Author Archives: didofoot
I don’t want to alarm you, but I’m pretty sure the Mayor is in love with me.
Yesterday I went to a press conference in Chinatown (forget it, Jake) where the Mayor was speaking. I sat up front, against the advice of my fourteen year old back-of-the-class brain, to try and let my tape recorder hear what was going on.* Anyway, I was basically face to face with him and I swear … Continue reading
Sugar and milk
I quit drinking coffee over the weekend. I lasted about fifteen minutes before giving in and rushing back to the coffee maker, filling it and switching it on and hanging all over it in a blubbering mess of gratitude and apology. “Why would you quit?” Jack asked, astonished, when I told him later. “I don’t … Continue reading
How to make urban tea
I am steeping in San Francisco. Little frayed pieces of my bones and muscles wriggle out along the streets, along the avenues, all the way to the sea. San Francisco is steeping in me. Streetcars run up and down my spine, dinging their happy idiot bells, and Coit Tower spears out through my heart, a … Continue reading
And I’m afraid nobody here can help you.
You are a solitary person, and I’m afraid nobody here can help you. You like to be on your own. As a teen, you wandered the darkened streets of your neighborhood, a second-hand trench coat wrapped around your shoulders and your fingers wrapped around an old kazoo you kept in your pocket. Your friends mostly … Continue reading
About that river trip…
Remember how I said we should go to the Yuba on July 7? I actually meant we should go on Sunday, July 8. Sunday, as you know, was originally named for the Norse god Sunne, the god of rivers. So it is the only possible day of the week on which to visit a river. … Continue reading
Gli accenti
In Italian there is no silent e: all vowels are pronounced. Think about what kind of a culture produces such an upfront language, where no letter hides itself behind another. Then again, there are the accents. Sometimes an accent will indicate that a vowel is open or closed; sometimes there is no accent, and then … Continue reading
Books versus birds
Yesterday I spent a long time sitting on the floor of Green Apple and considering whether Deirde Bair’s biography of Simone de Beauvoir was worth $6 to me. I really liked her biography of Anais Nin. And having this on my shelf might make me look smarter. But in the end, $6 just seemed like … Continue reading
On returning from the Castro Safeway
ME: They had this whole display at Safeway of “Films for Guys” DVDs. GENE: You didn’t… ME: No, I didn’t buy anything. But I was curious to see what constitutes a guy film. GENE: And? ME: Taming of the Shrew, starring Elizabeth Taylor. GENE: Huh. ME: Our neighborhood is…different.
Because at midnight we consider the Pope
ME: Are you awake? GENE: Mmph! Nyguh…yes. ME: Why did we call the last Pope ‘John Paul’? He was Italian, so wasn’t his name really Giovanni Paolo? So why do we Anglicize his name? We don’t refer to Mikhail Gorbachev as ‘Michael,’ after all. GENE: … ME: You weren’t really awake, were you. GENE: No. … Continue reading
The lions and the Christians
Found this in an old letter that I never got around to sending and thought I would recycle it. This is from 2004: Gene recently decided he wanted to make his own cologne so that he didn’t smell like anyone else. He had heard that the Body Shop had ingredients for making one’s own scent, … Continue reading