26.04.07 - 3:23 p.m.

see, here's the thing about san francisco. there's no parking. everyone raves about how many people use public transportation and nobody owns a car but somehow every time i go there, i spend about a third of my time looking for parking. is that a spot? no it's a driveway. what does a white curb mean? is that a spot? no it's a driveway. is that person leaving? can we fit here? wait, it's a driveway.
also, the food there totally pales in comparison to the food in portland. i love yum yum and all, but it's no russell street or the farm. except there's that one place in oakland with the good fake meat. but that isn't in san francisco.
the people who work at the office max in san francisco are jerks.
everyone is roughly the same age. you will see nary a child, except the odd infant who will soon be sequestered until age 23 so far as i can determine from my time spent in the bay area. babies=hot accessory for profesh moms on the go, but preschoolers are just messy and embarrassing plus what 14 year-old could get a good enough job to afford the rent.
you could have a conversation with anyone about how shitty starbucks is yet if you followed the same group of 100 people around for a day, at some point each of them would vanish, then apologetically turn up with a starbucks cup in hand.
san francisco as a city appears to still embrace the odd hairdos of the early 2000s while the rest of the world has pretty much returned to regular haircuts.

my list of sf's redeeming qualities is as follows:
yum yum house
shoe biz
the marc by marc jacobs store chicken suit guy - but not the store itself
826 valencia
my friends, most of them
doe
the endurance of leggings (you have to be persistent to live in this city. parking, fashion, whatever).
h&m, which i will take despite its crappiness in comparison to other h&ms because beggars can't be choosers

i came home glad to live in a place that makes sense to me even if it does not lie inside california's borders