Joe and Ana are still in SF, freewheeling through the remaining days of their honeymoon. Four nights in a row of hanging out and I practically feel like a normal person again. I like the concept of friendship. I like the feeling of stopping by a friend’s house on my way back from the ocean to drink beer and to watch baseball. I like this idea that friends sometimes hang out in groups larger than two. I’d almost forgotten that once upon a time having fun with other people didn’t require planning weeks ahead.
The ride home from Cole Valley is a series of zigzags and wiggles, all downhill through a maze of SF Victorians. At night, the streets are awake and the city sweeps past me at eight miles per hour. Right. This is how I am supposed to feel. This is where I belong. This is a particular kind of heaven.
At one point the city was my best friend. We spent a lot time alone, made each other feel good, and I have many memories of being intoxicated with her beauty. (I think I almost got her pregnant back in the spring of 2004). Now I wake up at five to spend my days in Vallejo and there is the sense that SF and I have drifted apart a little. But it was a sunny weekend of wandering around town around and it felt good to remember that old, mischievous spark.
And then, while I was wading along Ocean Beach, two tall guys from Amsterdam asked permission to photograph me for their Dutch design magazine. “We take pictures of people in the park,” they said. They had bad teeth. For fifteen minutes I posed.
And then we surprised A-kik-o (trivia team: general knowledge, handicrafts, geography).
