Heat makes for grumpy research assistants

We've just had something of a heat wave here in the Bay Area, and I'm not a fan of heat. It turned out to be a day spent in the library as well, and I'm none too fond of libraries, either. I have trouble concentrating in libraries... I'm one of those people who needs a certain quantity of ambient background noise in order to stay focused. (Well, to stay awake would probably be a fairer description of it.) I like studying in cafe's.

However, my job for the day included poring through the Omnibus Revision History of the 1976 Copyright Act, and the 17-volume series of bound transcripts, drafts, and comments has non-circulatory status here at the law school. Not being able to take out out of the law school, I just had to sit there and read it in the library's main reading room, which, like most of Boalt Hall, doesn't seem to have working air conditioning.

So I'm just sitting there, as happy as a mollusk at a clambake, perusing the Register's Report of 1961 (which is actually quite an amusing read at times. They do joke around a little, despite the seriousness of the business - they're human after all) and in some parts, it's like watching some of those old Cold War newsreels. There's a certain preoccupation with "commies" in general and "the Russians" in particular and how copyright law was stifling our scientific progress, etc. etc.

I'm making progress, despite a certain lack of comfort, when I hear the following addressed to me in an irritated monotone: " Could you keep the racket down, please?"

I look down. Well, well, looks like I've been turning pages. The acoustics in the reading room are less than ideal for a room in a library. There's a terrible echo in there, and you can literally hear someone turning pages a hundred feet away. If someone closes a book, coughs, pops the tab on a soda can, or clicks a pen, you're going to hear it, whether he tries to muffle it or not.

I look back up. I have no idea who the guy is, but he doesn't look like a law professor, or a lawyer for that matter. He might be a very old student with lots of body hair. Fact is, we get some strange characters in the law school with alarming frequency... but then, this is Berkeley after all, and oddballs come with the territory. As long as they're not surfing for porn on the library computers, we pretty much tolerate them.

I'm fairly irritated with this one, though, because he of all people has no cause to complain about my innocent page-turning. He had already released two rather sonorous farts in the past 15 minutes, which I did my best to ignore despite the room's reverberation and the stifling heat (which if anything, amplifies the effects of just about every kind of pollution, I'm sure). Look, dude, if you can hear me, I can most definitely hear you.

I shoot him that weapon-eye look (You know, the aforementioned "I'm going to go through you, and the guy behind you, and the guy behind him"), and go back to my reading, shoving the annoyance bubbling over in my psyche into a quieter corner of my mind. I was tempted to shell out 20 bucks and an hour of time just to photocopy the entire section I needed to read and run off to a cafe where I can read about the 1960's preoccupation with commies and copyrights over a tall, frosty glass of iced orange juice.

I ended the day with a cold shower, which felt absolutely wonderful. You know it's a hot day when a cold shower feels this good... in fact, it's still toasty in here, and I might take another one just to keep cool...

Home is where the heart is

I've done some traveling, but never for an extended period of time. The total number of days I've actually been outside California could probably be easily crammed into a single year with lots of room to spare. That said, I have several places right here in the Bay Area that I could call home. Home isn't where you spend most of your time - if that were true, a lot of people would be calling the workplace home, and for most of us, that place is anything but. Home is a place that welcomes you. There may be nothing deep about that, but then, happiness isn't always a deep thing. You could at times, have very deeply-seated philosophical foundations for a feeling of peace or contentment, and lots of people seem to go about seeking higher truths that will give them that feeling every day, all the time - religion, philosophy, yoga, etc.

I don't know much about that... but those blissfully naive moments of happiness that I'm talking about for today are those that neither arise from the Id nor derive from the Superego, and have nothing to do with a little devil or angel sitting on one's shoulder. I don't normally think about why I'm happy when I'm happy. I just am. Depression lends itself to self-analysis; depression is uncomfortable and unpleasant and makes one wonder why things have to be this way. Happiness doesn't lend itself to introspection nearly as readily; if you're happy, who cares why?

No thoughts necessary for the moment. Steam rises from a freshly poured cup of green tea. It's the second cup; as with most good (real) tea, the second brewing is better than the first; not as astringent, more flavor. This tea isn't sweetened; dessert is for later. The seat across from me is empty, attended only by a crumpled napkin and an empty teacup. A friend of mine was just sitting there. We'd been talking pleasantly for hours but it was time for her to hurry back; plane to catch back to Southern California. "Don't worry about the bill; I've got it this time."

I take a sip and lean back into the wicker chair, which creaks slightly. These chairs see a lot of use, and a few of them need repairing. It's all good - it's not going to collapse with me in it. I haven't seen this room very often in the past year, and it's nice to be here again. So many memories, and all crafted within a few years? I'm not sure. It might have been two. It might have been six, but that's all beside the point. Time is a poor measure of things. The two years I've spent working have so far been the fastest years of my life, because they were so repetitive. But a year spent in school seems to last much longer, mostly in a good way. I might have been coming to this place every day for a year, or only once every few months, but the only thing that's really different about some of these visits is the intensity of nostalgia that accompanies walking through the door. And after that, it's home. I wrote most of my law school applications here. I've often come here after work, to take tea and a nap. I read the first four Harry Potter books sitting at the table on the other side of the room. I've been brought here by friends, and I've brought friends here. I sometimes study for finals here, too. That collection of little books on the shelf - I've read them all. I know the menu inside and out. This place is a little like a bar for people who don't drink beer. Even if the analogy isn't a strong one, it's Cheers to me.

Here, I'm not so much a law student, a martial artist, an engineer, or an economist, as I am myself. If places could get up from a table and give hugs, this would be one of them.