Santa Cruz

Spent a sweet evening driving around the city of Santa Cruz and the campus UC Santa Cruz. I haven't gone over there in 2 years. It was comforting to see that nothing has changed. Same old hangouts for late night coffee, bitch / chat / cram sessions; same old place for giant helpings of good, cheap Mexican food. Same old laid back Santa Cruz culture.

Sometimes I wonder if this city would have suited my disposition better. I feel at home in the weirdest places. I feel out of place in a mall, in a club, at a bar, but feel completely at home in REI (an outdoor camping, trekking, skiing, rockclimbing, kayaking, etc. store), an automobile tool shop, a bicycle shop, a library, a bookshop, a theater (NOT movie theater, you peon), a church, a cave, a forest, the hills, the mountains, the ocean. But then again, I would have to deal with the hippies... (Although hippie chicks are cute though, with their braids, and gypsy-like dresses (that the mindless pop-culture lemmings are aping in the malls these days).

It was really nice being in the forest, by the ocean no less, again. It was with a sense of comforting familiarity to be amidst the tall trees in Kresge College, with a view of the elevated footbridge leading across the shaded ravine to Porter College.

This sculpture at Porter College has the nickname of "The Flying IUD":



The signboard of Kresge College reflects its unusual architectural style of being built in the midst of a dense forest:



One of the alumni of Kresge, Marti Noxon, went on to produce, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and managed to sneak in-joke references to Kresge as well as Santa Cruz into many of the scripts, most recently in the "Angel" spin-off where a supporting character (Eve) is described as a graduate of Kresge.

One of the stars of "The Practice," Camryn Manheim, is also a graduate of UC Santa Cruz.

There is also a nice cave by the West Entrance of the campus to lug a boombox or a few musical instruments into to play while hitting the bong. Oops. You did not read that. Disregard that.