Bay Area Travelogue

One thing I love about CW-friendly teen melodramas is they always magnify that "OMG every little thing is SO IMPORTANT" feeling so near and dear to actual teenagers. And, you know, arrested development-type twenty and thirtysomethings. Ahem.

I don't quite embrace that general state of being as much as I used to, but it all comes roaring back whenever I visit the Bay Area. Because when I lived there, I marinated in that state of being. I really don't know how I ever got anything done, so busy was I gazing moodily at the AT-ATs and scratching Magnetic Fields lyrics on the back of my hand.

The trips back are always mind-blowingly fun, but they also get me all thinky and nostalgic and I have to stop myself from becoming "every little thing is SO IMPORTANT" girl, because, come on, I am too fucking old to be Jenny Humphrey.

Well...most of the time, anyway. Let's travelogue.

THURSDAY, APRIL 23
I devour both "People Stylewatch" and a McDonald's homestyle chicken sandwich at the airport, then catnap on the plane. Vacation! Once I arrive in Oaktown, I meet up with Friend Megan, another ex-Bay Areaer who has since returned to her home state of Oregon. Upon settling into the Bayporter, we notice it is, to quote Meg, "bejank." Like the seatbelts don't really...work. And the luggage is piled haphazardly. And the driver really, really loves discussing minute details about True Crime cases from yesteryear. And it takes two hours to get to Friend Amanda's place in Richmond, since we have to drop people off in Emeryville, Berkeley, and Whothefuckknowswhere, USA. We arrive at Amanda's unscathed, but decide to NOT request the bejank True Crime Shuttle next time.

We kick things off right with a trip to our alma mater, Mills. We remember how to take the bus, and correctly spot all the Clunky Glasses Alterna-Mills Girls on their way to campus. Once there, we immediately begin our Aged Graduate commentary on how all the current students look "so young."

"They're too young for me to date, even," says Megan. (This is HUGE!)

We end up at the office of our old newspaper, The Weekly. Except it's not The Weekly any more, because apparently it doesn't come out...Weekly?

Anyway, the young staffers of the NotWeekly let us in, and we take 5 million and 1 photos of the Weekly Wall, which contains rows of signatures from journos past (including ours!), and then delete all the ones where we look fat. The NonWeekly staffers studiously ignore us, until we insist on telling them tales 'bout The Good Old Days.

"We had a waxer!" I proclaim. "A waxer."

"Haha," says NotWeeklyer #1, looking mildly uncomfortable.

"And that!" cries Megan, pointing to a cramped, windowless room. "That is where people would go when they were having a breakdown. Everyone cried in that room."

"You should revive that tradition," I say.

"Haha," says NotWeeklyer #2, looking REALLY uncomfortable.

"We didn't even have real computers," continues Megan. "Unless you count Mac Classic IIs as 'real computers.'"

"Haha," says NotWeeklyer #1. "You have somewhere else to be, maybe?"

We do.

We hike up the hill to our old dorm, Ethel Moore, and wait patiently for someone to let us in. Then we climb up on the roof and peer in the windows, hoping someone will see how completely not creepy we are and let us in. Then we chase after a couple of girls who look like they live there, because maybe THEY will let us in, but we're old and slow and they don't see us (or maybe they do and that's why they start walking faster all of a sudden). Finally, someone does let us in, and we go up to our old rooms and take more pictures and remember.

FRIDAY, April 24
We -- me, Megan, Amanda -- tool around the East Bay all day, buying stuff and eating stuff and chatting for a good bit with beautiful and hilarious Friend Lisa G. I purchase a vintage Pendleton plaid jacket for $20, because I've always wanted one. I am convinced it makes me look just a little bit like a lumberjack.

"Lumberjacks do not wear pearls," insists Amanda.

The evening is dedicated to our big pizza par-tay, which basically involves inviting everyone we know to The Lanesplitter in Berkeley. I always start tensing up right before stuff like this, because I feel like I have to present the Best Possible Version of myself to people I haven't seen in a while. I drink a little wine to take the edge off. This turns into A LOT of wine. This turns into me drunkenly discussing social media/comic book conventions/online interaction with my old friend Leslie and my new, never-met-in-person-before friend Chrissy.

"Why are there so many fucking people at Comic-Con now?" I growl at them. "And why am I so weird when I meet people in person?"

Best Possible Version, indeed.

Later, I meet Megan's cousins, Scott and Madeleine, and say something funny/insightful about Dollhouse or Tahmoh Penikett's cheekbones, only I don't remember what.

Me: "Something funny/insightful about Dollhouse or Tahmoh Penikett's cheekbones."

Madeleine (to Meg, re: me): "Oh, we like her."

Hmmm, I think. Maybe I'm not so weird after all! Hic.

SATURDAY, April 25
Megan and I stroll through Berkeley, taking note of the eerie, ghost town quality of Telegraph and some graffiti that proclaims "Hagrid isn't the only giant on campus, if you know what I'm saying."

Today we're on a mission! We're determined to buy Amber Benson's book, Death's Daughter, from favoritest sci-fi/fantasy bookstore ever, The Other Change of Hobbit. TOCOH is the kind of place where the salesguy will congratulate you on your purchase of "the Shetterly." Or will heartily debate you when you ask for some Gene Wolfe. Or will just be generally awesome while you browse for six hours. It is also the kind of place that has a cat (this will be important later).

Meg and I canvas every inch of the store, but cannot locate the book. Salesguy is busy helping a customer who claims to be from "another astral plane," so we wait. Suddenly, we hear a blare-y, vaguely human screech.

"WHERE IS HE?! WHERE'S PATCHES?"

A tie-dye-sweatshirted lady barges into the store and immediately starts chasing after the beleaguered bookstore cat.

"PATCHES!!!"

As she bends down to pick him up, Cat is all "HISSSSSSSSSSS! REEEEEEER!" which I think translates to "oh hell no." Cat runs away and hides behind some vampire erotica.

Tie-dye Sweatshirt is undeterred. "PATCHES!!" The blare-iness is more insistent here. "I just want to HOLD YOU!!!"

"Patches doesn't want to be held," I mutter.

"Would you?" mutters Meg.

"Oh, PATCHES." A disappointed kind of blare-iness.

With a weary sigh, Tie-dye Lady heads out into the world, perhaps on the hunt for bookstores with more easily tormentable cats.

We determine that TOCOH does not, in fact, have Amber Benson's book, though Salesguy offers to order it for us. We are disappointed, but also near hysteria ("PATCHES"), so we bid him good-bye, run out the door, and collapse into uncontrollable laughter.

Later that night, there is more wine. And here is where I take a turn into "OMG every little thing is SO IMPORTANT" Land. Meg sort of blurts out something important about her life and Love. The conversation wanders and I get frustrated, cause Meg doesn't really get into talking extensively about her feelings and shit, and getting her to elaborate on said statement is like trying to coax spoilers out of a recalcitrant TV executive.

"Why do you do that?" I grumble. "That's major. That's a big motherfucking deal, and you say it like it's nothing."

"There's not really anything else to say," she says.

"Blergh," I say, falling asleep.

SUNDAY, April 26
Meg and I arise early to feast on an amazing breakfast prepared by Amanda's husband, Friend Peter. We then basically kill time 'til our cab arrives, watching Peter watching Catwoman on AMC (what).

When we get to the airport, there's the need to keep things light, cause we'll be separating soon. I walk her halfway to her gate, then have to turn around and walk back to mine. We hug and say good-bye. As she rounds the corner, I yell after her:

"PATCHES!"

I hear her giggle.

And this is sort of, like, a Moment, because a bunch of thoughts clash through my brain all at once, and I realize that one of the reasons I get all "OMG every little thing is SO IMPORTANT" when I'm here is...I'm scared of losing key memories that go with this place. I'm scared of losing the people that go with this place. Like, if I don't know every little piece of this thing Meg's feeling about Love, what the fuck do I know? Are we even still close? Am I holding onto things that don't even exist because of my nostalgia addiction?

I get my answer instantaneously. Because she yells back, top of her lungs, an answering call:

"PATCHES!"

I turn and start to walk away and I feel myself grinning, even though I know she can't see me anymore.

Comments

[Susa]

I'm so sorry I missed you! Too bad it was my daughter's birthday, or I would have so been there. Next time? And guess what?I'm going to Comic Con this year, so indeed, that means the convention is so past being cool...

[Kelly]

Great piece of writing. Made me feel nostalgic for that Bay Area feeling too. *sniff*

[Ticky]

I get knocked over by Important Moments Nostalgia every time I hit the UNM area. Sometimes I just want to weep over the fact that I was eighteen and awesome.

[Jeff]

You omitted the part where you started drunk-texting people and having conversations about chinchillas that are really conversations about dating and fundamentally dull people.