I feel rusty and out of sorts in more ways than one.

I was not necessarily looking forward to coming back but around Sunday I started to have some twinges of homesickness, especially since I couldn't call Laika and talk to her.. :-)

Wednesday night, I believe, I had a dream that I was standing in a cafeteria in between two round tables, each with five or six people sitting around it; one was the New York table and the other was the California table and I stood in the middle as each table tried to persuade me to choose a state, and I simply stood in the middle crying "I can't decide!!"

Obviously, I decided. And I did have a deep sense of relief to feel that coming back was a homecoming, not a regret. (And I certainly don�t regret missing that blackout, although in a way I do, in that I can�t imagine what Manhattan without light could possibly look like, and seeing stars above the skyline is almost something too good to miss.)

But wow oh wow, San Francisco felt like home to me too. Almost instantly.

The hostel was on the corner of Mission and Precita (and how I love the Spanish names of California: Precita, Presidio, Embarcadero, Valencia) and on warmish evenings I would sit on the scruffy balcony on the second floor outside of the scruffy kitchen and watch the clouds roll - speed and fly and dash, really - across the moon over the hills on Precita.

Such hills I've never seen before! I must write Steve (my aforementioned godfather) and thank him profusely for the whirlwind, charmed introduction he gave me to that golden city; I don�t know what kind of magical tour-guide mojo he�s got, but he whisked me around in his car and we parked in a garage and moments upon getting onto the street in Union Square he got us onto a cable car, bypassing all the tourists at the bottom of Powell, and I rode on the running board and held onto the white pole as tight as I could and grinned until it hurt but I couldn�t help it, my heart just soared as we rushed down these steep hills and all of a sudden the whole bay came into view and the air was clear and clean and I could taste it and the sky never seemed so blue and San Francisco was love at first sight, and as much as I loved my whole week there, nothing ever quite lived up to that first day. I took in so much that I�d never seen before, and Steve�s enthusiasm was infectious, and I was giddy, and by the time he dropped me off at the hostel I slept the deepest sleep I have had in years. What a magnificent day!

The rest of the week was somewhat more moderately paced, and I love the leisurely pace of San Francisco; Heidi (whom I met through Fat!So?, who is lovely and wonderful and a delight) laughed when I told her that � she said that many people who visit from other areas talk exhaustedly about the frantic pace of The City. A tale of two cities indeed! I tried � and I was mostly successful � to not compare NY and SF too much, at least not in that affected, jaded I�m a New Yorker way that I can get sometimes. I was expecting to have that attitude, actually, but when people found out I was from New York and asked me how I found San Francisco in comparison, I would get this ridiculous grin and blush and confess, I could totally live here.

How disjointed this all is, but it�s after two and I�m quite tired and yet words keep wanting to find an anchor on the page.

I loved the palm trees and the pastels and the murals of the Mission District and how clean everything was (SF has some street trash cans with a basket on top for recyclables, and even pay public toilets that supposedly auto-sanitize when you leave, although I did not feel inspired to try that out) and I found myself at Walgreens practically every night (dropping off film, picking up film, getting shampoo since mine was �lost� in the hostel bathroom; Walgreens proliferate in SF like Duane Reades do here � I know that�s exactly what they�re aiming for and I am a tad ashamed to contribute to the mindset, but there is something comfortable about chain stores when you�re away from home, although I made it a point to eat only at local-run establishments, no SF Mickey-D�s for me) and the whole point was that when I�d go to Walgreens the photo guy or the security guy would always have a smile and a good evening for me, and there seemed to me so many smiles around, probably perhaps because I couldn�t erase mine for anything.

The SF public transportation system, MUNI (as opposed to BART , which is for the wider Bay Area, and is practically indistinguishable from the DC subway system, from what I can tell, and yes, just call this non-driver Public Transportation Girl (if I were to ever do a comic book, which I probably won�t, because I can�t draw, I would want to call it Public Transportation Girl. Maybe I should do a �zine and call it that. Meeting Marilyn made me want to do a �zine, as if Jill hadn�t already. If I didn�t have to think about pesky graphics and all that I would probably consider it even more, but seeing that I'm so linear and verbal and non-visual, I'm not feeling terribly motivated at the moment) and anyway, MUNI was a lot harder to navigate that the good old MTA, actually, probably because MUNI maps have the trolley bus and cable car and streetcar and BART routes all on the same map, which was just a lotta info to parse through. Not to mention that once you got underground, it was damn hard to find a map to consult. And then when the train (the streetcars underground, really) would show up it would only have two cars. Which tickled me endlessly. And the bus drivers are unbelievably blas� about checking out your fare; out of the whole week, I only had one time where the bus driver actually looked at my pass.

I want to remember all the details. One night I dined at Ti Couz at 16th and Valencia and had a scallop crepe for dinner and a chocolate mousse crepe for dessert and a glass of house white and all of that and tip came to $25 dollars and Marilyn laughed that New Yorkers are the only people who go to San Francisco and exclaim �wow, it�s so cheap!� I ate Mexican tourist food in the Haight, and shawarma in the Mission right across the street from Ti Couz, and spinach salad and gnocchi and tiramisu at Pasta Pomadoro in North Beach. My first solo morning, Tuesday, I walked Mission from Precita all the way to Union Square and it felt homey with all of the taquerias and the 99 cent stores and the occasional storefront-turned-churches and old Latin grandpas who wished me a good morning. One night I had clam chowder in a bread bowl at Fisherman�s Wharf and I know it is San Francisco�s Times Square (the Disney-fied, sanitized Times Square, not at all the Port Authority XXX area) and South Street Seaport rolled into one, and when I went back to do my souvenir shopping I got terribly, misanthropically, would you people just please fucking move frustrated at the glut of tourists, but even that can�t negate how much I loved the sea lions and the spectacular view of the bay (the bay, my god, the bay, and the Golden Gate Bridge, and the views � Steve and Ken and I were in Marin county across the bridge and I am repeating myself but it is something I hope to never forget � the moon so huge reflecting on the bay and seeing hundreds of miles and the San Francisco skyline at night, so different from Manhattan�s, it made me think of what Italy feels like in my head, and Ken mentioned the Journey song �Lights� (when the lights go down in the city, and the moon shines on the bay) and at any other time it might have seemed cheesy and hokey but it was actually just perfect and the three of us just gaped and I could have jumped right off the headlands into the bay out of that urge to be consumed by it all) and I must apologize for the even-more-than-usual run on sentence-age of this entry and seeing that it�s 3:00 AM I�m actually gonna head for my bed for some much needed sleep and Laika cuddles.

May I dream of moonlight on the bay.