327 Market

Coming home.

I knew coming back to the house would be difficult. I didn't realize how it would be. I knew things would be moved, I expected things to be undone. I actually found the house cleaner than I recall leaving it. Good job, roomies. Thank you, you made that transition that much easier. But why is it upsetting to find things rearranged? Though I know in my head that life happens, and stuff necessarily gets moved. Even when I am gone. The house turns an unfamiliar eye to me, and expression I haven't seen before. I thought I knew all the passing house-looks, but she surprised me.

The endless day.

I woke up the first friday in Tokyo, and I documented my day in Narita already. Now it is Friday 2, evening. I slept while the plane grazed the arctic to touch earth this morning in the City. I waited for an hour for my luggage to come out of the bowels of the building. 500 passengers means at least 1000 pieces of luggage. I slid into the US as easily as I slid out, and my father was even there, to catch me at the terminal.

The silver bullet.

My family was all patience, holding their news until I spilled mine. I passed out goodies, though the context is my luggage, and not the swarming, exotic places I got them in. I drove the rest of the way to Flip Flop. And the traffic moved too slowly for my taste. I wanted home now. A trip that began 40 hours previously finally ended this afternoon around 1 when I pulled into my spot on the street. Why did it seem odd and natural at once to be in my stale-smelling car? I thought it had more rattles.

Trader Joes

The trader joes is the sanitary bastion of safe food, peopled with boxes and overweight cripples. Everyone seemed to be bloated and lumbering, and in some sort of pain. is there any difference between being a skinny amputee or an enormous gimp? Of course there is, but I find no reason under that mental rock. "Why are we so proud of ourselves?" I ask myself traitoriously. (wealth and opportunity raise their mangy heads)

but I bought a spinach salad, an unheard-of luxury in a land where you must cook your veggies to kill the germs. Yeah! That is something to be happy about. Why am I so grumpy? The hills are brown, and the air is so unsubstantial that I feel I might float away.

I took a hot shower, another point for america. I scraped the red-yellow cambodian dirt out of my toe-nails.

And its cold. I left the house without a jacket. Oops. Brr.

I tossed up my hammock, with bike inner-tubes. I recommend. The sun seemed distant, and almost friendly. I sat in the orange hammock and thought of all the annoying things I have to do. Vacation shock, culture shock. No longer am I a rich foreigner throwing dollars and having nothing to do but stare. Now its my turn to be a part of the background.

Good bye, friday 2. To have greeted the sun in the morning, and to have played a ring around the rosey, to find our roles reversed, and to say goodbye as the sun plays bouncy ball in the pacific. Days like this come rarely to Camilleland.