If you're going to San Francisco . . .

Last Thursday I got up at four in the morning to catch a seven a.m. flight. I had gone to bed at one. I got up wondering what I was thinking booking a flight so early.

I slept on the flight. Midway through I noticed that the headrest could be bent to sandwich your head. I slept much better after my head was suitably encased.

In San Francisco I took a van to Yuki's place in the Sunset. Ed was standing on the driveway. I dropped my bags and we walked to a small Chinese bakery for breakfast. We then walked to the N-Judah where he met up with Jean to go running. I took the train downtown to meet Yuki for lunch.

We ate at a small restaurant reminiscent of the Grey Dog in New York. Over the weekend a few people mentioned that they felt the Grey Dog was the most San Francisco restaurant in New York, with its chalkboard menu. I had a burger. Veggie burgers were not on the menu.

Yuki's offices were cool. Manga lines the walls. When I signed in, the two names above mine were Ed and Jean's. I asked the receptionist if they have few visitors. She told me that most people forget to sign in.

After lunch I met up with Jen. She took me on a tour of the Chronicle Books offices and showed me where our mutual friend Kristen used to sit. She introduced me to a few people and noted their connections to Kristen or herself. One woman had just returned from Cambodia, where she had spent three weeks visiting her family. Another was Kristen's roommate back in the day.

We walked out to get a tea and then she had to return to work. That weekend she was going white water rafting in northern California. Ed callled and we met up at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. A contemporary art and street culture exhibit fills the gallery space. A wooden skateboard bowl installation takes up one room, and the sounds of wheels grinding serves as the soundtrack to the show. Downstairs, photography, video, and paintings by the likes of Ryan McGinness, Mike Mills, Spike Jonze, KAWS, James Jarvis, and Mike Gonzolas are exhibited. Upstairs, an exhibit explores the roots of the street culture movement featuring work by Neil Blender, Henry Chalfant, Larry Clark, R.Crumb, Andy Warhol, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

After we wandered around the garden area. Ed pointed out that you could walk behind the waterfall. He called Jean and we arranged to meet at Carina's to watch Before Sunrise. My lack of sleep caught up with me as the sun set, and I snored during the crucial final scenes.

We met up with Yuki in Japantown, the restaurant choice determined by what was open (all the restaurants seemed to close between nine and ten. The mall was empty. We ate an ok Korean restaurant after the packed Japanese restaurant we had chosen told us the kitchen had just closed.

Friday, Ed woke up early in the morning to go to the SFMoMA. I slept in. I had lunch downtown in the ferry building then met up with Ed for Thai food and shopping. After checking out the North Face store we went to REI. Yuki called and asked us when we were heading to Lin's reception. Soon, we told her.

The reception was in the Crown Point Press building. I had spent my first two days wandering from one publishing house to another. Michael's former guitar teacher led a jazz trio. The room slowly filled with people. The hors d'ouerves were great. From a lightly fried risotto ball to meat skewers to summer rolls to tuna tartare. The party ebbed and flowed. Children ran about the room. I saw people I had met in New York, but seemed to lack the opportunity to talk to them.

Everyone seemed tired at the end. Plans to continue at a bar never coalesced. Lin had been diagnosed with bronchitis and was supported by pills. People drifted off. Yuki, Ed, and I went to the Metreon to see a movie. We ended up at The Manchurian Candidate, the best parts of which were the cinematography, the satire on the way tv presents its news, and the background chatter that runs throughout.

Saturday we had dim sum in the Sunset, wondering why the place we chose had so few white people. The food was good, if expensive. Afterwards, Ed and I went to North Beach to catch the jazz festival. Yuki went home to pack in preparation for her move. At the park, they were between sets. We called Yuki to convince her to move her boxes from storage in the afternoon, leaving the rest of her move for the evening. We stoppped by City Lights bookstore and then went downtown to her storage facility.

We called a van cab to help us move. The driver talked about his degree in computer science and the dot com bubble and burst. Throughout, he told us he kept driving a cab. Now, he's not sure what's on the horizon. There are potential gigs but nothing certain. It's hard to make a living.

Ed and I returned to North Beach to catch the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, who had come all the way from Brooklyn. The band settled into a groove and never got out of it. At six we left for the Embarcardaro where we met Yuki to see Before Sunset, which I liked much better than the first. Julie Delpy was very effective, if Ethan Hawke's character proved still slightly annoying. Jean explained his character well to me, however, as an American adolescent travelling through Europe who never quite grew up. The amazing thing about the film is that I felt the actors weren't acting so much as documenting themselves on film.

We went to the mission for dinner, where I had a prawn burrito, wet. A mariachi band played in the corner; a uniformed guard lingered near the door. Back in the sunset, Yuki packed the rest of her things and we called a cab to move. Back in the Haight, we inflated the air mattresses and went to sleep.

Sunday I met up with Oliver, Sharon, and Jeff in Oakland. Jeff made a fantastic tofu scramble with roasted potatos on the side. The breakfast was amazing. We talked about the Beautiful Losers show at Yerba Buena, Jeff's new book, his website, design, the DNC, and Apple.

Oliver and Sharon drove me back to the Sunset. They left to go apartment hunting and I called Jean. To kill time before meeting with her I walked down 19th. On one corner I spotted a familiar car and as I walked closer, Sharon waved. They had seen one apartment and were waiting for their next appointment. They decided to drive around looking for "for rent" signs. We called a few and saw one before Jean called me back. I said goodbye to them again and walked to meet her on the N-Judah line.

We stopped by a friend of her's house and had tea. They chatted about friends and what they all were doing. I listened. I had met a number of the people they mentioned, or knew of them. The common link was Stanford.

From there we walked back to Yuki's to pick up Ed. Then we walked the hills to another of her friend's houses. She's staying in a doctor's house with floor to ceiling windows that overlook the houses in the valley. We went to a Mayan restaurant near her house and then dispersed. Ed and I walked Haight Street and then met up with Yuki at Crepes on Cole for a coffee.

Monday I shopped for sneakers. Ed called in the afternoon and we met up downtown for lunch with Jean before Jean and I had to go to the airport. The waiter at the pho place repeated all the ingredients of everything we ordered before writing it down. His delivery was short and sharp. Lunch ran long and, running late, Jean and I took a cab to the airport, where we arrived early. I bought an ice cream, but had to wait outside security. The guard said they would have to put the cone through the x-ray machine and it was already melting. "You never know what terrorists might hide in there," he told me, the proceeded to tell me about finding a knife hidden in a lipstick container.

The rear of the plane was empty. A number of people had opted for an earlier fliight and during meal service we were offered two. Jean and I were both starving and, even though the food wasn't good, we said yes. I had rice and pasta. And then I watched Mean Girls as Jean took photographs out the window of the plane. Posted by eku at August 5, 2004 12:37 PM