babies don't let your parents grow up to be cowboys
maybe it is just noe valley, but these san francisco parents are pissing me off. they have this look on their faces-- this smug, self-satisfied look. like they are so proud of themselves that they a) reproduced and b) stayed in the city. they bug me. they really do. i mean, i think it is great you are in the city and haven't fled in a panic to the east bay, but do you have to think it is so great? and do you have to think that i must think it is so great? and what is with your outfit? i get it, you are a cool parent with all the hip gear, but would it kill you to not look so goddamn planned? with you shoes and your sweater and your hair and whatnot. just stop. and don't think i'm talking about just moms here, dads are just as bad-- if not worse. they have less of the "look what my loins have wrought" look, but more of the "i'm so a dad in the city" look. i don't know which is worse. agre. stop looking so goddamn serene and content. yes, you are spectacular, yes your stupid drooling idiot progeny is technically "cute" what with the big eye to face ratio, but could you maybe just look a little less relaxed about it? look a little like maybe it is difficult and stressful and hard? because this granola stepford baby thing is making me worry that in the future our nation will be led by these fucked up children of the corn. only not the actual corn so much and the metaphorical corn. because as far as i can tell, there is no actual corn here.
and it was not bad. granted, i went about a mile, but still: i was on the bus.
and the bus actually felt kinda comfortable because it rekindled my deep seated hatred of tourists. and nothing makes me feel more at home than when i'm hating tourists. especially the aging frat boy types that are on their way back from the anchor steam plant at rush hour who think it is hilarious to berate public transportation loudly in a packed bus because they are assholes who think no one on the bus speaks english or has ears. then, as they try to exit at the BART station pushing past everyone else who is also trying to get off, think yelling "andele" makes them even more hilarious.
but i will make it to the moma. it's not going anywhere.
this past weekend i did nothing. well, i went to the mall. yes, in my new cosmopolitan world i chose the most uncosmopolitan avenue of exploration. baby steps. after the mall, i took the long way home through... um, i'm not sure. i think west portal or st. francis wood. it was ridiculously cute, where ever it was. this weekend i think, if the weather agrees, i will hit cole valley. and maybe the haight. but also maybe not. i'm just going to take the J and see where i end up. if i go to carl and cole, i should be able to go to both the haight and cole valley. i think. unless i have the map wrong in my head. which is entirely possible as my photographic memory is not so much a photographer as an impressionist. or perhaps a post-impressionist. i just hope it does not try to cut off my ear.
so apparently the SFMOMA is half price thursdays after 6 (open until 9).
so i am totally going thursday.
and it is only 3 blocks from work, if that. meaning i don't have to take a bus or stray from the familiar.
and museums are totally cool places to go by yourself. maybe it will even make me look smart, like: oooh. that chick is totally looking at art all on her own. she must be an intellectual.
i need more comfortable shoes. for walking. in case the bus does not stop. have i mentioned that i am terrified of buses? i am afraid they will not show. i am afraid they will not stop. i am afraid that i will be on the wrong bus and i will end up in the wrong place and then i will have to get off the bus and i will not be able to get back home. i'll be stuck in the middle of nowhere, not sure where i am, not sure how to get back out. and then my choice will be either stay there and wait for another bus that either won't show or won't stop or start walking and hope i do not get attacked by one of those extra torturey serial killers. and that is why i need more comfortable shoes. and also why it is a good thing that san francisco is only 7 miles across.
the corner flower stalls were all overflowing with gorgeous roses and iris and lillies and daisies and roses. there were hordes of people on the streets and in the subway holding their beautiful bouquets and their beautiful arrangements of flowers and flowers and flowers. i left work early, so i thought i'd take the muni (above ground on the way home- you know, to get some sunshine) but the j was packed with people and their flowers and there was some sort of switching problem, so i decided to not become part of the problem and take the bart. which was not unbearably stuffed with human cargo and all of their flowers.
i got off at 24th and mission and as i escalated from the dim florescence of the station, i was greeted with yet more flowers and an arctic windstorm. i climbed the hill toward church and noticed the stores were dim and the street lights were out. the wind must have blown something over or up. maybe this was the cause of that switching problem they were talking about at the station. transit people were directing traffic and the cold wind was absolutely piercing. i made it to the muni stop and waited, trying to stay upright in the wind. but the j wasn't coming, or maybe it just wasn't coming fast enough. waiting for it seemed sillier and sillier as i stood there in the bright, cold afternoon with 24th street to my left, beckoning me with shops and shops and shops i'd never even looked at.
so, despite the wind and the biting cold, i wandered down the street to look in the windows at all the fantastic wares and thumb through the used book racks. and as i did, i realized that i was being ridiculous. why be in a bad mood? because it is valentine's day? ridiculous. i wasn't alone and i wasn't unloved. i had a date. san francisco. san francisco was trying to take me out. san francisco had replaced the bart's stale dank funk with vivid color and soft fragrance. san francisco placed flowers at every turn, packed and delayed the muni knowing my impatience and my dislike for wasting my precious serotonin filled sunshine would take me down a lovely street. san francisco didn't give me a vicious icy windstorm to cut right through me, it gave me little cyclones of pink dancing flower petals hidden in doorways that i never would have noticed from the muni or in the short dash from it's door to my door. san francisco knew i needed time and opportunity. it knew i needed to get cold enough to actually stop in one of the cafes for coffee and not just walk by and say next time. it knew i need time to pull my head out of my ass and look around. and it gave it to me. and that is why san francisco is my valentine.
