Memory Reel in Reverse

I've been back in les Etats now for 35 days--I think I still have some acclimating to do.  Perhaps it's because I've traversed my Golden home state more extensively than I have in quite some time.  Perhaps it's because one year feels all sorts of fluid when thinking about the passage of time--suddenly marijuana is virtually legal in California, there are compostable spork sightings outside of the Davis Food Co-Op, Denny's Offers a dubious healthful breakfast alternative dubbed the "Fit Slam"...

Hanger 1, NASA Ames Campus 

Perhaps it's because I'm suddenly able to speak my native tongue with strangers on the street and business proprietors alike.  I can order a hamburger wrapped in lettuce or non-clandestine-secret-menu "Animal Fries."



I can access Facebook, Youtube, This Blog, and more--without so much as a glance as to whether my VPN was directing my IP address to a locale outside the Great Firewall.  I can even get a ticket for not wearing my seatbelt, or driving drunk! (I didn't)


Three cheers for Neoclassical columns!  

Mexican food in the Mission

I can also meet awesome people doing awesome things like building websites to combat corruption.
Check it out.

I've never been happier to be back in California, and as I scoot from Mountain View to Napa and Oakland and Davis and then back to SF, I'm reminded of how lucky we are in this here country; shure it's got problems that we should probably be critiquing more thoroughly, and yeah, there are more obese people here still, but--in lieu of trite ending, here's a quote from David Foster Wallace that perhaps transcends my binary banter on arbitrary national boundaries:


"[true freedom] means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.  Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed."