Sun/Fun/Cisco

Characters: Sudip, Paz, James, Zhang it!, Candlewick, Ash

Smartphones for Smart?People – Sudip does his best mercenary work when he is unpaid and under the influence. The man is a shock to all ecosystems he enters; he floats from here to there faster than a waif on vibrate. He executed a perfect evaporation from the club scene even though no crime had been committed. Next time we saw him was three hours later; marching through the apartment building lobby with a cup from Carl's Jr. in his left hand and an excuse for his disappearing act in his left brain.

At this point in the night Paz was missing his iPhone. On the way home Paz told us he believed Sudip had the phone in his possession. We were about to find out this was not true.

“Where is my phone?” Paz asks the simplest question, expecting an answer in parity. Instead, he was informed by Sudip that his phone was probably adhering to one of the following conditional states:

• On his own person: “Check your pockets.”
• Sold into unknown realms: “The aliens took it.”
• Questioning its real owner: “It wasn’t yours in the first place.”
• Undergoing temporary dementia: “I don’t know where it is. It doesn’t know where it is.”

There are clues to its whereabouts, and I seem to be the only one in custody of the faculty to put the pieces together. First clue, the Carl’s Jr. cup. I have a certain respect for all things Carl/Karl, and deduced I should trust my instincts and approach Carl. We found three Carl’s Jr. within theoretical “waifing” distance. When asked which one he attended, Sudip first claimed none and then all and then something in between. I then called Paz’s cell #, talked to the Indian who answered, and formed a dispatch party to go rescue the phone.

As we powerwalked, Sudip and his shadow waifed by very quickly on the other side of the street. We called to him, but he was already gone; hugging curbs and shifting perspectives is his specialty. His business card probably declares him a Shortcut Specialist. Our party found a cab, and when we arrived Sudip was nowhere visible. We wondered, had we really beaten him there?

Paz engaged the man at the register, pointing to his iPhone on the counter and saying something like, “That’s my phone.”

This received a “Maybe yes. Maybe no. We’ll see.” Paz asked the man to input his unlock code, and it worked. The man simply nodded and said, “Interesting.” Paz asked for the phone, but it was at this moment that Sudip burst through the door, shouting joyously in Hindi for all to fear. The sales associate’s face lit up with exultation, and suddenly everyone was smiling. Sudip sidled up to the counter, said some rough words which I can only assume came out smooth in another language, and was handed the phone. It was around this time that I noticed the smiling Mexican in the corner.

Paz and I asked for a backstory, and to our surprise, actually got one. Apparently Sudip had fallen asleep with two iPhones stretched out across a booth’s table: his own and Paz’s. Some indiscriminant failure of a criminal strode by and grabbed Paz’s phone, making a mad dash toward the door. At this point the Mexican security guard (working at Carl’s Jr.?) calmly walked forward and choked the thief to the ground. This man, the Mexican, now failing to suppress a smile under the large grey mustache on his face, could have been no more that 5’5”. This put the thief either in dwarf territory or recently escaped critical care patient.

Needless to say, when the fiasco unwound, Sudip told the security guard and cashier that the phone was not his. He gave it away to the cashier. Case closed, like the iPhone’s locked OS.  The END.

Surfing and Climbing – I received a text from my mom while I was at the beach.

“No more surfing – a great white attack in San Bernardino, love you.”

This was a turning point in the trip, for I was unable to text back… my fingers were inoperable. I had been “surfing” for so long and in such cold conditions that my hands were not only useless but suffering from gender confusion; I felt weaker than a premature baby girl born to an American-dollar father and a shallow-gene-pool-with-no-lifeguard mother. I dropped the cell and answered the call of the wild - a call that was immediately dropped by AT&T. I could see unlinked clouds scrolling across the distant Verizon.

The sharks and I got along in that we didn’t acknowledge each other’s existence. I was especially able to overlook a possible shark attack when I found out a member of our surfing party was bleeding profusely from the foot. Ain’t no shark gonna come get me when there is bloodier food in the water, right?

To transition from wet to dry, James took me climbing. James, for those of you who don’t know, is a humble host and more active than a culture of edible bacteria. Climbing, for those of you who don’t care, is the act of elevating oneself above oneself for the sake of forearm muscle mutilation. It is a form of social suicide that requires fake rocks and dirty hands, kind of like WalMart engagement-ring shopping. To learn more, go to your local parking garage and jump off.

In actuality, climbing was a great workout and James was a gentle belayer, plus the ladies there were quite fit, like a Honda. It makes sense; it’s hard to flail up a wall if you’re carrying around extra cottages and cheese in your sweatpants.

FroYo in the City; Diggnation – The food out west proved to be as good as advertised. Not that I knew who was doing the advertising, or even who was doing the cooking, but I enjoyed the calories nonetheless.

A post-lunch ice cream craving brought about a chilly discussion on the finer points of Frozen Yogurt, a phrase expected to be shorted to “FroYo” to avoid future chastisement. A slip of the tongue into the creamy regions of the bacteria-infused treat was sure to cause concern, but not nearly as much as saying “Frisco” or “San Fran.” We were ordered by all we met: call it “SF” or “the City.”

Ash, a former North Carolinian, who let us crash without cash, took us to see DJ Solomon at Ambassador 415. To get in, the doorman had to verify Ash’s connection to the DJ by way of a Facebook message exchange. Close call avoided my remixed messages; it was a great night.

By the end of the trip, Zhang it!, Candlewick and I were so plugged in to the pulse of the City and became so good at blending in that we were correcting the Local Natives of SF on correct location pronunciation and generally just being ignominious sassholes. On our last day, we attended a live Diggnation tech talk. We had a good time meeting the hosts of the show, Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose, and tried to convince them to swing by Raleigh sometime. They let us take their pictures and stand near them for a few seconds.

Look! Perfect height and color balance! What a priceless photo.

I was introduced last night to Paz

                Who is Raeli honest and good-natured

Last night Sudip got very truncated and

                Ended up losing Paz’s phone

What this meant to me was a haggard

                Late-night trip to Carl’s Jr.

Listening to Hindi cash-counter communications

                I was entranced by the diminutive security guard

This small man who claimed to have tackled

                The robber, stilling immediately the potential of robbery

I watched a crowd of City folk dance on stage

                In homogenous synchronization and sweat

I danced at the airport and on the sidewalk and on the dance floor

                The latina ladies appreciated my snappy gyrations

Surfed alongside blood provided from feet divided, not mine

                Caught myself enjoying the speed of waves breaking

Something inside me mended when rended board upended

                It created a gap between wrong and right, clarified the murky with authority

I looked dry in a wetsuit and it chested quite nicely

                I curled like a turbine under a crested white strip showing off my curly whites

If you haven’t heard they should sell rape kits at surf shops because

                I have white foam in every orifice, bruising on my thighs, and I feel cold inside.

                The tip of a surfboard; the instrument of delivery for fully unbuttressed penetrative accessorization

I think this unintended tender blender of dendrite detritus

Is the result of my needing sleep and this computer not providing it

Every character I type has a foible, every hero a foil, and every seed… the right soil

Nobody puts techno in the boardroom and nobody puts babies in the bathroom