Chapter the third, in which our heroine gets a social life (almost)

so... learning to surf. I haven't actually attempted such a thing, yet. Mostly because I'm broke, but also because it seems like something that'd be a lot more fun to do with somebody else, and well, I still don't really know anyone here. Although, thank fucking god, that's starting to change. I met my first non-roommate person yesterday - a guy I found on craigslist, who posted about wanting to play games (backgammon, cribbage, etc, not the love-games kind of games).

Well, I like me some games, so we met up at this hip little cafe downtown and I sipped a tasty local microbrew while he taught me an ancient french card game called piquet. It's full of bizarre scoring conventions and complicated strategy, so it was good fun. I lost in the end, but held my own pretty well, especially for a beginner.

The dude - Jeremy is his name, a name I am forever fated to confuse with Jeffrey - is kind of overwhelming, but less so in person than online. He's a new math PhD student (having done one year of a linguistics PhD a few years back) and seems to have a strong philosophical bent towards a strange blend of hyper-rationalism, structure, and predictability. He told me he dislikes chess because it is too "random," there are too many combinatorial possibilities, it is too subject to human unpredictability to be within his chosen game spectrum. I just laughed and told him (although I don't play chess either, for different reasons) that the endless possibility for the unexpected was one of my favorite things about people. Funny guy.

I also attempted, earlier today, to attend a freeskool bout of croquet, delayed from last weekend due to the booking of the park in question by (ahem, really now) the SF mime troupe. When I showed up this afternoon, there were no more mimes, but no croquet either. Instead it was some kind of massive yoga-for-peace love-in, the field filled with all variety of people cycliing endlessly through sun salutations to the beat of a single drum and the drone of the drummer's broadcast voice channeling the energy of all those bodies. Nearby were some booths and blankets selling homemade jewelery, candles, flowy dresses and t-shirts proclaiming peace and love.

In other words, I found it. San Lorenzo park, tie-dyed swirling epicenter of the hippie universe, where all hippies begin their lives, fully formed, crawling out of the belly of their mother earth from a weed- and patchouli-scented hole beneath one of the parks benches. I knew it was around here somewhere.

Tomorrow I break into my school-based social life with the anthrograds camping trip, one night down in big sur. I am totally excited for this one - not only because of the potential-friend-factor, but also because I remember big sur (from my one visit there, when I was 12ish) as one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Now with s'mores!

So, that's all exciting stuff for this poor girly who's been stuck with the company of seagulls and spokes for the past couple weeks. And will be ready to stop complaining about it any second now.