to catch, taking me from the damp, chill salt air of the Pacific coast to the warmer, drier air of Minnesota. I'll stay more than 36 hours in Minnesota this time, time enough to see Josh Ritter play and tease a few kids and pass out a present or two and maybe, just maybe, shake off the jet lag.

I've not quite felt like home since coming back from furlough #1; it held too many time zones, too many airports.  I became a little more generic with every airport I passed through, became a little more bewildered and unsure of where or when I actually was. I've ducked a lot of social engagements since because I feel the need to hold tight to these few weeks that I am home.  I have promised myself to not regret these opportunities, to make the most of them because they most assuredly will not come again, but for all my excitement of seeing new places and staying with friends, I am more loath to leave Jeff than any time I can think of in recent memory.  Tack on furlough one to furlough two to DrupalconParis and that puts us apart for close to a month of 2009, and it is more than I like.

So.  Two weeks away, a few weeks home, and then gone again, this time to Paris. 

I nearly talked myself out of it, you know.  There were good reasons to go, good reasons to stay, and I chose to go because this world is large and I have not seen enough of it yet -- but oh, why did it have to be so soon?  Paris will never call and give me the perfect opportunity; it is up to me to take what I'm given and turn it memorable.

I'll do my best to brush up on politeness and SIM cards and eventually figure out where I'm staying.  I'll send cryptic tweets and post random photos and tumble home in a pile of exotic nibbles for friends and NOT GO ANYWHERE FOR A WHILE.

World, I love you for your vastness, but after Paris, is it okay if I stay home for a while?

Until October, of course, if we stick with our plans to go to Chicago....

:D

Comments

Chicago can be lovely in October.