I walk to work most everyday, most everyday it’s sunny.
Who would argue with so eloquent a critique?
THINGS GIRLS LIKE (supposedly).
But seriously, she’s getting very good, and I hope that early success doesn’t screw her up. Who else gets to be 12 and have regular showings?
If you didn’t live here, where else would you live?
This little number on Hayes continues to be the city’s saddest little parklet.
That coffee place you never went to in Hayes Valley. Their signage proclaimed the best latte in San Francisco. You’ll never know, and you have only yourself to blame.
Clearly, it means you will get to work thanks to dragons; that breastplates are de rigeur; also heavy metal hold music.
Just your basic everyday unmitigated awesomeness.
Saturday, to work
The cop walked back to his cruiser, away from the two gentle gents who laid claim to that unremarkable piece of sidewalk adjacent to the parking lot. This particular Valley of San Francisco, come to think of it, has rather too many parking lots, but constituency rules the landscape.
The cop was on his phone, and his tone told that he wasn’t in for busting anyone. Maybe a little soft show so that no one thought SFPD had gone over to humanist idealism, the real rule of the people. Besides, the rest of the week I saw how neighbors came out with food, greetings, newspapers; these men were their neighbors, albeit with dirtier fingernails and a vocation that left them forever exposed to the elements.
No, everything was fine; one read the forecast while the other leaned close with interest, “It’s time for a new direction—look to the past to know your future.”
A heartfelt sentiment from the dear True Sake people of Hayes Valley.
Oh hello, Marlena’s. Every year, I say I hate—no, too strong, dislike is more correct— Christmas: I hate what it does to my evening wanders around Union Square; I hate what it does to shoppers, they become avaricious and wanton with their lusts (a henley for a cousin; a giftcard for the other cousin). I think I need to obtain something from a store that only exists at the intersection of crowded and busy: nope, I’ll wait until January.
Thing is, Christmas has ceased to mean stuff for me.
I don’t want anything, save a drink with friends, a home-made card, something salty and the opposite of cupcakes, the opposite of a season that thrives on forced memory and tradition. But somehow, Marlena’s manages to make it okay, their explosions of Santas like an elder bear convention, less like a mall and more like Truman Capote’s version of a holiday.
Thank you, Marlena’s. Everyone go there right now. They won’t make you a fancy drink, but it’ll be an honest drink.
Why was I not aware that Place Pigalle was run by robots?
Hayes Valley is the district that can’t say no. Hayes Valley, the easy district.
Even four-year-olds get a cafe nowadays.
And now we go to Hayes Valley for a report on crushing ennui and the impenetrable greyness of August.
Consider this your cue to drop out of art school.
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