a SF baptism

I've never really felt as a "denizen of San Francisco"

This attitude is for a few reasons:
1) Chicago was such a grand town for me. And this where I came after leaving there. So, it was a "second city" to me.
2) We live in Marin - and very intentionally spent our initial time here being nature-explorers, rather than urban-dwellers (we'd already done that for a bit in Chicago.) You really have to live in the town to get a feel for it.
3) I was actually trying to get to Seattle rather than SF, but JWT sent me here. So, I had a second-second city attitude. My second-city was actually a second (squared)-city.

Now, I love the city of SF and have pretty much since we moved here, but just didn't feel a part of it. Recently, we celebrated our 5th year of being in the Bay Area. And I'm starting to more than ever feel a part of the city.

One strange thing - I find myself rooting for the SF Giants - and not just when Tim Lincecum pitches.


Of course, I still find myself rooting against them to tear a game open so I can see B.Wilson - but seriously, most Giants fans are in the same category...



Then this past Friday night, we had a uniquely SF experience.

We went with our friend Ellen to the Cartoon Art Museum to listen to a drag queen-hosted reading of Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl.





We then headed to the Pied Piper bar in the Palace hotel.  It gets it's name from a giant Maxfield Parrish mural of the Pied Piper story above the bar.  I got the tasty Charlie Chaplin cocktail (absinthe, rye whiskey, dubonnet, honey, pischard bitters.)



The next morning, I headed to the ferry and opened my bag:


Spent PBR cans and geek paraphernalia - huh. I do love this city. I do embrace it. I do feel a part of it.