mth - timshel!

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94117
We're in a new neighborhood. It's almost the old neighborhood. Just a few blocks away. A four minute walk to our old place. But we're up the hill now, and on the more fashionable (I suppose) side of the panhandle.

I dig it. We still get to see all the same folks. We're closer to the restaurants on Haight Street. It's nice.

But I'm not so happy with my coffeeshop situation...

The closest cafe has great coffee, free WiFi, chill music, and a nice lounging area. But nearly every time I go in there someone is yapping on a cell phone. Yeah, I mean, okay, I'm guilty. I'm a somewhat reluctant cell phone owner. (It was handy when we were couch surfing to have s phone number all our own.) But I think you have to practice a little cell phone etiquette. I'll step outside to talk. I'll turn it off so it doesn't ring. The coffee shop is no place to be yapping.

It's a more business-oriented crowd at the new place. And I think businessfolk tend to have less compunction about talking on cell phones. I think they find it less bothersome because they're more accustomed to it. (Not judging, just stating.) But it gets on my nerves.

Maybe it would do me good to take a four-minute walk in the morning.

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I'm from San Francisco
The protests are something, I think, San Franciscans will be talking about for years to come. They became another of the city's many defining moments. Like the two great earthquakes, or the summer of love, the protests became San Francisco. Internationally, at least, people we encountered immediately identified San Francisco with people taking to the streets. San Francisco was the city that told the world not everyone in the U.S.A. stood for war.

I don't know that I would have protested. I'm not sure I would have felt comfortable doing so professionally. But I would have been there. I would have taken pictures and written about it. And aside from just wanting to see it, for its own sake, I really feel like I missed a civic moment. Last night I read this dramatic blow-by-blow account of the protests in the Bay Guardian. I was stunned. For the last week, it's nearly all I've talked about with old aquaintances. And like the earthquake, it's one of those "where were you, what did you do," moments.

Several of my friends were in the thick of it. Jared was the first person to tell me about them, and I had several discussions with protestors at her birthday party. Last night I found out Bernardo was arrested.

I realize protests went on all over the country. Down in LA, my friend Annie was physically beaten by police, punched and clubbed. But I feel like this was the epicenter. And it was another reason I love this different, difficult city. Another reason I was glad to tell people I met on the road, "I'm from San Francisco."

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Home. Sweet. Home.
Hi.

We're back. Home again, home again, jiggity jigg. Or something. We spent the last few weeks in Asia along the Andaman Coast, in Malaysia and Thailand. The last two on the greatest island in all of Thailand. On the plane ride home, everyone was in masks. Not us, for better or worse. It seemed like a silly thing to worry about. Although worry I did everytime someone coughed.

But now I'm back, the jet lag has finally worn off, and I can't get used to the frenzy of the phone. Appointments. Numbers. Confirmations. I need a job and a place to live and a current copy of my credit report and what do you mean I need to fax a copy of that to you. Why should I call to confirm? I'm calling now. Do I really need to call again?

Mai pen rai?

I can't get used to the stress. You're not going to die. Or rather, you are going to die. But odds are that it won't be from SARS or Terrorism or even Government Repression or the fabled Getting Hit By A Bus. Odds are you're going to die from stress. So chill. Really. Can't everyone just

chill?

I don't know if I can get the hang of this electronet thing again. But I'm trying.

PS: I Y SF

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Goodbye Asia
I'm going to miss you. We leave tomorrow morning, April 2, for the airport and arrive in San Francisco--miraculously via the mysterious wonders of the space-time continuum known as the International Dateline--tomorrow morning, April 2nd. We spent the last few weeks on the Andaman Coast, doing nothing. Disconnecting. I'm ready to go home, but I hate to leave. This has been the greatest thing, outside of getting married, that I've ever done.

I can't wait to go again...

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