Sunday, October 12, 2008

you in the sea, on a decline, breaking the waves...watching the lights go down, letting the cables sleep

Today was more action-packed than expected; I went to the gym this morning, and when I got back, I discovered that Adit had invited me to brunch, and I had approximately twenty minutes to get ready. Priyanka's in town for the weekend, and so I knew that I would feel like a total slimeball if I met them without showering, since Adit and Priyanka are one of the most well-dressed couples I've ever met. I managed to pull myself together in time to go to Dottie's True Blue Cafe -- the irony of this is that, even with my awesome cream-colored sweater and carefully-applied makeup, I was still too underdressed for my friends, but I was way too overdressed for the grunge-fest that is a cafe in the heart of the Tenderloin.

Considering that the cafe is in the heart of the Tenderloin, the wait is ridiculously long, even if the food is great once you get in. We actually got lucky and were seated within half an hour, which is something of a miracle. Katrina also met up with us, which was v. nice, and Priyanka and I spent much of the brunch defending the merits of romance novels against the scurrilous attacks (from Adit) and the unknowing insults (from Katrina) of our dining companions. So, great fun was had by all, and I'm planning to hang out with Adit and Priyanka again tomorrow if things are properly aligned.

Tonight was my Stanford class reunion. I almost didn't go, but I had already paid the $x for the ticket (where I believe x=35, but I can't remember for sure). I was engrossed in my romance novel, but I pulled myself away and drove down to Stanford. It turned out pretty much exactly how I pictured it going down. I spent about an hour hanging out with Lizzie, who used to work at my company and now works at a company down the street, and whom I see often enough that I didn't need a Stanford class reunion to reconnect. I then spent another hourish with John and Jessica, which was again silly because I see them relatively frequently -- but, just like with my overall Stanford experience, I looked around, realized there was no one else I was interested in talking to, and stuck with my regular friends instead. I did catch up with a few other people -- I saw Allie again, for example, and I also saw Jackie, who has sort of inadvertently disappeared from my program since Claude moved to Yale. But I feel properly reunited; other than John, I didn't see anyone else who lived in Loro my freshman year, and since frosh dorms are the most fertile grounds for making friends in your own class, that pretty much sums up why I knew no one at the reunion. That, and I was a hermit at eighteen and continue to be a hermit now.

After I left the party (at 12:15, after consuming one diet coke with two maraschino cherries, so I guess I paid $35 to drink a diet coke with John and Jess), I took a quick nostalgic drive around Campus Drive. I checked out FloMo, and drove around back to see Loro -- looks like their theme this year has something to do with that WALL-E robot movie, but I couldn't figure out how they put that together with Loro. Unless Walter's legacy continues to this day, and they've just started making every Loro dorm theme about him? Then I took 280 back to the city for some variety, since I spend far too much of my life on the 101 -- 280 is gorgeous, even at night when you can't actually see anything.

Perhaps my ten year reunion will be more interesting -- but I don't know if it will ever be interesting for me, because other than a bare handful of people, I really have no friends in my own class. However, Stanford's cool, and it was nice to be back on campus for a few hours. I'm looking forward to staying in the city tomorrow, though -- I really do need at least one day a week when I'm not driving to the south bay. But now, it's way past my bedtime -- goodnight!

No comments: