Going to California

I’m on my way from Ithaca to California. I’ve finished my book but am not in the mood to start the second one or read chemistry stuff yet. I may start once I am done here. If I weren’t so miserly, I could even post this from the plane, but I’ll wait.
It’s kind of weird to be going back. I’m sure it will make me homesick for the place, as well as for my friends and family. I’ve felt the latter, but not the former. When it does come, it comes in unexpected hints, like a sadness when I see images of the ocean in a movie or on TV. I’m sure I’ll feel it more during the winter.
We passed peak foliage color about a week ago. Like a full moon when it’s overcast, the peak was hidden due to rain. I suspect that all the leaves will be down when I return in a week. It was kind of weird to realize this when I was driving to the airport today. When I arrived in early June, we hadn’t even hit summer. There was a prediction of snow yesterday, although it didn’t come to pass in Ithaca. The wheel turns differently in California, but it still turns, and it is windy and rainy there. I wonder if it will feel like a California fall to me now, or if my perspective has changed and it will feel like Ithaca did a month or two ago.
I will have dinner with T when I am in California, later in the week. I’m sure that will be weird, but I don’t know how much. Perhaps I am so used to change and weirdness now that it will seem weirder for him than me. Cowdude has been keeping me very entertained. The move to Ithaca really helped me get over T, and my ongoing flirtation with cowdude has helped get rid of most of the last vestiges of T-moping. I don’t know if it will lead anywhere but I am enjoying it. (And, in the interest of not jinxing things, that’s all I’m going to write about it for now.)
I’ll also be out at the spinoff of my former employer for a few days. I’m sure that will be weird too.
It’s so funny how songs have the power to pick up on a mood and amplify it, but when the mood passes they lose their power over you, and other ones step in to take their place. There is a whole new set of songs in my consciousness now. I’m listening to my iPod on the plane, and pulled up some of my older playlists from the last year. I still enjoy them, but they no longer evoke the mood that they used to, and that is a good thing, given that they’re from the breakup/layoff/job search phase.