"All ready!" In the four-inch heels, Kerstin stood taller than me, and I felt suddenly off-kilter, like how the newspaper-reading public 100 years ago must have felt when Darwin or Einstein made their big splash. Fleetingly, uneasily, not at the center of my own universe. I put on
It’s searing and too bright. First the crowds. Turn the corner past the movie theater and see the shining, shimmering throngs nosing between stalls. Always a shock, from the still of our living room and out among these hundreds. Our first priorities are berries and bread, most weeks. Get
However you measure the gristmill of time. An ocean between, or eight miles of it, at least. Lapping at concrete shores, spraying the pylons and the sea lions. An empty stretch of sky. Blue today, thank god, with the conveyor belt turning in the fog, gulls swooping from the towers
dating
"Why do you think you're so cautious about getting into serious relationships?" I've been dating a new girl, and that's a question you really DON'T want to hear three or four weeks into something. The night was warm, and we
outdoors
Six years ago I wrote an essay titled "Please Don't Sell the Lake." As a rhetorical device, I wrote it to my grandparents. Twelve pages, double-spaced, on the profound attachment I felt to the house on the shore of Lake Almanor where my family had spent
drinking
I am lying on my back in a field and I see the leaves jouncing in the sun. I see the Teletubbies too, and the slutty jungle cats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mexican wrestlers, the Roman gladiator boys making out. Everyone jouncing, jangled. Someone hands me a tallboy in a
Corin
After arguing with the poor girl for a while, I dug into my email archives and realized Corin had booked us at the Hyatt. I checked quickly on my phone, and the Hyatt was only a block and a half away, so I decided to just walk over. Only the
Ash
Unless they're watching hockey videos with their noise-cancelling headphones on. Then I guess they need some space. I spent my 30th birthday with some of the people I love. Diego, St. Frances, Ash, Rocco, Astana, Agent Coulson, Roy, and Kendrick. We rented a cabin in Tahoe, spent one
Ash
I was at The Mill this morning with Ash, Diego and Xander, gulping down Guatemalan pourover and munching cinnamon-sugar toast. We were laughing about haircuts, rom-coms, and how childhood injuries might prevent us from engaging in various acts of love, when all of a sudden— "Who's dog
growing up
That's not it, really. It's more like this: I'm terrified that I'm nothing except smart, and to make up for that insecurity, I try to get a lot of juice out of my smarts. If you met all of us at a
Monday Movie Review
If there's anything that makes Silver Linings Playbook a better movie than Argo, which just won Best Picture, or Django or Lincoln or Zero Dark Thirty, it's that it truly surprised me. I was surprised at each turn, I was surprised by the characters, and I
living in SF
Could Hank Williams and The Clash get along? At The Mill, my neighborhood's newest coffee shop, they shared time on the speakers as a dozen focused craftspeople mixed flour and water, and carefully prepared pourover drip. Alright, The Mill is no mere coffee shop. They serve Four Barrel