So on a relative spur of the moment, I'm in Los Angeles right now, shortly after midnight on Monday morning, sitting in my mom's kitchen, hooked to her DSL listening softly to the City of Angels soundtrack as the house sleeps.

I'd planned on visiting family down here next week, from Tuesday through Thursday, but as August 3rd grows closer and closer, I knew that I'd just be anxious about stagnating, unable to do the cleaning, sorting, packing and moving that will comprise the majority of the three weeks that remain in my affair with Berkeley.

Yesterday I gave notice on my apartment. I didn't want to. I didn't want to so badly that I cost myself $25 a day for over a week postponing the inevitable. Now I've given 30 days notice on an apartment I'll be leaving in 20 days. My last hope was talking to Jim the Manager, reminding him that I've lived here for seven years, and checking if it would be okay if I had Pamila housesit for me for the year I'll be gone. It's a grey area in my rental agreement, somewhere between subletting and homewatching. As I'd expected though, Jim's under enormous pressure to have tenant turnover, since after I leave my grandfathered rent control the rent on my apartment will jump from the current $750/mo to around $1500-1600. I don't even know for certain that I would move back in at the end of the year, but it would be a great place to stay while saving for a house downpayment, if my next job were in the East Bay or downtown SF.

It would also mean I wouldn't have to move all my furniture, only that furniture promised to friends for the next year.

I told Jim I would have to move out then, and he suggested that I wait a few days and reconsider whether I really had to go away for a year, as he'd really like to see me stay. I said no, I really do have to go, and he told me again to think on it for a few days.

Of course I'd been thinking about it for the last two years, and everything had been weighed. This was just notification, not negotiation. Upstairs I had a Pittsburgh lease agreement sitting on the coffee table, on top of my more tattered Berkeley rental agreement, as if quitting my job and enrolling in grad school weren't already points of no return.

Walking out of his office at around 9pm, I started wantering the Berkeley campus. After 11 years of having the campus as my backyard, it feels as much a home to me as anyplace ever has. I felt that I could close my eyes and still find my way from anywhere on campus or Southside to anywhere else.

I started thinking about how indoor cats must feel, where their limited environment becomes their universe. They know it so well that it exists as concretely in their sense memory as in their visual and tactile perceptions. I realized that Berkeley is my environment, mirrored in exquisite fidelity in my brain, much as the five shapes of Tetris are etched into the avid player.

Leaving, I'll have a need to create a new map, and quickly, lest I feel unstuck. Driving with Chad through an intricate knotwork of a journey through the neighborhoods surrounding CMU I already have the foundation for my next framework, but I couldn't help but wonder how this glove that is Berkeley, that I've worn for years and broken in to better fit my hand, would feel when it's only a hollow glove of memory.

And so it was ua bit of a welcome shock of perception when I, on Friday, decided to bump up my LA visit to Sunday through Tuesday. Returning to the only place I ever lived longer than my current home, I got to try on an older glove of sense memory. I was acutely aware of the changes since my last visit home. The new flower garden in the backyard, my mom's new car, the changes to my former bedroom (now an office and, soon, (cliché of clichés) an exercise room). Still, the glove fit, with a finger removed here and replaced there (the destruction and rebirth of the Sherman Oaks Galleria).

In short, as I knew in my mind but wasn't completely faithful in my heart, you can go home again.

The first few visits home after starting college were indeed strange, because Los Angeles didn't just represent a different geography to me, but represented a former life, with different ideals, and different patterns of thinking. Going to LA meant, for at least a few days, becoming my former self. As time went on, each successive visit left me with more of myself, looking at the LA perspective, but not from the LA perspective.

So now when I visit home it's a visiting of an old friend, not a consuming shift.

The thought lingering in my mind is: Is the shift less profound because I've made the LA-SF transition several times, or because I've made any transition several times? Returning from Pittsburgh, will I feel the wash of nostalgia of Berkeley my former home, or from Berkeley-Kevin, my former self?

I guess we'll see...

Anyhow, that wasn't what I was going to write about though. I had a very pleasant day. I woke up early, packed my backpack with clothes, powerbook, iPod, and book. I went downstairs to pick up bagels for the girls and a chai for me, then drove to Karen and Crystals, for a ride to the airport. We had a nice Sunday breakfast before a civilized drive to the Oakland airport, an easy security screening, and right onto a quarter-full 9:30am flight to Burbank, where I was met by my mom. Another breakfast (Elevenses), and home (mom-home) to see Susie and the aforementioned flower garden. It's hot in LA today, up near 100.

Today's my grandfather's birthday (err, the 14th). This was the other reason I bumped my flight up. I rarely come down to LA, and I decided that his party was something definitely worth coming down for. I mistakenly thought he was turning 89 (he's turning 88), which made for a great (albeit mistaken) realization that next year, within the span of 17 days, I would be turning 30, my mom 60, and my grandfather 90. I thought a 30/60/90 birthday party would be a grand affair, but as it turns out it would be a 30/60/89 party, unless Grandpa lies and ups his age a year, or mom and I agree in 2004 to halt our own aging process for one cycle.

I guess I'll just have to sate my amusement with the fact that my birthday falls on Independence Day, Grandpa's on Bastille Day, sister Susie's on Labor Day (this year), and of course my Grandma Kitty's (mom's side) Christmas birthday.

Back to my day... The party at Uncle Alan's was very nice and low key. I got to see Craig who I haven't seen since Christmas. Afterwards mom and I went to the store and Costco (where I couldn't resist but buy Warcrack III), then went to see Lilo and Stitch in the theater. I liked it, though it was a very different direction for Disney. Mom thought it was too violent for what it was supposed to be and I completely get that. It's hard to imagine Disney making a film both more violent than Beauty and the Beast, yet more farcical. After going home we watched Kate & Leopold, for a complete switch, and that was cool too. Very enjoyable, despite the inexorable continuity flaws that afflict every time-travel story I've ever read.

Say, did anyone watch the Robin Williams HBO special tonight? Was it any good? Amazingly, I don't know anyone who gets HBO anymore...

Okay, enough rambling from Kevin. Today was mom's day, and tomorrow is dad's. Now it's time for me to sleep, after knocking back another chapter or two of Return of the King.

I hope your Monday treats you well. Dad and I are going to take another crack at flying model planes, 'cause if at first you don't succeed, eventually it's time to try again.