so i am sitting in starbucks, editing writing. roxy has joined me, she is sitting across the room doing her own thing. a woman walks in wearing a william and mary sweatshirt.

on the west coast, out here, this is a rarity. people generally claim to know of w&m out here, but you don't often see actual articles of clothing. when she walks back through, i speak to her; i tell her i went there. this leads to a solid 10 minute conversation — she graduated there in 97. i finished in 98. we never get to the level of 'did you know this person' but mainly because it is clear early on that 1. she didnt know many people there and 2. she knows none of the groups i ran around with while there (see: wcwm, the radio station and psi u, the frat).

still, its pretty cool.

though i did feel a little awkward, what with this attractive woman talking to me while my gf sat across the room studying. i kept saying 'we' when talking about moving here and such. though i still felt like i was supposed to be asking this girl out or something. (no, not really. but i dont talk to strange girls often, so i felt all unsure what that experience is supposed to be like. i did wonder if she thought i was going to ask her out. again though, once r came over to talk to me, i think it became obvious that there would be no phone number trading. or whatever it is that people do now. numbers? emails?)

wow. this might have been the most notable thing about my day. that's saying something. i'm not sure its a positive thing.

i am waiting for a guy to come look at my couch and hopefully buy it and take it away. he is now 12 minutes late. i am only slightly annoyed because as soon as he leaves i am going to the beach. he hasnt called. argh. i also only got about 2 hours of sleep last night. mainly because i stayed out way longer than i wanted to and ended up taking a cab out to coney island with my best friend from high school and some random girl we met at a bar. im not hungover because i didnt really drink, but i am feeling the effects of lack of sleep about now. who meets 2 guys at a bar and decides to go along with them on their crazy adventure to coney island at 4am? a. it costs about $40+ to get there. b. its pretty mad ghetto all around coney island at that time except if you're on the beach or boardwalk. c. she didnt know us from adam.
in the end, it turned out to be a pretty cool adventure. the 3 of us fell asleep for a little bit all sitting in the same lifeguard stand. what a picture. and it wasnt some random hookup either. it was totally platonic and innocent fun. she was crazy cute though. although she also talked like she just walked off the set of laguna beach. she was from the oc. btw, the dude still isnt here to pick up the couch. he is now 21 min late.

i have written quite frequently over the last year or so about how the world is a very small place. i hope you like these stories; you're getting another one now.

on monday nights, we trek to ugly's for drinks with anyone and everyone who wants to come out. generally, this means i hop off public transportation, race home, stuff our faces with dinner and then race to the bar. to get there by about 7.30. some mondays it works better than others. usually we scarf dinner in front of jeopardy. (jeopardy, which, for some reason, comes on at 7pm on the west coast, followed by wheel of fortune at 7.30. on the east coast, these shows are swapped. ive never known why this is and have never investigated further.)

last night, we flip on jeopardy.

and wilson rickerson is staring right back at me.

wilson and i went to college together. we were in the same frat. now, granted, i haven't seen him in years, but we are still only a degree or two away form each other. (in fact, i got email today from cs box (whose site seems to be mia at the moment) about all of this as well.)

i freak out and call petunia. i know she is on the east coast; it's too late for her to catch it. i should have called chris davis and adam. sorry guys, i hope you can forgive me. she and i talk as i watch wilson play.

wilson gets the last clue, which also turns out to be a daily double. he bets it all.

the answer, in case you can't read it is:
'this heroine details her own consumption of 5,277 cigarettes, her gain of 74 pounds & her loss of 72 pounds'

the question is: 'who is bridget jones?'

wilson misses it. (look at his expression in the photo. it says it all.) with it, he misses out on final jeopardy, bowing out of the game with $0.

but i look at it like this:
1. wilson would fairly easily be in my 'top 5 people i know i would expect to see on jeopardy', even if i cannot fully explain the surprise and delight i got from turning on the tv and seeing someone i knew, especially for longer than 10 seconds.
2. if wilson was going to lose, this might have been the perfect question to go out on. it's a pop culture question, devoid of anything he should have learned in college. and, let's face it, it's a girl question.
3. as i said several times last night, if there had been a 'frat foolery' column in last night's game, wilson would have cleaned up. i feel like i must have photos or video of him acting nutty. perhaps with a mohawk. he cleans up nicely it seems.
4. seriously, it was insanely cool to find him on my tv randomly.

right now, last night especially, i love the world.

and wilson — i was rooting for you, buddy.

why am i so obsessed with the divorce of a couple i don't even know? maybe it's because i lurrrrve her blog and she's never mentioned a thing about the dissolution of her marriage and now all of a sudden it's over. i find myself being all "sixth sense" about it and back-tracking, looking for clues.

last weekend i hung out with an old…hahaha, can i use the word flame? (total neely o'hara lingo!) i was presented with the opportunity for a hookup and said flame seemed surprised when i was a complete no-go. i have hooked up before with a taken fellow…or four*… but draw the line at being the cheateR. does this seem surprising, or hypocritical? he seemed surprised. does this mean i should throw away my "slut" necklace?

* not simultaneously

the other night in art class, someone was painting with oils. and i'm not sure what it was, but something, some combination of items created a smell that was instantly recognizable. and i wish i knew what it was — what caused it, what the smell was. because i instantly and positively knew it was a smell i associate with hospitals now. its something i smelled a lot of when i was hospitalized.

but i have no idea what it is. i imagine it is disinfectant of some sort, but i dont know. i do know that simply smelling it bubbled up all sorts of weird anxious feelings that come with any memory of being sick.

i didn't like it.

and now, as i sit outside at starbucks, writing documents for work, surrounded by an ipod, a coffee, a moleskine and the gang of four's 'design patterns' book, i am smelling cloves. someone out here is smoking clove cigarettes.

and suddenly, i'm on the back porch of psi-u on a friday night. there must be some coffeeshop kids hanging out, smoking them. i can almost see julie hill holding one. (she is a post for another day, most certainly.) but my ipod plays 'bittersweet symphony' and i know, i know, its 2.30am and we are sitting out back, waiting for the cops to show and kill the party, waiting for the lights to get thrown on and everyone to stumble home, dropping the half empty can as we move. i'm leaning on the wall, foisy is within earshot. no one is watching the back door and we ran out of beer an hour ago and i'm drinking one of the last brother beers (the secret stash of beer at any given party saved for the people who actually paid for the entire thing). and i blink.

and its 9 years later and i'm on the other side of the country, living in silicon valley and i am missing everyone i have ever known.

it's one of those moments where i want to climb up on top of a huge mountain, a mountain so tall that everyone can hear me and i scream the names of all the people i love, i call them all out, i make every one of you raise your heads and know that you are missed, that you are still loved and that i want to be near every single one of you. always.

i haven't found that mountain yet. this site is the best i've been able to manage.

and no one is smoking cloves now.

Oblique shout-out to William & Mary in tonight's episode - NBC

this link came through in my feed reader with the following note:

"Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence is a W&M alumnus. Could this mean the characters went to the WaMmer? It doesn't have a medical school, but they could have gone there for undergrad."

this came through a feed i'm subscribed to:
http://del.icio.us/network/waxpancake

this is part of the email i ahd to send, after i read this note and did a little digging:

it's andy baio's delicious network page — an easy way to watch some of the 'hip' blogosphere. (andy does waxy.org/links and upcoming with leonard lin.)

and i've been reading it for like 2 years now.
and i've learned the user names of the people who come through that feed.
including davextreme, who really likes nerd crap like i do.

and then, this afternoon, i read the scrubs reference. and i read 'wammer'. and i think 'who the hell calls it the wammer other than people i know?' and i look up who the hell davextreme is, because, really, it is a small world.

and wow, it is a super small world. because davextreme is dave ely, who went to william & mary. who i know personally because he was also in my frat, a couple of years behind me.

so i've been stalking dave online for a long time now without even realizing it was him. but it is. and the world is tiny.

wow.

this is my third such event in the last four months.

i met will carter's friend peter at a coffeeshop here in potrero hill a few months ago. then i sat next to jason choy's brother-in-law randomly at a dinner in nova over christmas. i still need to tell that story.

man. and i promise my next post will be more on human cheese. i thought about it all weekend and still have more to say.

coming home today on the G train, the train stopped in the station and the doors didn't open. this is a pretty common occurence as the G train has a reputation for being one of the worst trains to commute on. i was a bit irritated because i wasnt feeling well and just wanted to get home as quickly as possible. it turned out that a girl had fallen on the tracks right before the train came into the station. she did not get hit by the train. she had been helped up off the tracks before the train came into the station and was clutching her leg on the platform.