… You have had Tom Jones’s “She’s a Lady” in your head for the past five days.

… You reunited with one of your oldest friends and fell into such a familiar rhythm with her that it felt like no time had passed since your angsty high school days, even though you’re both rather different and much cooler than you used to be.

… You got to have drinks and an honest-to-goodness cigarette-rolling tutorial with a good friend, from which you gleaned some pretty funny photos of Klug being smooth and sassy, and you making a really befuddled face while scattering tabacky all over yourself.

… You got your freeloading ass toted around San Jose by Dean, who was unfailingly sweet and gracious and fun despite the fact that (a) he’d only met you once, and (b) he had a nasty broken collarbone that was seeping a continent of jaundiced black, blue, and yellow discoloration slowly across one side of his torso, and was causing him a whole lot of pain. (He didn’t really complain, though. On the contrary, he treated his injury like a novelty by letting you feel the collarbone jump around like a kicking fetus while he walked. That’s really cool, especially because it wasn't your collarbone.)

You might be me if …

… That same guy took you to a fun punk bar where you conducted a private study of the various vibrations that blaring rock music rings through beer bottles, pool tables, and finger bones. And you realized that, if ever faced with that horrible ultimatum that you'd always refused to entertain (even in the hypothetical), you’d probably opt to be deaf instead of blind, because music doesn’t disappear when you can’t hear it, but instead takes on a whole new color.

… You later had one of the yummiest burritos of your lengthening life, and washed it down with 2 more of the, like, 10 beers you downed through the course of the evening. And then you and your host hung out until well past 4 a.m. watching videos and shooting shits.

… You made fun of sherbet-hued book bindings and had really great falafel and a banana shake, and oh, my God, it had been about a decade since you allowed yourself to relax and have a milkshake with lunch, and you still had “She’s a Lady” stuck in your head.

… Your San Jose host seemed rather apologetic about there not being much to do in San Jose other than The Food Tour (burritos, falafel, oysters ...), but hell, the food was so good, and he was so freaking nice and accommodating and full of stories, and you had so much laid-back fun, and you got to see some Dean: Behind the Music by meeting the Mexican Pauly Shore and a really cool Swedish-speaking redheaded barkeep and a woman named Fern who wore an aviator’s helmet and the infamous Sexy Bartender (who really is quite adorable, even though she chews gum with her mouth open, goddamnit), and, dude, you really felt bad about that broken collarbone because it must suck so much for him, and, anyway, shut up about there being nothing to do in San Jose. No, YOU shut up!

… You noticed that since arriving in northern California, you’d stopped caring what time it was. You note this by exclaiming, "California is weird," while surrounded by a motley bunch of strangers all gorging on falafel under porch umbrellas in the middle of a sunny workday. (For some reason, that seemed weird to you.)

… You went to one of many happy hours with your San Jose host and this ethereal lady, and at one point you laughed so hard that you almost snorted an oyster out your nose.

… You were joined by the mama of all things good and watched “Sin City,” which turned violence into an art form and made you want to kick some ass.

You might be me if …

… You went back to San Francisco for a very important grad school interview, which started with a bunch of personal, interactive, hard-to-explain group exercises, and was followed by an individual interview, during which your interviewee praised your natural empathy as exhibited by your believable improvised portrayal of a monogamous lesbian with a polyamorous life-partner. (Don’t ask.)

… You had a nagging feeling that despite positive feedback, there’s a distinct possibility that boring logistics might prevent you from enrolling at any grad school next year, and you are subsequently haunted by really stupid bureaucratic nightmares featuring you standing in lines and being forced to perform in stupid plays and being pushed off of cliffs. And you’re all, “Man, if the symbolism in my dreams is going to be that freaking obvious, why the hell bother? Why don’t I just dream about a sign that reads, ‘You’re feeling stressed out and insecure about things that are completely beyond your control?’ Because these weak metaphors are making me think that my subconscious is lazy and stupid.”

… You’re still having a great time, complete with Tom Jones soundtrack.

You might be me if...

… Your old friend from high school arranged for her boyfriend and his roommate to take you to the ocean, which you had been missing like crazy for the past three years, and you and your new friends splashed around and climbed dangerously far out on the craggy rocks and threw huge pieces of squashy driftwood into the surf and spelunked through caves at low-tide and got sand in your blisters and were seasoaked up past your knees, and then befriended a poor, shivering brown puppy named Chocolate who the three of you plotted to kidnap from her neglectful owner because Chocolate is just so sweet, and obviously preferred your company over that of her owner’s. And everyone had a wonderful time even though no one really knew you, and you cracked each other up about things like a version of “The Deer Hunter” as a coming-of-age film for preteen girls, (oh, come on, that’s funny,) and you felt like your hosts had just as much fun as you did, which was both a joy and a relief.

… Your old friend’s boyfriend liked you enough to have dug through his closet in search of suitable replacements for the sorry, beach-torn tennis shoes that have been ripping the shit out of your heels and soles, and he made you wear his jacket while you, he, and your old friend walked miles and miles to a midnight showing of “The Goonies,” and then on the way he interrupted something you were saying to tell you “You have the most amazing booger,” which made you laugh so hard you almost bit your cigarette in half, because it was true. You did have the most amazing booger. Whoops.

… You saw old nudists painting each other’s bodies while listening to some awful hippie band by a skate park, and you learned that the white noise scritch-roll/bang-flip of the skateboarding streetmonkeys in Berkley is almost as indirectly melodic as the vibrations your fingers felt through that beer bottle in San Jose.

… You decided to start a band called “Ducks in Position,” which will really never be funny to anyone but you, your old friend, and her boyfriend.

… You got a great deal on beautiful hand-made jewelry sold to you by a friendly, rotten-toothed burnout in Oakland, who made you sing a few bars right there on the sidewalk before he invited you to join his Zappa cover band, which is actually just propaganda for a free clinic and not Zappa at all, but I guess there’s worse propaganda to be sung. And then he asked you where he could buy a xylophone, but you had no idea, so you and your old friend left him on the sidewalk and hopped the train back to the city.

You might be me, if …

… Tonight, you walked up and down San Francisco hills so long and steep that the thongs of your flip-flops vaginated (yes, “vaginated”,) the webs between your toes, but you really didn’t mind, because what a fucking view from the tops of those hills.

… You and your old friend wandered through a incredibly schmanzy downtown hotel that appears to have been lifted from a 1930s Hollywood movie, and you found yourselves in a closed-off rooftop courtyard that’s high enough to bring you eye to eye with the moon. (Oh, man, San Francisco is beautiful.)

… You left the courtyard to have drinks at the overpriced tikki-style hotel lounge, where a band was playing cheesy cover music in a raft in the middle of a pool, and every thirty minutes, it rains inside. Your old friend told you you’re a much better singer than the woman in the band was, and that she (your friend; not the woman in the band) would hike the Appalachian Trail with you like you, personally, have always wanted to do. And then she shared stories of how she hitch-hiked through Mexico and had a fling with a jazz clarinetist in New Orleans, and you realized that, wow, yeah, she’s still so much cooler than you are, but you still make each other think and laugh, and all that.

… You drank colorful rum and tequila mixtures from ridiculous glassware, one piece haped like a tikki idol and the other shaped like a coconut, and you and your old friend laughed and laughed at everything. And before you left, you hurredly shoved both ceramic god and ceramic coconut under your sweater, spilled all the sticky crushed ice on your lap, and make a somewhat stealthy dash for the door while your old friend gathered up your scarf and followed you. And sticky liquor juice ran from the purloined glasses down your sleeves, and some of it drips onto your feet. Your old friend had a cocktail parasol in each of her pigtails, and you had one behind you ear.

You might be me, if …

… You hugged your old friend and told her you loved her, before leaving her at the train station so she could sleep at her boyfriend’s and you could go back to her place before catching your flight in the morning. (She gave you her keys.)

… You have to leave for the airport in a couple of hours, which makes you kind of sad.

… You really hope you can move to San Francisco.

… You still have that damned song in your head.

~ Last Five Entries ~

Arm-in-Arm Down Burgundy - 09.05.05

Motivated! - 08.25.05

Moths, and Relative Nonsense - 08.18.05

I Finally Have Internet Access in my Bedroom. But, No Ashtray. - 08.09.05

Here I Am - 08.02.05

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BUY DEAN'S BOOK, TOO! YOU KNOW YOU WANNA! SERIOUSLY.

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