news from the home front

I'm home.

(That was delicious. Let me try that again.)

I'm home.

The weather is 57 degrees. I stepped off the plane wearing a sheepfur-lined jacket, a scarf, a hat, and gloves. Just in case.

57 degrees. I called the New Jersey customer and was informed that they were expecting 12 to 15 inches of snow in a couple of days. Weather.com says it's 19 degrees Farenheit over there, but feels like 9. Oh, it's warming up. That's nice. "What's it like over there?"

"It's overcast," I temporized. I didn't want to gloat.

(I lie. I did want to gloat. I'm just bigger than that, is all.)

I'm home. Today I'm wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Just a T-shirt. I mean, yes, a bra underneath because otherwise the little purple monkeys would be sightseeing some Golden Gate Bridges, if you get my drift, but still ... just a T-shirt. No scarf, no gloves, no hat, no jacket, no second jacket, no sweater beneath the second jacket and over the T-shirt. Just a T-shirt.

There is a God, and he's got invisible pigeons shit-bombing New Jersey.

Me? I'm home. Hi.

The Guy came to meet me at the airport. He looked strange. This is what happens when you've been parted from people for too long; their faces start to transform in your mind until they reach some randomly generated, amorphous ideal. Except it turns out that my ideal is fatter than the real Guy. The real Guy, it transpired, has been exercising regularly and has lost five pounds.

"You always lose weight when I'm away."

"It's because there's nothing else to do."

"It's healthier for you when I go away?"

"That, too."

"I hate you."

He kissed me. We grinned like idiots. Everything was back to normal.

Like many a self-respecting single male, he'd survived on little packets of ramen for the most part, lacking either the motivation or the creativity to actually cook. I shudder to think what single men would be living on if it hadn't been for my people and mass production. Microwave popcorn? Cheetos? We'd have to redefine the male standard of beauty. A few days before I left, he'd bought a giant box of instant kimchee ramen. What was it, a 54 pack? I peeked into the box when I got back. Two left. I can't imagine what's going down in his bowels.

In order to catch the 7 am flight out of Newark, I'd woken up at 4 am, after falling asleep on a tidal wave of work-related nerves at 1 am. I got lost on the way to the airport, and managed to return my rental car a solid 45 minutes before the plane took off. No problem. Plane was half empty. I don't get that. Who the hell wants to stay in New Jersey?

Technically, the time meant that it was after lunch for me. Breakfast had consisted of airline largess; the stewardesses had fed me a cold, squishy omelette for lunch that I hadn't been able to choke down. By the California clock, I'd last eaten at 4 AM. I was a trifle starved. We headed to the Sky Kitchen cafe at San Mateo airport, a popular breakfast place for us, followed the entire way by the delicately tuned complaints of my internal organs.

Cafe was full. I read a newspaper while we waited.

I don't normally keep track of the US news -- what I call "the Entertainment News" because it's not really news so much as it is entertainment, though the rest of the world calls it CNN. In the main, I prefer to gain my current events education from the BBC Online service, which at least has the benefit of realizing there's an entire world out there, full of people who aren't Americans. There was no BBC Online service at the cafe. There was, however, a little local paper that came out weekly and managed to revel in the depths of editorial incompetences. On our trips to the Sky Kitchen, I invariably pick up the latest copy, the better to entertain myself with the more egregious offences against the English language.

One would think that with this spirit of noble nitpicking, there would be little room left for actual digestion of news, and yet, there was one article that I glanced over that actually managed to lodge a little hook in my brain. It niggled. It nudged. It tugged. The Scott Peterson -- Scott Peterson trial? -- had been moved.

Scott Peterson. Was this an important trial? I was assured that it was. Why was it important? People were outraged by the murder of a pregnant woman. Pregnant women are killed all the time, I pointed out. Murder is one of the leading causes of death for pregnant women. Ah, but I hadn't been paying attention. America was outraged because it was an attractive, affluent, white pregnant woman.

Well, there you go. And it had been moved.

Guess where.

Go on.

Guess.

When you're done with that, guess which courthouse is only three blocks away from yours truly.

And now, guess who has jury duty next week.

C'mon.

Guess.

Coincidences aside, it's unlikely in the extreme that I'd ever end up a juror for the Peterson trial. For one thing, any lawyer stupid enough to select me as a potential juror is too stupid to be practicing law, much less working on such a high-profile case. I can already picture the initial interview.

"What is your opinion on murder?"

"Is the victim purple?"

"I . . . beg your pardon?"

"Because if the victim is purple and has a prehensile tail, I don't mind."

"A what?"

"Especially if it's wearing a little crown. I could go in for some good purple, prehensile-tail, crown-wearing murder right now."

"I . . . see."

"Could he be strangled? Strangling's good. Slow. It's slow. And tactile."

"Next!"

An email from my sister, for your entertainment....

aah montana...where the men are men and the sheep are scared.

i'm in bozeman, montana. home of hyalite canyon, bridger bowl, and yes, scared sheep. central america to montana is not exactly the most graceful of transitions, but the scenery is spectacular and the people are beyond sincere. although the temperature has been a bit sporadic, jumping from -32 F to +40 F, we've been able to go skiing, snowmobiling, and bring shame to the gracefulness of ice climbing.

so many of you know by now that the fantastic road trip i was intending on taking down to tierra del fuego was put on hold. after reaching the end of central america, we realized that the funds needed to fuel our beast of a car would cost us almost double of what we had originally expected. also, since the number in our group went from four down to two, the driving responsibilities escalated to many more mind-numbingly cruel hours. thefore, the second leg of the trip has been put on hold until a later date when i can find a few others whom i can tolerate (or rather, who can tolerate me) for a few months.

my strange and wonderfully rude, scottish-y friend just had an asian looking baby at her current residence of barcelona, spain. the reasons why this little bambino was blessed with above average features is beyond me. perhaps my superior, asian, genes were somehow transmitted overseas via osmosis. nonetheless, it gives me hope for the little poop dispenser.

with that said, i will be leaving for spain sometime in march to torment the little tax write-off and his mother.

i will be needing a climbing partner. i can't guarantee weather patterns during the months of march/april or april/may, but if anyone would like to come out for a couple of weeks to go climb, i'd be super thrilled! spain has a lot to offer!

love,
sako

current location: bozeman, montana
next location/s: missoula, montana >>> seattle, washington >>> san francisco, california >>> las vegas, nevada >>> ?