Packing continues. I think my dust allergy is gone. I haven't been covering my face with a bandana and I've been fine. Or maybe the dust mites have found my living space so unbearable that they left in a mass exodus that I somehow missed.

Today's weather was gorgeous, but there was a chill wind blowing through Golden Gate Park to remind me to not get sucked in. Eleven years. Is this home? It's more "home" than anywhere else I've lived in terms of time and familiarity. But I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking that when I climb into the truck on Wednesday night or Thursday morning, I'm not going to even look back.

I'm better than this place. I'm not saying I'm too good for San Francisco, or that it's so lame that I'm better than it. You know how your personality might change depending on who you're hanging out with? When we interact with people, it's sometimes a compromise of personality. Not all people; some people are adamantly, sometimes overbearingly or arrogantly, themselves no matter who the company is, for better or worse. More often I think we take on chameleon qualities to some degree.

Some people bring out the better in us, some people bring out the worse in us. Some people bring out the best, some people bring out the worst. It depends on how personalities bounce off each other. Well, my theory, and it's just a theory, is that the Bay Area has not brought out the best in me, consumate chameleon that I am. Whether it's the weather, the people, or the water, I don't know. But I feel that I'm better than this, who I am, who I've become. Or it just might be the way I've grown.

I have fond memories of New Jersey because I grew up there until college. I have fond memories of my college years and I have an affection for Ohio regardless of how much I regret about the whole experience at Oberlin. In both those places and times I've been able to connect with people who brought out the best in me. San Francisco? I'm strained to like myself the way I am here. The only fondness I'll feel is for the landscape, the natural beauty of California. Little else, as far as I can predict.

I'll see wherever I end up next. See if I can connect with people, find people who bring out better in me, bring out something more interesting, more likeable, more motivated. Maybe not, but that's what I want to find out. Worse case scenario is that I find I'm as boring, uninterested, and unmotivated as I am now to cultivate relationships and connections.

Ongoing packing.




Bedroom


Bedroom reverse angle. Note the New Jersey license plates above the closet.