i arrive with my moving truck in tow, only to find out that the apartment i rented is not the one i thought i had rented. instead it is in a complex of dumpy, two-story buildings on a bleak, treeless street. it looks more like a small midwestern town than northern california: broad paved avenues, run down drive-thru hamburger joints, hardware stores, everything is bright and sunny, eerily quiet and profoundly flat, the horizon disappearing into a hazy horizon line. the complex’s handyman hands me the keys and i am trying to figure out of it is too late for me to ask to switch to a second story apartment, i hate first floor apartments. the driver of my moving truck is napping in the unclipped lawn among the tulips.