The I Ching master I met with in Shanghai told me to guard against thinking too far in any direction. My brother told me the same thing one time, don’t think so much, honey. I slept well last night, deeply, and woke up in a groggy haze, with the fog still rolling out of the Bay. The fog is still there, folding up over the East Bay, but it’s not here, where I am. I…
When I got into town I met with a woman I worked with many years ago, she said “network” as her advice of the day in these times. Almost as if networking replaced plastics – Â advice Dustin Hoffman had in The Graduate – tonight after a long day that started at 3:30 this morning and a day trip to Los Angeles I just stumbled out the door to get a bite to eat and sat…
I’m walking the streets of San Francisco and the memories are tugging me down to the ground and saying GOOD LORD what happened? Who were you then? Who are you now? I remember vividly coming of age in this city. I recall turning the corner of Kearney and Columbus and running smack into Herb Caen and him writing about it the next day – he with the sparkle in his eyes which caused me to…
I met with a friend today who has had enough of being the artist everyone wants her to be and has spent her time recently dedicating herself to her own artistic fancies. It’s the person I want to see in her – not the one who wants to succeed in artist-ness but the one who wants to express herself no matter the outcome. To thine own self be true.
I met with a good friend for dinner tonight in North Beach at Vicoletto’s – a small intimate Italian restaurant where I had broccolini and house made papardelle and chanterelle mushrooms and well, there we were in North Beach, her in the window, me in the chair looking out the window, and the lights went out and it was 91 degrees outside and we were drinking Planeta Syrah, and talking about life. She meets a…
I miss my little boy something fierce and called and spoke to the babysitter who said, “I love watching Tin!” and so I begged for some minutes on the phone to say “Mommy loves you” – Tin was busying drawing with his new babysitter whom he likes a lot – HELLO, MOMMY CALLING – silence. sigh whimper pout
I’m woolly from lack of sleep and too much talking and thinking and went outside to enjoy the seasonable unusual hot weather in San Francisco. Here is why I went outside – this is the view from my hotel room: I walked over to the Ferry Building and smelled Fairy Cap and Black Trumpet mushrooms and almost walked off the planet; I had a small cup of Turkish Pistacio gelato and came back down to…
On Sunday, we were going to try to head out and see the second line parade – a friend said this one in particular was one of his favorites – but we never made it there as all of these second lines are in the afternoon during Tin’s nap time. There will be a time for second lines. Sitting here looking out at the Bay that is now vividly blue from my hotel window, I…
A friend recently used an odd descriptor for a mutual friend, he told me, “Have you ever noticed how nervous he is, he is motivated by fear.” Hmm, I thought, thinking about it and seeing verisimilitude to my own observations. “Yes, I noticed,” said another friend, “I noticed also when he let go of fear, didn’t you? I heard it in his voice not too long ago, the way he began cracking jokes and seemed…
Reductive In days of caves and communal songs, in days of old, There was no morphine. The humans’ brains Were just as quick and big as in 2010, But there were no bookstores or even any libraries, So when a situation came up which seemed new There was little guidance, only the oral history bullshit. In unendurable pain from just about anything, Cancer, diabetes, eye infections, gangrene, hunting bites, Severed limbs, a widespread deadly arthritis…