this morning we went to breakfast with an old friend at dharma's in capitola. coincidentally a ucsc worker was having breakfast there as well and it's someone i used to work for when i was a student but i doubt they remember me. the portions are huge at dharma's. i think i forgot how huge. we had to pack up our leftovers for later. while i was there i felt odd like the old hippies were staring at us and giving us the evil eye to get out because we don't belong.

into the trees

then we went to campus and visited old co-workers but a lot seem to be on vacation since it is a holiday weekend. that's how universities are, the workers take off when there's a holiday. in the corporate world, no way jose. everyone's working but me. the air was nice on campus. the smell of forest! i couldn't breathe enough of it. it made me giddy. it's like being at camp. that's what draws a lot of people to this university i think. i continued to take pictures around campus to break in my camera and learn about it. it was pretty late in the morning when we arrived but we saw a raccoon. it was greeting us i'm sure and apologizing for the deer being too shy to say hello as well. we stayed on campus for quite awhile, talking to former co-workers and looking at new buildings. we were too stuffed from breakfast to have lunch. we even went to the bookstore and bought some stuff. we both got jackets because they had some nice ones that were quite warm and not too expensive. i don't think we brought enough layers for this trip because last night was fucking cold!

sea lion resting spot with a view

after campus, we went down to the boardwalk area to check it out. we stopped for a snack of baba ghanouj and pita bread before walking down the wharf. we were very disappointed when we walked down to the very end and the main little cut-out view point to see the sea lions had been holed up. the other fenced cut-outs had very few sea lions resting. it must have not been nap time! we were heading back and thinking how much it sucks that we didn't really get to see the sea lions when i spotted something new: a platform for sea lions to rest on and from which visitors could get up close. damn! it was amazing. there were these stairs so you could be almost at the water level and the sea lions were napping right there! it seemed a tad bit dangerous. i mean, if some idiot provoked the sea lions, i'm sure a big angry male could attack quite easily from such a short distance. thankfully, there were no idiots among us and we took a lot, perhaps too many pictures of the sea lions. after that we walked around downtown and met up with one of the ladies we are staying with. then we went to have dinner at parwana. um, it's changed! redecorated, very popular. a new dish for us to eat but the prices also went up. oh well, it was still good.

yesterday was like coming home but i have no home here. yesterday brought out so many good feelings that i could even contemplate moving back. but today was revisiting a past you can never return to. it felt weird to be on campus, this is my past! it felt weird to walk downtown, i wasn't comfortable! while once it was nothing to me to walk around santa cruz, no fear etc., now it felt dirty and scary in a way, like i didn't want to be there. in some ways santa cruz never changes but in another way it does. i guess it's like that for everyone with every town they have ever lived in? today i remembered a couple reasons why i left and i guess i just have to remind myself of those things. i left because i felt like my life was going nowhere. that is especially true when you work on campus with grad students. those kids have a goal and are working on it. they graduate it and move on. years later you are in the same spot. i really need to do something with my life but what it is exactly yet i am unsure of. this is just a difficult topic because it's complicated.