There are few times I remember Oberlin as vividly as I do during August in San Francisco. The weather at this time of year is exactly like late fall in Oberlin. And it's wholly satisfying because I long to be back there in that same state of life. Nothing was ever that serious. Everything was temporary. Even the big things seemed like bumps in the road then. Now the big things seem like a military obstacle course.

Of course, my perspective was narrow then. But now when I learn the same lessons I learned then, I feel childish. Then, when I learned those lessons, I felt like I was growing. Now it seems like taking a step back. And that frustrates me. I'm hard on myself, saying "I should have known this already!" But once the moment passes, I learn that these are new lessons -- more intimate subtleties of the larger lesson already learned, and I remember that I'm fine-tuning my life and my understanding of it. The traps are different; more serious than before, the consequences more far-reaching. And it's times like these that I realize that there is never a point in life when you've learned everything, no matter how many times you feel like you've been through it before.

The wind tonight has been a big factor in my nostalgia. It rarely gets "windy" here. There are evenings between 5 and 7PM when the offshore flow reverses and brings the fog in, but it's not like the all-day winds that I grew up with. The winds rarely shift direction here, like they do in the Plains and the midwest. It's one or the other. I think most people consider it an irritant. I consider it a reminder of what I had as a kid.

I realized the other day that the time spent in my grandmother's house in Greeley was time spent shaping my whole persona. I cherish it. I will return in another few hundred years, weeping, and happier than ever.

Work is lame these days. Lots of drama -- in the freshman sense of the word. I tire of it. Just when you think you've met adults...

Bedtime comes quickly these days.

Posted at 23.30