Whenever I’m with Dave, an unusual interactive social space is created. Like a theater, there is a stage area where the main scenes occur with our friends. Then there is a back stage area where we discuss the events of the stage and make plans for other scenes.

Dave’s various living spaces have always been conducive to this dynamic. In Seattle, there was the loft sandwiched between the dot com ghost offices, next door to a rave. Then there was the strange ship-like house, complete with portholes. Dave’s LA pad was a bohemian villa constructed of hand-made bricks. Imagine a U-shaped complex where each room connected to two other rooms as well as the outdoor patio. Before we all arrived, this place was inhabited by Dave’s housemates, a reclusive English photographer and a gorgeous interior decorator, who I nearly fell in love with.

I love my friends and, in general, I get along well with most people. I know how to interact with another person one on one. But when you add a few more people, suddenly you don’t have a single entity, but this crowd. And a crowd is shifty and has uncertain energies. What is a crowd thinking? What does it want? I certainly don’t know. I listen to crowds in the same way I do waves or waterfalls: I can hear a faint music or people murmuring some distance away, but it is lost in the rush of something much bigger than I.

So sometimes I would need to hide backstage and reflect and compose myself. I typically interact with humans for a few hours at a time on any given day. Now I was faced with spending several uninterrupted days with eleven other people. I was grateful for doors and the guest house/garage/home theater, anyplace I could go to refresh my reality management system.

Because it was already dealing with quite a bit.