Homecoming

The first thing I noticed was that everybody was heavier set than I remembered them. Many still wore the exact same clothes that I saw them wear in undergrad, and everybody still looked great, but I couldn't figure out why it seemed different.

It wasn't for almost a day that I remembered my new home's obsession with physical appearance: the year-round pool parties, how everybody talks about running or swimming or doing something. I remembered feeling pressure to eat and look differently, in a way I never had before I moved out there.

I noticed that one person's belt didn't match his pants. I can't remember ever thinking about that before.

"So when are you moving back?" Krill asked.

"Oh," I laughed, "not anytime soon, the toys are so good! I'm getting to do all the things I always wanted to do, really change the world you know?"

***

Vex's company has a whole lab now, and pays $100 a month for rent there including utilities. We'd pay about 2.5K for about the same space for the Torii. He's walking around showing me his new projects.

"I just can't come back here, I want to, but there are so many good toys in my new home, I'm really getting to change things..."

Vex looks up, puzzled, and I realize my comment was unsolicited.

"Who are you trying to convince?"

***

The restaurant two blocks from campus will serve you a mixed drink in a beach bucket to share among friends. I'd never done it because I was always broke in college. Turns out it cost $13. We did a loop through the other restaurants in the area getting their equivalent drinks and splitting them about 5 ways: one in a fancy glass, another in a fishbowl. None of them cost more than the bucket. I would have paid for all three but I thought it would be rude to show how different the standard of living was in my new home.

***

A huge technological revolution will happen here: the next silicon valley. The economy is heading for a crash, and these are the people who feel the pressure, and who will rise from the ashes first. I am so sure of these things that I would be comfortable betting everything on them.

"This new home is soft, I feel like that's been good for you."

Circles is right of course. Kalei has commented on it in her own way too, and Vex complimented me on how much easier I was to speak with.

"Yeah, stuff has changed"

"I dress like a grownup now"

"Yeah I wasn't going to comment on the almost-hipster coat..."

"It's not hipster!"

"Yeah, well the Pika I remember had a bright blue cap and..." he points at his pants, grasping for words

"Cargo pants?"

"Yeah, cargo pants, and a threadbare hoodie that was barely there..."

"Yeah, there was a fashion intervention."

***

"You worried about the hurricane?"

"No, if I had to be in a disaster anywhere I'd do it with these people, hands down. They are tough and prepared to face anything."

***

In the one place my skills to work with people are challenged because the world judges more harshly, and in the other my career would be pushed harder because better opportunities are there.

I suppose a rational person would choose better opportunities with more forgiving people.

"So when are you leaving?" Sid grins over his straw as he passes the beach bucket to me.

"Tuesday"

Follow-Ups

Often I tell a story to show a snapshot of an idea, but since these are all real people they have continued their lives. Here's what happened to a few of them:

My friend from Jump is in a happy relationship which has lasted over a year. He bought a house, and they happily live together in it.

The man from the fruit stand in Better People never even called me back to say he didn't want to hire me, but I did get a job with one of the better respected computer-related companies in the world. Go figure.

I did in fact almost fail my background check, but not because of all the moving, but because it was a little tough to prove I ever worked for the feds. Crash sorted me out, he's the man.

The bounty hunting team lost. We were carrying the robot live (long story) and the motherboard shorted literally as we placed it on the competition field. We lost the competition but wound up with lots of interested sponsors. Pippin and I lost track of the team after that, he's still being completely absurd and enjoying it.

I'm no longer homeless. My first housemate I lived with for a year. He has a little dog, but it's well trained and well mannered. Now I live in another crazy community, but thankfully I don't have to run it, so I never feel like I have to stop anything from happening.

Being barefoot at my new job is much better tolerated.

I did call Nexus once when I needed a hand. He hung up.

Scavenging never goes out of style, the Torii and my new home both have furniture from the adventures with the feds.

Joat had a baby.

Magpie and Gilby lived together for a whole year. Impressively, nobody wound up getting punched, though there were a few close calls.

Gadget is still the politician, and is happily doing grad research.

Mime got her life together and is now getting licensed to do real estate. She's still boy-crazy, but I feel her taste has improved significantly.

My new meds cause me to bruise all the time now. Hilarity ensues. Related: I did lose the weight again, but I never managed to get my little plant.

3Stack runs the program I ran with the feds now. He's grown a lot in some ways, but is still a little silly.

My grandmother from Rice is fairing poorly, and has trouble remembering a lot now. She's scared, and we're trying to be comforting. My other grandma is comfortable and as happy as she can be, given the circumstances.

I do less breaking and entering now, and mostly scheme about taking over the world with varied success.

The project from Up is put on hold more or less indefinitely but has been absurdly educational.

Drummer's geographical challenges haven't prevented him from getting an extraordinarily respectable series of software jobs.

My friend from Las Vegas and I realized the situation was a little impractical but we're both still good friends and remain in touch.

Vex runs his own company now, where he makes tools that suck less.

Arbor totally still is bitter about that damn burrito. He ran into PJ recently and brought it up.

Elephant in the Room

"I thought you were gone."

I feel like a ghost walking the halls of Umbrella. My department had moved buildings in the 8 months I was gone, so at first I considered pretending I had been on a training rotation and then moved back with the group when they changed buildings, but eventually, as usual, just telling the truth was easier.

"I was on medical leave."

Nobody ever really knows how to respond to that.

My body is covered in bruises. Nobody ever knows exactly how to respond to that either. At first I made an effort to wear long sleeves and hide them, but then I got questions about if I was being abused when they peaked from the hems of my jeans or the edges of my sleeves. That was fun to joke about for a while, but now I just wear them openly everywhere but Torii, where they never knew I went on leave at all.

Nobody at Umbrella dares to ask me any questions about my physical appearance. I had a few days where I tried to see what I could get away with, and eventually borrowed and wore a pair of bondage leg restraints under my jeans for a day just to prove to myself that my coworkers were genuinely just afraid to ask.

Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap. I feel like I run like a child, that I somehow never caught up with the grace of other adults in movements other than fighting. The striking noises of my bare feet on the pavement cause my coworkers to turn, "Are you sure you should be running outside with bare feet? You could make yourself sick again."

This is the crux of the issue: nobody wants to believe another person deserves this to happen to them, and at the same time, admitting that an otherwise healthy active 24-year-old was knocked on her ass for the better part of a year completely by chance is frightening because it reminds my coworkers, many of whom are closer to being 40 than 20, that it could happen to anybody, and that we don't have control over these things.

They color-code beef as unhealthy in the cafeteria, but I pile it on my plate with spinach. I can see my coworker looking at my plate. I feel like they watch me a lot.

"I'm suppose to eat iron."

"They prescribe you iron too?"

"Yeah, but I am also suppose to eat it."

"Ah."

"It's part of the deal about winning the genetic lottery."

"That's why you were out?"

"Yeah."

He seems comforted. I suppose now in his mind this can not be my fault, and yet also not scary or some grim reminder of human fragility.

"[That] Sucks."

"Yeah."

He and another coworker invite me to play pool that night, which they've never done before.

It's a few days before the topic comes up again.

"I won the genetic lottery too."

"Oh?"

He points to his glasses, "They say the odds of my eyes being like this is 1 in 10,000."

I nod.

Slowly we begin drawing the personal boundaries: how much I'm comfortable talking about and how much other people are comfortable hearing. As a rule people seem to either be completely uncomfortable with admitting I was gone or want to hear everything.

Slowly but surely the need to talk about this is less, because it isn't such a big deal anymore, and eventually it seems to not matter at all. I think people can get use to almost anything with time.

At the very least, it's a relief to not have to hide being sick anymore.

Breakfast in Bed

Everybody's got their pet peeves.

Jace's was crumbs in the bed. It didn't matter what it was, if I ate any food at all while sitting on the bed I'd catch hell for it. He had some sort of incredible crumb-finding radar which would cause him to always detect when such a transgression had taken place, and he was remarkably effective in voicing how much this annoyed him.

The relationship came and went, and like most relationships which end for reasons other than the fact the two people don't love each other anymore, the breakup was rocky. It was fraught with teary phone calls, wishing that caring deeply about another person was enough to make a relationship work.

I did still care about him, so I did take the phone calls.

"Hey,"

"Hey,"

There was a long pause, because neither of us had any idea what we were suppose to say.

"I just miss you," he said.

"It's OK."

Another pause. He's getting desperate to make some sort of conversation.

"What are you doing?"

"Sitting in bed, eating a sandwich."

He hung up.

I guess that sums it up.

Green

I felt grossly underdressed.

There were five people sitting at the desk in the front. I was unsure if I was their equal, but there was a sixth seat at the end which I knew would be eventually for me. Dimly in the background I can hear the announcer, "And our final panelist is Pika Chu, who will be joining shortly."

Ah good, so I wasn't suppose to go up there.

"Pika," the shout-whispering voice behind me sounds irritated, "Go sit down."

Crap.

I'm the youngest person at the desks by easily 15 years, and the moderator seemed to have somehow not noticed.

"So what's your comment on the state of the market compared to 10 years ago?"

"Sorry, I'm not old enough to have an appropriately informed opinion on that."

On the upside, they did leave us some pretty nice food to eat at the end.

"You did a pretty good job," Sparks smiled, "held your own with the big-shots."

"Thanks."

"I'd wear shoes next time though."

My panicked face caused him to try to backpedal and reassure me.

"No it's ok, your feet were so filthy I don't know if anybody not in the first two rows noticed..."