the freeze-down

Before Hurricane Katrina swept across the Gulf Coast and razed the buildings closest to the beach, my sister worked as a hostess at Outback Steakhouse in Gulfport. It was in a small shopping complex on the beach. It was situated at the back end of a large parking lot in an innocuous storefront. At the front of that large parking lot was a nightclub called Illusions, which we fondly called "Delusions." We went to Illusions often, drank neon blue drinks, sat out on the front deck that rimmed the building and talked shit while the weak tidewater of the Gulf of Mexico pulsed blackly across the highway, wave-less. Once, there were so many of us on that deck leaning on the railing that it pulled away from the front of the building like a broken zipper.

I'd often pick my sister up from work, and on one of those nights after work, my sister told me a story. She said that when the customers in Outback lingered over their dinner too long in the evening, when it was 9:30 pm and there was still a long wait for a table, the staff in the restaurant would turn the temperature on the thermostat down so that the AC pumped cold air. This made the diners uncomfortably cold, which was the signal for them to leave. The staff called this tactic the freeze-down.

It's 53 degrees here in San Francisco tonight: I think the city is trying to tell me something.

I will miss Stanford, all the wonderful writers and people I met in the program, my Krav Maga gym and the friends I met there, access to affordable, good acupuncturists and massage therapists, independent film, cheap concerts by some of my favorite artists, delicious Japanese and Senegalese and Thai and Ethiopian and local/organic fresh food, the ocean's constant shhhh, creaking redwoods, and driving on the 101 from Bernal Heights to my apartment while "I Know" plays and the vista of downtown unfurls across the horizon, alight with so much possibility.

I'm moving back to Mississippi on Monday.