THICK OF THINGS

Lafayette is all of fifteen minutes from Berkeley on the freeway, but being on the other side of the East Bay hills, it might as well be the ends of the earth—no one will come to visit you. Consequently, I felt like I was living a peripheral existence—in exile, if you will. So, after I lost my job at Sofabed Warehouse, I moved back to Berkeley, back into the thick of things. I took an apartment on Hillegass Street with two artists—Susan, a graphic designer who free-lanced for Levi-Strauss, and Carolyn, who made fabulous costumes and “did” the historical fairs.

My bedroom was a long, narrow sun porch, facing the bay, with a solid bank of windows on three sides.

TIDY

“Last night I dreamed I came down with mononucleosis and had a mumps-like swelling of the neck. Consequently, the first few hours of the morning I couldn’t quite shake the residual notion that I was ill—and dragged myself around listlessly.

“In the early afternoon Carolyn found me in the kitchen, trying to pry the lid off a Schiller’s spice can with a screwdriver. The thing popped off suddenly, discharging curry powder all over my lap. Carolyn laid down some newspaper, which I carefully sidled onto and beat the ocher stain from my jeans. Then, mounted on a chair, she went spelunking in the spice cupboard while, with a note pad, I chronicled her discoveries.

“While my egg was boiling, I played two games of backgammon with myself, allying myself with white and losing both times.

“Before Meredith arrived to see my new place, I took down the clothesline I had strung up on the far side of my bedroom last week and razed and carted off the tower of boxes I’d left there since the day I moved in. Afterwards I stared around my room at the orderly files of colored folders, freshly laundered rug, dainty new underwear, folded and ready to be put in the dresser I didn’t own yet—and felt overawed by the tidiness of things.”