12/22/24
As lifted from my yellow leather journal with the wrapping string to keep it closed.
It's the crack of 1pm and I've biked down to backyard brew. It's a farmers market day and (pen fading significantly) I don't have another pen.
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| aforementioned yellow leather journal entry. I continued on to have pages of near invisible writing. |
Yesterday Ella and I went to the city for my friend's poetry reading at the Bazaar Cafe. It was a long drive to get her in Berkeley and then double back into the NW corner of the city. I missed a turn, to get on the highway, and felt dismayed, and said something dramatic along the lines of 'I'm going to kill myself'. Luckily, I didn't have to do that, because there was a perfectly clear frontage road that my map kindly redirected me to, appearing as if it had been created just for us and this exact purpose. Grinning, I told Ella, 'This is the W of the day, God's smiling on us.'
Little did I know, he would positively beam on us all night long.
We got great parking and were in our seats for the reading one minute before it was set to start (perfect timing makes my toes tingle). The readings were eccentric and made me laugh and think. We walked through the beautiful neighborhood to a parking lot overlooking China Beach. It was foggy and dusky. The ship lights were blurry and floating, seemingly into the fog soaked oblivion. I made a comment about realizing, in that moment, the importance of light houses.
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| view from the parking lot above china beach |
We walked back to the car and talked about the fabric of our society ripping and slipping under our feet, as usual. As far as our friendship 2024 wrapped goes, that's our number one topic by far. So many rabbit holes to go down. We touched on the classic linking conundrums, like how to do online dating as someone who wants to date the old fashioned way, our thoughts on the UHC CEO slayer (cultural martyr, idol, sexy man), and the future that we're hurtling towards now that AI is getting it's sticky little fingers into everything.
While scouting for a place to get dinner, Ella realized that one of her family's favorite restaurants was a mere 800 feet away. We walked through the misty rain to Sichuan Tasty Restaurant, and were ushered in to a table in the back room. I got the cucumber and dry beancurd which was served cold and soaked in salty oil (literally perfect no notes) and wonton soup (giant ladle provided but not necessarily necessary).
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| drooling thinking of it now |
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| ella's greenbeanz |
While a show wasn't going on, there was a smattering of people who looked up at us inquisitively from their various tables and couches as we descended. The host came up to us grinning and explained that she puts together themed social gatherings of all sorts throughout the city, and the one we were so lucky to stumble upon was both snoopy AND Christmas themed. There was crafting materials on the tables, and we jumped in delightedly. We made cards for each other, and talked to another friendly face at our table and we learned she had recently moved to the neighborhood from Chicago and was doing security for open AI. I don't really know what that entails but alas. She talked about wanting to make more friends and it was very sweet.
Within the big room was a photo taking area, complete with a prom picture-esque background, ring light, and phone stand. We made a video showing off the things we had made for one another, both covered in snoopy cutouts and stickers and glitter glue.
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| cutie pookie <3 |
Upstairs we perused the wares and I got a star sticker comprised of camera lenses and a sticker that says 'break fake rules'. I'm going to give that one to ezzie and also try to follow that advice in my day to day life more. We sauntered back out into the night, crafts and stickers in hand, feeling the warm glint of love coming off of God's exposed teeth (read: he was still smiling on us). We figured out which train Ella would be taking home and calculated how manny more hang out minutes we had.
Figuring there were plenty for a neighborhood stroll, we embarked on just that. We were on lower Haight at this point and walked east and south (as in down) the steep steep street, and eventually curved to the right. We cut up through an elaborate set of apartment complexes, connected by an intimidating and almost never ending staircase, that created the same visual effect in the deepening dark as the optical illusion we saw when driving over the Richmond/San Rafael bridge ascending into a pure wall of mist and fog as we approached the city, driving up up up into nothingness.
As we plodded upwards, quads burning, Ella talked about her fear that if she pursued architecture in grad school, she might end up making plazas like the one we were approaching, surrounded by the fortress/labyrinth of apartment giants. Slatted benches and methodically spaced shrubbery in a sea of coarse compacted sand that looks like tan gravel (you know the kind), apparently the bottom of the barrel for landscape architecture assignments. Within it, two dogs were roaming and playing while their owner watched on, and I thought to myself that it seemed like a perfectly dignified kind of space to design (and that she could probably make a cooler version if she was assigned to it, but I held my tongue).
Onward still, into the surrounding neighborhood, and suddenly a familiar tune grew louder. It was a group of carolers across the street, sheet music in hand, loudly singing jingle bells, or something similar. I was feeling so full of the holiday spirit from the perfectly unfolding evening that when we looked at each other, we knew what had to be done. We ran across the road and asked if we could join the group, who had just stopped in front of the next house.
The man I asked quickly said yes, and we joined them for a couple songs. As we continued on I told Ella about caroling with Evie's family, and how we'd sang for her the night before when she surprised the party by driving down from Tahoe for the evening. By now we were almost floating and were positively giddy reflecting on the good graces and angels guiding us tonight.
So you can imagine, dear reader, our emotional reaction when we passed by an adorable cafe venue, large windows coated in foggy condensation where the warm inviting interior met the cold dark night. We saw crowded tables of friends talking and laughing, as well as a small crowd watching the main attraction for the night, a jazz duo comprised of a standup bassist and a guitar player. The music drifted out to us on the street corner, mouths slightly agape at the preciousness of it all.
We had to leave for the train station soon, but couldn't help ourselves, and ducked inside as perfection and free fun seemed to be the theme of the night. It was just as cozy and adorable as it had seemed from outside, I asked a staff person if we could just sit and listen, and he said since they were closing soon, he didn't see why not. Duh! Why would we hear something we didn't want to? God's grin was still protecting us.
We held hands over the table and were yet again swept up in the music, inspiration, jolly feeling of it all. I people watched, San Franciscans spending their Saturday evening in the neighborhood cafe enjoying the tunes and time together. All night I was seeing a side of the city previously unknown to me, a non tech or AI focused bunch (although maybe during the day it was a different story) who were coming together in the physical plane and enjoying tech free entertainment and activities- poetry, crafting, singing, listening. Being. And it made me so emotional because driving through the city, at least on the highways, it's an onslaught of AI related billboards, gibberish company names and soul sucking phrases like "Ramp is the future of finance" like wtf is Ramp? Why would I want my money movement dictated by chat GPT's weird cousin? Die!
So to have that queasiness offset by a good, organic, stumbled upon adventure, restored my faith in humanity for the night. Ella and I listened to Silent Night (Pentatonix rendition) as I navigated the drizzly streets to the Bart Station we'd be parting ways at. Somewhere between the cucumber and snoopy collaging, my friend Anna texted me, asking if there was any chance I'd want to go to a rave in the city that night. Of course something like that would happen tonight. I hadn't seen Anna in months, and had just texted her earlier that day if she was back in town for the holidays. Delightfully, I responded 'I'm already up here and I'm so down!'
I dropped Ella off and zipped back over to Haight Street. I met Anna at a bar called Toronado that was cash only with about a million beer options and played metal music the whole time. It felt a lot like Portland which was nice. Anna was there with her older brother Joe, and his two friends. I've heard a lot of lore about Joe over the years but never met him in person so that was really exciting. Anna and I got caught up and chatted about work stuff which was cool because she also wants to do non profit stuff.
We had a drink and then made our way over to Underground, a bar/club a block away. It was still early, and for a while we were the only five on the dance floor. I found out that the first dj was a paly grad so that was really fun, and we smoked a joint outside which was so delicious. I was wearing a dress I hadn't laid my eyes on since my freshman year of college and my pink wrecked+destroyed tee, all over big jeans and uggs so it was really the perfect evening to night outfit. I love clubbing in my uggs.
Flash forward a week or so and I've been having 'orrible heart burn since this night (unusual for me: most of my digestion issues are usually gas related lol) and I have figured out it was because my freaking dress was too tight around my diaphragm and it weakened the valve at the bottom of my esophagus LMAOO?? Anyways... worth it.
I put up the star sticker I had bought at the Faight collective on the dj booth, and we danced and chatted until the dance floor filled up. I texted my parents that yes I was still having a great time with Ella (dirty liar, I know, old habits die hard), and me and Anna headed out into the night. Making our way back to Palo Alto, I reveled in the evening, and listened to even more Pentatonix, a good omen for the new year I think. The smile god smiled that night.... incredible.
xoxoxoxoxo, K
