Forster
Sherlock and Watson in one. Am I right?
Ethan
Yes. My family’s from the East Bay. I graduated four years back.
Forster
Undergraduate or graduate?
Ethan
Graduate.
Forster
So you also have a PhD: permanent head damage.
He spat a mouthful of water across his desk.
Ethan
If that’s not already a panel in PhD Comics, it should be.
Ethan
And yes, I do. Like you?
Forster
Similarly injured, and also a PhD Comics reader. (I especially like the panel that converts scientific gibberish into real-world language. “Filter and gain settings varied with experimental conditions and objectives” to “We twiddled the knobs until it worked” is a classic.) Anyhow—for me, the damage was at Stanford, just over three years ago. But I’m not a Bay Area native. You’re a rare breed.
He mopped up the puddle beside his computer with the hem of his shirt before it seeped into his keyboard or his graph paper, smiling.
Ethan
Where’s home for you?
Forster
Home is where the dog is. So that’s the Great Lakes region in Michigan.
Ethan
Do you miss it?
Forster
Not the weather. Though I do miss my family. The Bay Area has a higher population than my whole state, but the crowds here—at least in Silicon Valley—are mostly singleton transplants.
Forster
Like me.
Forster
And it’s weird, but it doesn’t seem to matter that there are always people around, always events going on, always something to do. It can be lonely.
