It’s just past ten thirty on a Friday night. I spent the day at work, came home and fried some eggs and noodles, started learning to play a song on the piano, went out for ice cream with Suzy, read some internet, and went to bed. Though I want to rise early tomorrow, sleep hasn’t come easily. I guess this is a good time to write.
I’m living in a new house now. It’s the Normal house, with Quinn & Lisa. I started moving in last Sunday and just yesterday was able to finish off the majority of unpacking. There are still boxes of books in the closet and cluttered shelves, but my room is starting to feel like my room. I like this house a lot.
Xue flew in to San Diego tonight. She’ll be down there for a week or so attending the annual meeting of the Society For Neuroscience. Next Saturday I’m going to take a train down to my mom’s place in Los Gatos, then I’ll drive down into the heart of Southern California to meet Xue.
Google says it’s a ten to twelve hour drive, but I know they underestimate how fast people can move on the five. I haven’t done much driving in a while, so half a day behind the wheel (after seven hours on a train) is going to be a fun little experiment. Yes, I know to rest when tired.
Side note and anecdote I frequently provide: In high school I used to driven / be driven from my mom’s house in New Jersey to my Dad’s house in Pennsylvania. It took about an hour and a half to get there, and there wasn’t a wide variety of routes to take. I can still run through most of it in my head.
One of the last times I drove on that route was coming back North at about four in the morning. I might’ve been rushing home to finish packing for the move to California. I started nodding off and thought I saw something leap out in front of my car. I swerved at about 60mph. There was nothing there, and I thankfully didn’t kill myself.
There was another instance of near-death on that same route where my eyes got tired and I almost missed a curve in the highway. Would’ve plowed right through the guard rails I imagine. Driving can be scary.
But anyway.
Next weekend I will drive down to San Diego, even if it takes me two drives sandwiching a nice long nap. I’ll be meeting her at her friend’s house, maybe at some terrible hour in the morning. Then Xue and I will make our way back up to the coast to a week of Thanksgiving at my mom’s.
What I wanted to write about tonight includes how excited I am to see X. It’s been, I guess, three and a half months since I left her in New Haven at the end of my Summer on the East coast. Twelve and a half week, according to Google. This whole time I’ve been telling myself and her that it won’t be that long until the next time we’re together, but now it strikes me as being almost unexpectedly soon. It’s like a sudden inrush of ribcage butterflies. It is difficult for me to express how much I look forward to parking the car, breathing deep, listening to warm ticking of the engine, stepping out, and meeting her again.