Dad's Birthday

I'm at work right now, but things are really slow. My boss is in Toronto and is leaving to Boston today to teach a class at Brandeis, where he is an alumni, so I have a little time to write.

I am pretty worn out today, I don't know why that is, I went to bed pretty early last night and even got to sleep in a little bit later than usual. I've been feeling a lot less tired since we lowered my medication from 300mg to 200mg, but not feeling it today. I've been sipping on a coffee, but that hasn't done much of anything yet.

I flew in to Oakland on Friday to celebrate my Dad's birthday. He turned 64. He is starting to seem a little older these days. I mean, he slowed down a lot physically quite a while back, but his mind also doesn't seem as sharp as it has been in the past, but I guess that's what happens when you start to get old. Don't get me wrong, he is still totally capable and overall much sweeter and seemingly happier than when my brother and I were growing up.

I love flying. On both of my flights I got the window seat and looked out the window and tried to recognize all the different neighborhoods at night. It's funny, now that I am so used to looking at things from an ariel view, due to Google maps, when I am flying in a plane, I don't feel nearly as high up as I used to, that also has to do with the fact that the flight from LAX to OAK doesn't get you that high up.

When I was a kid, I remember seeing all the lights of the city glowing down below me filled me with wonder and awe, it seemed magical. Now I sort of deplore how we've taken the land and commandeered  it and used it for our own purposes. I like that part in the Arcade Fire song Sprawl II, where she sings, "and like a river the city lights shine, there calling at us come and find your kind." and then "and like a river the city lights shine, there screaming at us we don't need your kind." I think that is very true, how it has changed for me from a object of fascination to disdain. From up above you can really understand more how humans are just the world's biggest ants.

For some reason music sounds better while your up there too. I think it is quite literally, just a change of perspective.

On the way home I sat next to a young couple, probably a couple years younger than me and they were arguing when we first got on the plane. I really wanted to lean over and just say, "Listen, just give up now, this relationship isn't going to work out." The girl was begging for a fight, just like Kate used to do with me, but this guy was a true master. He some how turned everything on it's head and just by asking her questions about her day and seeming interested in her life put her in a good mood. It was quite masterful, he never got caught up in her negativity at all.

My brother, my dad, and I all went to "Home of Chicken and Waffels" on Saturday in the early afternoon. The story of this place is pretty funny. It used to be a Roscoe's, which is the home of chicken and waffels and the people that ran it basically stole their recipe, shut down, and opened up as Home of Chicken and Waffels. It was good.

Then I went to my brother's house. We jammed out on the guitar and he said he could tell I've been playing, which was a cool compliment, then he showed me Skyrim, which I bought him for Christmas and then his buddies Dan and AJ came over and we played some Mario Tennis from N64. He and Dan smoked pot while I was there, I did not. Was a minor accomplishment for myself.

That night, I took BART into the city. I didn't realize it at all until I was at Lafayette BART, but it was the first time I'd been to the city and the first time I had been at the Lafayette BART station since I had been with Kim. It is hard to believe that it was only seven months ago. It feels like a lifetime ago.

Josh was doing a script reading for an audition that I helped him out with and it was an Apatow comedy about a guy who finally finds the girl of his dreams and then they go on vaation and she dies. This is basically where I feel like I'm at with Kim. It's like she is dead. It's a shame. Well, we are both going to Courtney Sampson's wedding in October, so we will certainly see each other by then.

Anyway, I was on BART, more or less feeling like I wanted to break down in tears, remembering the specifics of that night, which, for my own sake I'm not going to relive right now. I wrote a little something down while I was riding, kind of trying to explain the modern human condition, like I said earlier, stuff that came to mind while I was flying above the Earth in the plane, about why we've created all this shit we've created. I think a big part of it is man's urge to become God of his own universe and how he will never be able to control nature, so he builds around him an environment where he is in control, but this takes him away from the natural world and takes him away from his true nature.

It feels really good to be able to think about this kind of stuff again. I don't think I'd had a thought like that for months before Dr. Foster reduced the strength of my medication. It wasn't a destructive thought, but rather a profound one. I've also been writing down jokes, which I hadn't done at all for months and months.

When I made it to San Francisco, I walked to a birthday dinner Chris was at. My friend from high school, Nick Degolia was also there, as well as Nicole Fogarty, who's birthday it was. I was at the end of a table and had a great conversation with a girl that works on Google's self driving car, with Nick, and this other dude from Berkeley who kept insisting Danville was in "the valley". I had never heard anyone call the San Ramon Valley "the valley" before. It was the best conversation I'd had with strangers in a while. This is what I love about San Francisco in comparison to LA, that I've found, people are interesting, people are interested in talking and meeting new people and having new experiences, they are quick to laugh, even if it's just to be polite, they actually look at you like they are interested in what you are saying, and even though they all have iphones, don't bust them out in the middle of your conversation. As we walked down the street there, everyone was smiling, happy, walking with energy, not trying so hard to look cool that they suck the life out of everything they touch. It was really refreshing.

It doesn't help that every time I go to San Francisco it is 70 degrees. I only see the city on the most beautiful days. Chris has a spiral staircase in his place that leads up to the roof and we went up there and took in the view.

It was great night. The next morning we drove his roommates into Danville to take them to Domenico's, a really amazing sandwich shop. One of his roommates had been saying he wanted to open a sandwich place, so we took him there to show him how it's done. They loved Danville, it was pretty hilarious, comparing it to Desperate Housewives and Pleasantville, very apt comparisons that it took them about five minutes to figure out.

I went back to my dad's and we watched some bball and watched An Idiot Abroad, a show where Ricky Gervais sends this regular guy, Karl Pilkington around the world to do things that would typically be on someone's bucket list. Of course, he doesn't want to do any of it.

What a trip. By the end I was thoroughly worn out. I was happy to be back in my bed in Los Angeles and went to sleep pretty early. I am still tired, yeah I said that. Well, I'm doubling back on things again, so I should probably close it up. I just want to also point out how that even though I talked about quite a few subjects in this post I managed to hold it all together in a coherent narrative. Something I wasn't really doing previously. I can feel my writing chops coming back a little bit. Feels good. I feel good. Boss comes back Wednesday. Ugh. Time to work.