day 21 -- idling by the bay

I didn't need the reminder, but san francisco made it clear just what I miss out on in dayton-cincinnati. vibrant neighborhoods where people walk for reasons other than exercise. street food. comforting urban chaos. clutches of migrant workers...and a gaggle of homeless migrant workers who have given up on the dream. placards and postings for every sort of activism, from the inane (no wind farms here) to the irrelevant (californians protesting the 'show me your papers' state to the east) to the poignant (sexism spreads AIDS). baseball and a produce market and ethnic enclaves. a city with urban problems like any other but enough civic spirit to attempt solutions other than putting more people in prison. some of this is a function of population size, but much more than that it's an attitude...what shocked me this time was the extent to which any of this was surprising, that I've slipped into accepting midwestern malaise and dullness as the norm.

but jt is living a real san francisco life, not an affected contrivance or an asetheticized simulacrum -- no forced identities here -- just the life this sort of place can afford. I like to remind people that jt and I were close before birth since our parents shared our mostly overlapping in utero time. professional parents with rural mid-atlantic roots (the renowned lititz, no less), the iconic pennsylvania postsecondary experience in happy valley, but then a move north to toronto and eventually to the left coast. all this to say that jt is not a hipster radical or bohemian but a small town kid who can embrace a real city. so after I straggled in and cleaned up we set out for soul food near dogpatch. superb cajun blackened catfish and sublime mac-and-cheese and the like in a legit soul kitchen...run by koreans (or vietnamese). only in san francisco. caught up on eight years passed (but not without intermittent contact in this case) in the easy way childhood friends can do. love and death and family dynamics and work and aging and one particularly nasty motorbike accident. I'm fancy-free on a motorcycle with that dissertation looming at home, jt is a brand new father with a seamless marriage and a long stretch of home-rehab in the rearview.

jogged some hills in the morning and set out for the mission for some mexican pastries and philz coffee (brewed one cup at a time), inappropriately dressed in a t-shirt and plaid shorts and flipflops. I knew it was still chilly in the morning, but only a couple of days removed from las vegas I was counting on an afternoon warming trend. but this is san francisco, and there wasn't a single soul wearing shorts anywhere, let alone fratboy plaid. not that it mattered...I settled in at philz after wandering up and down past brightly colored taquerias and a 'mexica-tessen' and pastry shops and bodegas selling phone cards and coffee shops and watched the parade. not nearly so much hipster quotient there in the absence of the desperate midwesterner's need to stand out. just authentic difference in person. the kid with the gold-plated, low-rider bicycle. zoot-suited oldsters. parents with kids in every manner of conveyance, from plastic-wheeled stroller to jogstroller to sling. back to alabama street for some exquisite but unpretentious home-cooking and wine with a couple who had cooked their way through a recipe book that required lots and lots of foie gras. see above for opportunities seized. and again conversation that didn't dwell on idle reminiscence but mutual experiences beyond hershey.

and in the morning another run followed by a perfectly timed street food festival that was predictably amazing. I had some sort of african beef-on-a-stick and some goat curry, and for jt and mr some hickory smoked pork shoulder with apple slaw and a cuban skewer. and unsampled ramen and pho and kebabs and veggies, just a touch different than endless variations on bratwurst and goetta and limburger. not that I'm complaining about cinti fare on that score at least.