This evening I left the Lawton Ave house for the last time. I've come home to that house almost every day for more than a decade, and now it's empty again for the first time since I moved in. Eleven years with eight house mates, all told.

Moved in with Geminica and Pauline in July, 1995. When Pauline moved out, Jack and Freja moved in. How could four people have lived in that small house? Jack put a drumkit in the living room. We played Descent, and talked 3D graphics. Freja cooked vegan meals for everyone. She taught us Freja dressing ... tofu, garlic, fresh basil and soy sauce blended. Serve with sushi rice and nori seaweed. Where is she now, I wonder?

Then it was James, the Star Wars man. I still have some of his Pink Dots albums on my iPod. That man loved the Pink Dots almost as much as he loved Star Wars. Then Jake of the green hair, who turned me on to Burning Man and thus indirectly, put me on a path to co-owning and managing my current company. Jake was happy and like all good security geeks, paranoid. Jake will survive the apocalypse and help start the new human race. Then it was our own wonderful Lstar, and finally Christine.

Strictly speaking, I just left for the penultimate time. Tommorrow night is the final walk-through. I spent the day cleaning the house with Tiny Grackel and Christine. Damn, it was a mess. We did a pretty good job though. It would be a lot easier to keep a place clean if you could get rid of all the furniture and stuff every time. The living room still looks wonderful. If the landlord gives me a hard time over the state of the bathroom, I'll remind him of what a kick-ass job I did painting the living room.

How did the hardwood floors in the bedroom get so weirdly messed up, when none of the rest of the house did? That was the mushrooms, I'm convinced.

Now I'm back at home, on Francisco St. eating a delicious bowl of steamed veggies that Tiny G. made, and all is right with the world. Well, OK, the house is still kind of a disaster area, but we're working on it and that's good enough.