Shallow Alto

As previously noted, Meli and I moved to our new place in Palo Alto this weekend. This morning, two bumbling Comcast field agents spent an hour and fifteen minutes trying to connect our television and computers to the outside world. I helped a little bit. The installation guys didn't speak English, and the guy on the other end of the Nextel walkie-talkie sounded like an overwhelmed seventeen-year-old computer geek, so it fell upon me to lend a helping hand. The point is, I'm back on the Internet after an unprecedented three-day hiatus, and it hasn't changed much.

Here are a few observations about our new living arrangements.

We live across the street from a park, which was full of children playing soccer all day Saturday and Sunday. This means that walking around naked in my apartment with the blinds open is now a sex crime.

The cats have adjusted surprisingly well to the move. They were, of course, completely freaked out their first day. But the morning after we brought them, Ruby was bothering me at four in the morning to feed her, just like always. They're still slightly on edge, and exhibiting strange behaviors. Today, for example, Pepe found it extremely important to jump up onto the stove. My stern rebukes and hand-clapping were of little use, but fortunately his attention span is such that he grew tired of the stove rather quickly and went back to chasing imaginary bugs around the apartment.

We have a balcony. The best thing about the balcony is that the screen for the sliding glass door is on the inside. This means that if I want the glass door open and the screen door closed, I have to open the screen door, then open the sliding glass door, then close the screen door. This I don't understand at all.

In addition to being across the street from a park, we're within spitting distance of the 101 freeway. On our first night here I decided to open the bedroom windows when we went to bed, because Meli and I both find the freeway sounds strangely soothing. It must be the Orange County in us.

We haven't really met any of our neighbors. Most of them just gave us the stink-eye as we were carrying our shit into the apartment. My guess is that it's mostly Stanford grad students around here and they can smell the stench of two Cal degrees emanating from my person.

When I lived in Santa Monica, getting anywhere in Los Angeles involved driving west on Santa Monica Boulevard and turning right. Here, getting anywhere at all involves driving on El Camino Real, a road that seems to go in every direction, including parallel and perpendicular to itself. I'm going to get lost a lot in the next few weeks.

Speaking of Lost, have you guys been watching the new season? It's cray-ZAY! What the hell is going on next week? Jin speaks English all of a sudden? I think Michelle Rodriguez is a demon. Maybe Jin's a demon too.

Never entangle yourself with U-Haul if you can help it.

I was going to send out a "Here's our new address and sorry I haven't e-mailed in a while" mass e-mail, but decided against it for various reasons. The blorg, cell phone, and e-mail haven't changed, and if you really want to know my address you probably shouldn't.