Ode to the Forgotten

At my internship about 15% of the work is copying or printing out galleys (basically, the book printed on 11x17 paper), filling out a form, and sending both to the Library of Congress - where the information will be registered. You know that page at the beginning of books that lists something like ISBN 978-1185733498. Travel > United States > Arizona > Grand Canyon. That's where they get that information to print in the book and keep on their files. Yesterday I printed out the galley for a book called Night Vision by Troy Paiva. It's a fascinating photography book of abandoned places in the Southwest. Check out the link to his website, Lost America under my links. Apparently Mr. Paiva is a leader in a movement called UrbEx, or Urban Exploration. These explorers seek out the forgotten, the deserted, the hauntingly decrepit places that were once full of life, but now lie silent. I became completely immersed in the book and read nearly the entire thing. The photographs were achingly lonely and made me want to steal a nice SLR and join the Urban Explorers pronto. It's so fascinating how nature reclaims these structures - left to their own devices like weeds. Plus, the idea of trespassing appeals to me. I remember when I was little reading in something like (but not necessarily) National Geographic, a story of the Salton Sea. It boomed as a lake resort in the '50s, but once it began to dry up, motels and gas stations were abandoned. The photographs gave me chills.

And so the mission to visit the Salton Sea, Bodie Ghost Town, etc, begins...once I get my camera, that is...

The Cave Mouth Shines by Pure Force of Will

In between paying off my student loan (Freudian slip - mistyped that as "load") and trying to find a gym (again, mistyped that as "guy") and applying to jobs, I forgot to be heartbroken. I don't know why I'm not sadder about breaking up with my first semi-serious boyfriend and constant companion since I moved here, but I'm not going to question it. I feel great, but there's also an overshadowing hesitancy that this could all come crashing down on my head at any moment. In the meantime, I will walk alone and explore and work at a radio station and maybe audition for a play and get a real job. Chronicle Books is hiring a publicity assistant and a marketing assistant and I'm going to apply for both this weekend.

This place is weird. I see transvestites and pimps (legit ones, if you can call pimps legit - not just frat boys dressing up for Halloween. I never knew people really dressed in those calf-length fur coats with a red-plumed hat) and human waste on the sidewalk walking back from work. Then again, today was strange in general. Once I got off the Muni the streets were nearly deserted compared to the normal 8:45am rush. Everyone is still savoring the plush glow of Christmas, I suppose, wrapped in a blanket watching new dvds or reheating a feast of leftovers that bloom deliciously from tinfoil buds.

I Wish My Smile Was Your Favourite Kind of Smile

There's a new trend, or maybe not so new trend, in English singers affecting a cockney London accent to appear more "common." I don't know if Kate Nash's is real or not, but I'm starting to love her. She's just so open and needy. I completely identify with it. Fine, I'm needy. I don't care. She looks like Jenny Lewis and is way cooler than Lily Allen. Take the following lyrics to "The Nicest Thing" - currently playing on repeat on my itunes. Isn't this exactly what every girl thinks? Some of us (unfortunately not me) are too grown up for sentimentality, but you know if you were thirteen you'd be listening to this and crying.

Kate Nash, The Nicest Thing

All I know is that you're so nice.
You're the nicest thing I've seen.
I wish that we could give it a go,
See if we could be something.

I wish I was your favourite girl.
I wish you thought I was the reason you are in the world.
I wish my smile was your favourite kind of smile.
I wish the way that I dressed was your favourite kind of style.

I wish you couldn't figure me out.
But you always wanna know what I was about.
I wish you'd hold my hand when I was upset.
I wish you'd never forget the look on my face when we first met.

I wish you had a favourite beauty spot
That you loved secretly
'Cause it was on a hidden bit
That nobody else could see.

Basically, I wish that you loved me.
I wish that you needed me.
I wish that you knew when I said two sugars,
Actually I meant three.

I wish that without me your heart would break.
I wish that without me you'd be spending the rest of your nights awake.
I wish that without me you couldn't eat.
I wish I was the last thing on your mind before you went to sleep.

Look, all I know is that you're the nicest thing I've ever seen
And I wish that we could see if we could be something.
Yeah I wish that we could see if we could be something.

The Luminous and the Dark

Are you what is called a lucky man? Well, you are sad every day. Each day has its great grief or its little care. Yesterday you were trembling for the health of one who is dear to you, today you fear for your own; tomorrow it will be anxiety about money, the next day the slanders of a caluminator, the day after the misfortune of a friend; then the weather, then something broken or lost, then a pleasure for which you are reproached by your conscience or your vertebral column; another time, the course of public affairs. Not to mention heartaches. And so on. One cloud is dissipated, another gathers. Hardly one day in a hundred of unbroken joy and sunshine. And you are of that small number who are lucky! As for other men, stagnant night is upon them...

The true division of humanity is this: the luminous and the dark.

- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Gingerbread Outhouse

Laura, a former intern at Chronicle Books where I'm interning, invited me to a gingerbread decorating party today at the apartment of a friend of a friend. At first it sounded fun. Then, we were instructed to buy a gingerbread-house making kit and assemble it at home the night before. The kit I found was produced by the Wonka candy company (a corporation whose products, no matter how good, can't help being a set up for disappointment. The everlasting gobstoppers are not everlasting! Where's the soda that makes you float? Where's the tasty wallpaper?) and failed to include one of the walls. In an act that would impress any Cal Poly architecture major I moved the pieces around and improvised until I had constructed something that looked a little like a house and could stand on its own while the icing dried. George called it a gingerbread outhouse.

I'm a bit surprised how popular these parties are. This is the third gingerbread house decorating party I've gone to since I started college, but nothing prepared me for the lengths Becky, the girl hosting the party had gone. She had her apartment completely decorated, with a Christmas tree and a holiday collar on her cat. A video of a crackling fire was playing on her tv, and she had made dozens of different snacks (like bacon wraps, spinach filo puffs, sausage and cheese biscuits, crackers, and cookies). She offered us a choice of eggnog, mimosas, champagne, or hot apple cider. Even the tables were decorated with different gingerbread house photos she'd printed out glued to the tablecloths.

And everyone loved the gingerbread outhouse.

The World, in its Cold Way, Started Coming Alive

I know I'm supposed to post a new Christmas song today to keep things neat and orderly. I like neat and orderly - everything as it should be and out of mind. But I just can't. I don't feel neat and orderly. I feel dead and worn down. And I'm not even taking finals like most people I know. My roommate/landlord just sent me an email for a $112 utility bill this month, NOT split, and now that the anger has passed (I'm really only here half the week, while he sits here with all the lights on all day) I just want to lie on my bed and be emo and listen to The Mountain Goats. This music heals me in an inexplicable way. I know John Darnielle's voice is whiney and more talking than singing anyway. It's the way he lets small things touch his heart. I need people and influences in my life like that.

I miss having friends.
I miss George.
I miss Sarah.
I miss Emily.
I miss Brittany.
I miss Eric.
I miss riding my bike.
I miss $585 rent.
I miss Amy.
I miss Faith.
I miss Lana.
I miss Stephen.
I miss Arlo.
I miss my family and anyone I didn't mention yet, except for ex-boyfriends.
I miss feeling comfortable.

The Mountain Goats, "Woke Up New"

The Countdown Continues

As badly as I wanted the Liza Minneli / Alan Cumming version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" for today's song, all the links to said song are disabled. You can still go listen to a sample on itunes, but I'm afraid that's as good as it's going to get (and oh, that would have been good, my friends).

In lieu of that treat, I have Jack Johnson's version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I actually really like this - Jack's bouncy, easy guitar works great with the tune, and he even adds another verse where the other reindeer apologize to Rudolph for not letting him play their reindeer games. Perfect.

It Don't Snow Here, It Stays Pretty Green

Today I realized it's the second day in December, and remembered that years and years ago I would have been opening the second little door in my cardboard advent calendar. They were the ones filled with tiny chocolates in vague Christmas shapes, like an elf or a boot. Those three weeks saw me waking up and rushing downstairs each day to check what the shape for the day would be. As more and more cardboard flaps opened, Christmas inched closer at an aggravating speed.

In honor of those days, I have a sort of musical advent calendar for you. Each day I'll try to post a new Christmas song (two today to catch up). Parents: to listen to the song, click the link. To save it to your computer, right click on the link and hit "save target as."

December 1: I'm starting off with my favorite so far. I discovered this beautiful Feist cover of "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" and I can't stop listening to it. It's not one of those classic "get you in the holiday mood" songs, but it's so pure, and Leslie Feist's voice is perfect.

December 2: Another more sombre track, but this one I simply must include because of my undying affection for Meg Ryan's character in "You've Got Mail." In one scene she writes, "It’s coming on Christmas. They’re cutting down trees. Do you know that Joni Mitchell song? 'I wish I had a river I could skate away on'? Such a sad song! And not really about Christmas at all, but I was thinking about it tonight as I was decorating my Christmas tree, unwrapping funky ornaments made of Popsicle sticks..."

The Red Phone

My favorite thing about living in San Luis Obispo was how (unless you stayed indoors) it was nearly impossible to go a whole day without seeing someone you knew. In my late summer stupor, bored and injured (alcohol, skinned knee), I at least managed to sit out on my front porch most days reading a six-inch copy of "Les Miserables," eating Trader Joe's Vanilla Almond Crunch cereal, and saying hello to people I knew walking by our house. Even John Fino, the bearded, uni-dread-ed spirit-channeller from Linnaea's, walked by at least once a day, once telling me "I want to talk to you sometime" (It never happened).

Here comes the surprising part: San Francisco is like that too. A city with a population (according to the 2000 census) of roughly 800,000 shouldn't behave like a small college town in the sticks with a population of 45,000...or should it? People are more or less the same wherever you are. What's surprising to me is how often I run into the small number I recognize over and over again. My roommate Dave showed up at The Fly Bar by George's house. I ran into Tom (the LucasArts guy), who I met through George's British ex-pat group, at the BART station. I bumped into a girl I work with at the Rickshaw Stop during a promotional party for a book called Broke-ass Stuart's Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco (apparently we're both lured by free food).

These encounters are the most bizarre, however, when you start to recognize random people you've seen before in public places: the middle-aged homeless man on the BART with hair that looks like a net, the girl who reads Harry Potter on the 21 bus... Friday night I sat at the San Diego airport for over an hour waiting for my flight back to San Francisco. Eventually I grew tired of listening to music, and started observing the people around me. I thought nothing of a teenage guy pulling out his cell phone, until he unzipped his backpack and pulled out a bright red telephone receiver. He proceeded to somehow plug the receiver into the bottom of his phone, then chatted away happily, unaware of the surprised glances from strangers. As soon as we got off the plane, there he was again at the BART station, again talking on that phone.

I recalled this instance while riding home on the Muni tonight. I wondered if he was afraid of the cell-phone radiation, or just felt nostalgic for the grip of a plastic handle. I had concluded he was just trying to be unique and hipster cool, when I noticed the same guy was up ahead on the same MUNI train as I. I knew it was him because he was wearing the same tri-colored jacket.

Small world!

No Car = No Fun

This morning I thought I smelled bacon cooking when I woke up.

I went downstairs.

It was my mom cooking a catfish for our dog.

Meet Me in the Stacks...

Appropriately delirious from staying up all night to catch my 6:20am flight home, I would have napped all afternoon if my sister hadn't sent me a text message saying "Ugh! Why do guys hit on you at the library? I came here to get away from people." Apparently she had settled in on the 5th floor (an area she assumed to be harmlessly remote) when some dude came and sat right next to her and tried to strike up a conversation. Apparently he had seen "The Prince and Me," a horrible Julia Styles movie with a grammatically awkward title (why couldn't they have gone the way of "The King and I"?) that I have mostly blocked out of my head besides the scene where Julia and the Prince try to get it on in a library. What I took to be hot as an 18-year-old no longer seems like such a sexy idea. Seriously? In a library? Remember that "Friends" episode where Ross got angry about people having sex in his dissertation's aisle? You know this guy talking to my sister was thinking, "hot AND smart! Score!" Believe it or not, Casanova, the library is not an ideal place to meet women.

She just wants to get back to analysing the significance of iambic pentameter in Macbeth

Don't tell me you haven't imagined it: You sit down five feet from a beautiful girl in sweats with stacks of books and various snacks arranged on her desk - oh yes, this one will be here all day. You calmly but noisily begin unpacking your materials, hoping to catch her eye with your white Macbook. She looks up and frowns. That's the signal to start workin' it. Ask her something like, "come here often?" or "Do you think Emily Dickinson was gay or just agoraphobic?" Lean back in your uncomfortable and threadbare chair to show her that you put the stud in studying. After a bit, find the biggest book in the library and appear deep in thought at how its non-linear plot structure supports its use of dramatic irony. At this point, she will look up and say something like, "I just hate Chaucer. I can't understand the Prioress's Tale at all." Come over and sit next to her. As you go to turn a page, your hands inadvertently touch...

Just stay away from my sister!

Sad, but True...

I'm as corny as Kansas in August...

C'mon Chemicaaaaals!

I apologize in advance for two concert posts in a row. No more until Andrew Bird in early December. I promise.

Monday I got an e-mail saying I'd won two free tickets to the Of Montreal concert in a contest sponsored by The Onion newspaper - for the next night! I didn't even remember entering, but was not about to let an opportunity to see the eccentric indie pop quintet pass me by. Although I haven't heard all their songs, "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse" is probably in my top five favorite songs of all time.

If you just clicked that last link, these photos will come as no surprise to you:

The Kiss. Rodin ain't got nothing on these two.

I want his boots.

Kevin Barnes, lead singer. Or as Wikipedia aptly puts it, "front figure."

The Great American Music Hall - a phoenix that spread its wings from the ashes of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

Jag Elsker Dag, Jens Lekman

Last night I was fortunate enough to attends Jens Lekman's concert in San Francisco with George and his visiting friend Paddy.

A group called Throw Me the Statue opened, and other than a few songs, I didn't care that much for them.

Throw Me the Statue, "About to Walk" - one of their good songs:

They played about six songs, then it was time for Jens, who is surprisingly more attractive, likeable, and less awkward in person (despite a story about how he once took a vow of silence, "Little Miss Sunshine" style, I imagine). Also, if you've ever listened to his music, it's no surprise that he likes the ladies. Of course, he would have to have an all-girl back-up band: accordian, trumpet, sax, violins, drums, bass...

Afterward, Bimbo's 365 Club, which is a pretty swanky joint, busted out the disco ball and started a dance party. I really wanted to stay, but I was just with the wrong company, I guess.

I miss SLO.

Dadaism

Only in San Francisco would a shaving-cream pie fight break out on Market Street on a Friday afternoon.

Right in front of the tourists...niiice.

I went to run on the beach today, which consisted of less actual running (two minutes, I timed it), and more wandering, composing poetry in my head, petting peoples' dogs, watching sandpipers run in and out of the surf, and picking up halves of sand dollars. It was probably 80 degrees, without the wind I'm used to at the beach, so I kept wading in the freezing water until my feet cramped. I'd been feeling a bit out of sorts lately, and today was exactly what I needed to re-coup.

Untitled

Scary Happenings in the City

It was over before I could decide whether I needed to go stand in a doorway or not.

I rode through on the Bart less than an hour earlier.


As I was researching these stories, I found out that singer Robert Goulet died.
No one under 40 would have ever known who he was if it wasn't for Will Ferrell...
I don't care if he's Notorious Big, can he croon?

My New Job

Weirdest Thing I've Seen in SF So Far:

At a British Ex-pats meeting at a bar called Etiquette (who really gets into the Halloween spirit - complete with Haunted Mansion-style decor and bowls of fun-size candy on the bar), out of nowhere a person, clad head to toe in a green lycra catsuit, face covered, with a small featureless doll-like mask suspended where its face should be. It started on a platform, on all fours, slinking around and gyrating, then jumped to the ground and glided between peoples' legs across the floor.

Beside that obvious horror, the meeting was fun. If you've seen the movie "Superbad" I met a guy who looks a real-life version Fogell character. I swear. It's him ten years older with an English accent. He works for LucasArts (George Lucas's company) doing the sound effects for video games. George and I are going to go miniature golfing with him and his wife.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse, the actor who plays the role in the movie.


Unrelated photo from Baker Beach. Please note iconic bridge in background.

Will Somebody Hit the Lights?

Saturday night was supposed to be Lights Out San Francisco, a city-wide energy conservation attempt. George, his roommate, and I hiked up the street to Alamo Square park, thinking we'd have a great view of the San Francisco skyline suddenly going black. At least that's how I envisioned it. Instead, we could hardly discern a couple buildings (like the TransAmerica pyramid and City Hall) with most of their lights off. Nothing else changed, but at least I got a cool nighttime photo.

I'm concerned about my family. I just got off the phone with my mom in Encinitas, where wildfires are causing mass evacuations. As it was, I could only talk a couple minutes because she said they're asking residents to avoid using their cell phones so the airwaves are clear for emergency signals. Right now they're sitting indoors with all the windows shut because the ash and smoke are clogging the air outside. It's nothing unusual, as unsettling as it is. Every year the fires are back, right on schedule in October.

My sister likes to recall the year (actually exactly eleven years ago today) of the Harmony Grove Fire. That night, on the eve of her eighth birthday, we stayed up almost all night watching the news to see if we would be evacuated (the Aitchisons down the street were all packed and hosing their roof as midnight rolled around and a firefighter on the news said, "these fires always just burn straight out to the ocean"). But the fire brigade managed the fire before we were evacuated, and Emily lived to see her eighth birthday (despite her pessimistic sister's runaway imagination), and her ninth, and tomorrow her nineteenth. Happy birthday, Emily.

And now some photographic evidence of how my days consist of waking up at ten, laying in bed until eleven, and walking around cool places with a cute boy:

Bay Bridge from Coit Tower area

Golden Gate Bridge from the other side of Coit Tower

Fat lazy tourists contemplating fat lazy sea lions

Beach near Golden Gate Park

Cute old couple walking on the beach

Golden Gate Park

View from my new room

The Opposite of Hallelujah

Alcohol ruins everything.

I don't understand the line between having a few social drinks and binge drinking every night of the week. Why do it? It's not impressing anyone. I'd be interested if anyone could explain to me why it's important to drink so excessively that you black out more than once a week. Sure, I've been drunk, and I have a lovely scar on my knee to remind me that it's a stupid idea! Even if it happens every couple months it's understandable. If I'm really upset about something I just want to join my friends at reggae night and get drunk off $2 Red Stripes. But if it's a regular occurrence, is it normal or alcoholism? Where do you draw the line?

It's red beer, Mon!

I had the pleasure of spending time with the incomparable Amy Tietz this weekend, and we did a lot of walking, shopping, and watching season two of "The Office." I'd forgotten how good it is just to hang out with someone you can be yourself around - to not have to worry about having every second planned out, but spend an hour talking at lunch in a cafe or wandering the racks at Buffalo Exchange.

Elle est adorable.

We were going to join G to watch the rugby final at the Mad Dog in the Fog, an English pub in the Haight district. We were on our way, dressed in the appropriate red and white English team colors (or, more appropriately, colours), when he called from the bar to tell us that it was packed and they were charging a $20 cover charge. Frick. Disappointing, but England lost anyway, and Amy and I had fun perusing the Haight-Ashbury area instead.

Como Agua para Elefante

I started reading Water for Elephants today. After a couple days, the BART commute, while retaining its glory, fails to require complete vigilance. The book's about a circus, which I like; it's set in the Depression - another plus; and it manages to incorporate old people as well. For some reason books from the perspective of the elderly fascinate me. I was a little disappointed to find out it's written by a woman, since the narrator is a guy. It seems like such a female perspective that I have to keep reminding myself the protagonist is a boy.

Speaking of books, people keep asking me what I do at this internship. Here's a sample of my day today:

8:55 - Get to work, find out I got moved to another computer (from which I can't access my e-mail account), and spend the next 15 minutes trying to set up Outlook on the new computer before Kate, one of my editors, sends a tech guy to help.
9:20 - On Mondays and Wednesdays another (apparently messy) girl shares the new computer with me. I move my stuff over to the new desk, straighten up, and dust.
9:30 - Kate asks me to research a proposal for a coffee table photo book about greyhounds and I read the proposal, go online to assess interest level in the subject and existing similar books, and e-mail her back my results and opinion.
11:00 - Home Publishing Group Meeting. The editors for the Home section (things like knitting books, decorating, animals, crafts) meet to discuss future projects, marketing, and how to match the success of Stuff on My Cat. I play the role of fly on the wall, and eat the Pirate's Booty someone brought in.
1:00 - Begin logging in book proposals and try to print rejection letters, but the new computer isn't hooked up to the printer I need and I can't find it on the computer to add it. I e-mail helpdesk guy again. Turns out it was easy. Embarrassing.
2:00 - lunch break, after which I keep logging rejected proposals and returning manuscripts, photos, portfolios, prototype books, for Bridget, my other editor...basically the valuable stuff people send in but we don't want to publish.
4:45 - I fit in a quick editing job for Kate before heading off at 5:00. Probably my most successful day yet. I forgot to say that a large part of this job involves walking back and forth to the beautiful, clean, high tech kitchen for tea/coffee/hot chocolate and large amounts of non-dairy creamer. Preferably all three at some point during the day.

Soft October Night

This is too perfect to pass up. Thanks, Faith!

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

--T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

(Click below to hear the poem read by the poet...wait through the commercial. Is it just me, or does Eliot sound a bit like the caterpillar from "Alice in Wonderland"?).

SF Loves You!

There's so much to do here it's overwhelming. Festivals every weekend and concerts every night (not that I've gone to any...YET). I thought I'd share a few photos from the last week.

Alamo Square. The row of Victorian houses are the apparently infamous "painted ladies." So far all I know about this park is that there's a great view, half the park is "dog crap central" (according to G), and it gets really cold and windy there in the evenings, like today as we sat on a park bench trying to eat pizza.

Golden Gate park...no buffalo in sight...

...just some weirdos.

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
-Carl Sandburg, "Fog"

In front of a Hayes St. apartment. I appreciate the quotation marks.

I got on the BART going the wrong way tonight, but at least I got to see the Oakland BART station (and I will never make the mistake again).

Look Out Upon the Myriad Harbour

I'm sick.
It started with a sore throat when I woke up yesterday morning, and by the time I got to work I had a headache and a full-fledged fever, complete with aches and chills. So instead of going out and walking around at lunchtime as usual, I settled myself on one of the bizarrely modern couch-shaped pieces of foam on the top story of the Chronicle office building with Spin Magazine's punk issue, my 1/4 of a Thyme rotisserie chicken (leftovers from dinner), and the tail end of a bag of Trader Joe's spicy flax seed chips (the best part of the bag because by that time it's mostly just spice). I could see people walking around on neighboring rooftops, a flag flapping in the wind, and straight ahead, a barge that seemed to float between the gray water and the gray sky. It's cold here.

Sorry I've been MIA lately. My own mother calls to make sure I'm still alive. Sorry, Mom; yes, yes I am. I'm going to blame it all on G. I will never be that girl who ditches everyone to hang out with a boy, but I don't yet have any friends here anyway, so it works out nicely. It just means that my boxes and boxes of moving items remain on the floor of my room, unpacked, and I don't update this as often as I'd like to.

He's currently left to catch the 21 bus downtown to attend the San Francisco School of Bar-Tending, a $400 2-week course filled with hopeful middle-agers intent on finding a new career. They say that within two nights you've recouped the cost of the lessons in tips.

I went back to San Luis Obispo last weekend and everyone kept asking the same questions: how are you liking San Francisco? Where are you living? What do you do at your internship? I wished I could just get them all together and answer those questions once instead of robotically nodding my head and smiling: Yes, I am liking San Francisco. Everything is going fine.

Get Your Own Coffee

You know in movies how interns are always depicted as running to the corner Starbucks to get their boss a nonfat sugar-free caramel macchiato, or in charge of getting their hands on the unreleased issue of the new Harry Potter book (that was so unrealistic in "The Devil Wears Prada")? My internship is not going to be anything like that.

You want me to do what?

The Chronicle Books office is beautiful and contemporary - all brand new and modern and colorful. Everyone who works there seems to be in their early 30's, fashionable, and married or engaged. My two editors, Kate and Bridget, are going to be great. After an hour-long walk/BART ride/walk to the beautiful area of SOMA, I was given a tour of the office, then set to log and mail out rejection letters. You wouldn't believe the ideas for books these people propose: "101 Things to Do on the Back of a Harley Davidson," "The Drugs Are Great! The Upside of Depression." They just got worse from there.

I met a girl who is an intern for the Fiction section, and tried to contain my jealousy. That's much closer to my niche than the Craft / Architecture / Home section I'm working in now. Another great thing about being an intern (in addition to unlimited tea) is the opportunity to sit in on meetings. A couple hours after I got there, I accompanied Kate to her meeting where scones were shared and target audiences were discussed. The woman presenting used the company that owns Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie as an example. Urban Outfitters is targeted toward (supposedly - we all know it's a lot younger) 18-30 hipster types. Anthropologie is supposedly marketed toward 30-45 year old women. In the same style, Chronicle Books has to decide what for demographic each book they market is designed.

18-30?.....................................30-45?

Today G and I are going to Ikea to find furniture. I have a good lead on a desk from craigslist, but I have to somehow rent a truck to move it. Also on my to-do list are go to Golden Gate Park and explore Ingleside (my neighborhood). I hear there's a big mall around here...

Gettin' 'Frisco-y

Is this real?

I look out my new bedroom window onto a hillside of twinkling yellow lights. The branches of several scrawny pine trees are silhouetted against the last remnants of hazy sunset light beyond the ocean.

An hour ago my new roommate Dave took me to the nearby beach, where a fifteen minute hike down an iceplant-covered hill opened out to pristine sand and an orange sun hovering over the waves. We discovered a piece of a 100 year old shipwreck beached on the sand - just five feet of connected wooden planks with rusted hooks still attached.

For those of you who don't know, two days ago I moved to San Francisco to work as an editorial intern at Chronicle Books, according to their website: "One of the most admired and respected publishing companies in the U.S." What's more, their mission statement says they are "inspired by the enduring magic and importance of books." I too am inspired by the enduring magic and importance of books. Brilliant. This will work out.

Tomorrow is my first day at Chronicle Books, so although I should have been unpacking, I've been exploring the city with a certain English bloke the last couple days. I'm still learning the various "neighborhoods" of San Francisco, but today I managed the BART (which will most likely be my transportation to and from work) and fell in love with the deliciousness which is the Ferry Building Marketplace. Gelato! Bread! Cheese!

"Mmm...fancy a nice slice of Wensleydale, Gromit?"

I'm living in an amazing house outside of town, in Merced Heights, almost in Daly City (but still in the bounds of San Francisco proper). Dave, a 30-something freelance computer something works at home and owns the building (which is gorgeous). Julie, my other roommate, is a third year set design major at SFSU. I've just met her briefly, but now that I know her major I predict we will have a lot to talk about.

Leaving San Luis Obispo was one of the saddest moves I've ever had to make. Over the last four years I've become more confident, happy, and made better friends than I ever have before. As Cogsworth, the enchanted clock from "Beauty and the Beast," would say, "If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it," but it was time to move on from that chapter of my life. As much as I've loved living in San Luis Obispo, there are other things I have to learn about life and wider venues to explore. And I think San Francisco is just the town to do so.