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I never argue with the girlfriend because she’s beautiful and a whole lot smarter than me, even though she doesn’t know shit about code. On the drive across to California I once tried to explain it to her and she just got all blinky eyed and told me we should buy a house as soon as we could. When I mentioned how much easier it was to rent, she told me that in this world you have to own your own place. “The rest is just for the friggin tourists.”
When the Valiant finally got us to the West Coast, the girlfriend found a little cabin to rent until we could buy a place. Although I knew it was literally for tourists, I didn’t mention it to the girlfriend because I liked the place and didn’t want to stir anything up. It was made of logs and had a fireplace and even a hot tub out back. Because it was out of season, the place was cheap so we could stretch our dollars while I looked for a job. Unlike Saint John, out of season didn’t mean six feet of snow and more coming. We sat out in the hot tub, with the smell of sage in the air, and watched the stars without fear of freezing to death. We still weren’t quite back to normal, but things were starting to develop.
Getting a job was another story. The girlfriend had gotten me so high on the idea of the adventure of coming to Silicon Valley, that it hadn’t occurred to me to think about what I’d actually have to do to get hooked up once we got there. I didn’t even know where to buy a bag of pot.
The first few days, I’d leave in the morning, drive down to a restaurant near the beach, and drink coffee while I tried to figure out what to do. Next to the girlfriend, I’ve always been the smartest person in the room, but this was way outside anything in my head. Every morning, the girlfriend circled the jobs in the paper, but what was I going to say if I called them, “I’ve worked at the IGA in Saint John, New Brunswick.”? It was incredibly depressing, so instead of doing anything, I just hung out. |
