twenty-two photos

1. My morning commute. This is my bike ride to work. Past the Vietnamese supermarket, left at the climbing gym, dog park on the right, under the highway to the roundabout, dodge left, dodge right, follow the train tracks, zip past the new architecture, watch out, techies from the Caltrain! and hit the Embarcadero for the cruise. The bike is named Killer, but the name is no longer appropriate because I fixed the brakes and secured the rear wheel. It has a coffee cup holder, to make the mornings easier.

2. The bay. This is the waterfront. The gantry cranes you see are at the Port of Oakland. I bike with this view for a mile. I accelerate when I go under the Bay Bridge because I remember the 1989 earthquake. Many days it is sunny. Moody days it is foggy and immersive. 

3. The space shuttle.  This is the waterfront with a space shuttle in the middle of it.

4. The piggyback. C. had told me to expect the flyover of the Endeavor, but I hadn't planned to watch. The crowds on the waterfront this morning convinced me otherwise. It was delayed coming west from Sacramento. Thirty minutes late. I was happy to have applied sunscreen this morning. The natives grew restless. Youngish smartasses I read as Googlers (they were making fun of Leif Ericson - who else would do that?) pointed at every airplane and said, "There it is!" Heads spun. Then the shuttle appeared, low to the ground, touring Oakland. It flew west over the Golden Gate. Then, finally, it passed over the Bay Bridge. Those grumbling about the delay stopped grumbling. Thousands of photos were taken. Murmurs in the crowd: "Wow." R. called it "cute": a shuttle piggybacking on a plane (with a T-38 trainer escort). I put down my camera and gaped. A seagull could have shat in a thousand open mouths then, had it had the initiative.

5. The oceanic crowd. People everywhere. The rooftops were filled. The waterfront was lined. When the shuttle dropped out of sight, the streets rang with applause. It made me shiver. "Good job, NASA," said one youngish smartass.

6. My office. My sweetheart the drunk sent flowers and macarons yesterday, to ease a difficult morning. Ordinarily I keep my things more orthogonal, but anyway it's a losing battle because the window is an arch and the muntins are angled. At least my binders are color-coded.

7. My view. I look out onto the Ferry Building marketplace. It's an internal view but there is a skylight so the light feels natural. Every day I look at the fruit stand for a while, to see if I will catch a shoplifter in flagrante delicto. It hasn't happened yet. Ordinarily this walkway is crowded with people. The din reaches my office but the reverb acoustics of the space makes it an indistinct background sound that feels sometimes like companionship.

8. From the skybridge. I am lucky to look upon this geometry every day.

9. Friday night at the Ferry Building. The mezzanine level is sometimes rented for parties. Maker's Mark held a "country"-themed one. Barrels were rolled in; a wooden shed was erected. This was late at night on a Friday. Why was I in the office? I rolled Killer through the throngs to reach the stairs. I hope my blinky lights and fluorescent green safety jacket added to the intrigue.

10. Saturday night at the Ferry Building. The Saturday before Labor Day, I worked until 4 a.m. on a research project that made me say to myself, "Fuck yeah, genius!" and also, "What the fuck am I doing, here, now, how, why?" On the weekends there is neither heat nor light in my office. I spent eighteen hours at a desk without speaking or laughing. When I left the bakers had already started the day's work. It was just the lawyer and the bakers, toiling. I paused to take this photo.

11. Market Street at 4 a.m. Here is one of the busiest streets in San Francisco, at one of the least busy times of day. Mid-Market felt like an apocalypse. No cars, just disturbed people staggering in the street.

12. Supermarket. Instead of going home that night, I biked down Market until I got to the 24-hour Safeway in the Castro. Why? Because between work and rest I need a spell of being alive. Everything was empty, quiet, and off. People inside were either restocking the shelves or homeless and staying warm. Here is where one leans a single-speed commuter bike and fills one's basket with unprocessed food.

13.  Walkways not for walking. The aisles become work sites.

14. Dairy in the dark. The supermarket shuts off the lights in the dairy section. To save money?

15. Consumer decision making. One pauses before the cheeses for five, ten minutes. Which of these fragrant plasticities to place into the basket? One molests one, and sniffs another. Finally one settles on the least likely choice, a "raspberry Wensleydale," perhaps recalling Wallace and Gromit. One's cheese selection is disgusting, but must be ingested for the next two weeks.

16. Rainbow fantastic. Unicorns have apparently come alive to sprinkle processed foods with fabulousness. Why do GOLDfish need to be multicolored? I had to leave after this, because I was losing my mind. It was 4:30 in the morning.

17. Fish car. From Castro to the Mission is mostly downhill. I threw my weight into the turns and hopped over the tracks at Church. Nobody saw me. Then I ran into this, parked on my street. A Burning Man art project, a dusty van that looked like a piranha. This day turned out to be one of the best I've had in San Francisco.

18. Bumper stickers. The English teacher whose classroom hosts our mock trial practices is the best kind of English teacher, someone who lets you feel free to be your weird-ass self.  I guess that is what happens when you love expression. Here is her podium, which captures only a third of the bumper stickers posted around her classroom.

19. Double rainbow. B. stepped out of my house recently and screamed, "Oh my God!!" This is what she saw. The color of the atmosphere was an unreal shade of pink. Directly in front of us was the most magnificent double rainbow, visible end-to-end, spanning the sky. We walked out to 18th Street, where people were leaving restaurants to look at the sky. I overheard conversations people were making to their loved ones, to share the moment: "You have to look outside right now . . . "  I left breathless voicemails. A woman in a van driving the opposite direction craned her neck out the driver's side window while still rolling the car forward, exclaimed, "DAAAAAMN that shit is HELLA beautiful!!!!" It only lasted fifteen minutes.

20. Dahlias. They're in bloom at the dahlia garden next to the conservatory of flowers in Golden Gate Park. Mom, Dad, Boo and I toured it last weekend.  Daaamn that shit is hella beautiful!!!

21. S&M flag. I stepped out of the Muni yesterday and heard a popping overhead. It was this bedroom-sized S&M flag snapping in the wind above Castro Street. This weekend is the Folsom Street Fair. This city plays to its strengths.

22. Naked pedestrian. I saw this man strolling down Castro immediately after I noticed the S&M flag. He is wearing flip-flops, sunglasses, and a fedora. I happened to be walking the same way as him for four blocks, so I took this surreptitious photo (haste indicated by finger in lower half of photo). Most people didn't look twice, until he passed, and then they gaped. He ambled along. I bubbled with delight. A tourist murmured, "Is that even legal?" I responded, "It's legal, but it's cold." Because it was shady, and windy, and cold.