My last day in Pittsburgh is finally here. I take the 5 pm Southwest flight out of Pittsburgh, stopping in Midway and arriving in Oakland. I have two large suitcases, a box, a roll-on and my laptop bag.

I am sitting in Elena\’s apartment who has graciously let me crash while she\’s interviewing with Microsoft in Seattle. She\’s coming back soon, driving her expensive Benz. I don\’t know when will be the next time I\’ll be riding in it, the smell of fine leather and Elena\’s lounge music.

I am sitting on her futon in the middle on her white blanket, looking at my aim buddy list. Most people I know are gone for the weekend. Not many are on, but I will see the rest online sometime. The air conditioner is on, set to a medium setting in comparision to the hotter days earlier this week where I didn\’t want to do anything except lie down. The towels I used are still all over the apartment and I intend to put them in a small pile for Elena when she comes back. I play my music–always on shuffle–a selection from the Grey\’s Anatomy soundtrack to the SXSW bittorrent I had downloaded more than a year ago when I was enamored by Endochine.

I am waiting for Ian and Madhu to call. Are they even awake? It\’s 11:50 am and there is only 5 hours, 10 minutes left of my run in Pittsburgh. A snoopy clock ticks slowly, the ticking I had missed, because it counts every second toward some goal, toward some end.