Uninspired

I haven't written here in ages, and am still not particularly feeling it, but I figure I should get back in the swing while I'm out of town.

I'm in San Francisco, one of my favorite places; I've never been here this time of year, though, and I was surprised how perfect the weather is here. It's sunny and warm -- like early spring rather than mid-winter -- and the sky is beautifully clear. Most of the time I've spent roaming around San Francisco has been near the water, but this time I'm further inland and the it's much warmer without the wind.

I'm a few blocks away from Union Square, but when I arrived at the hotel yesterday -- absolutely STARVING, having eaten nothing since a biscuit and fruit cup on the plane seven hours earlier -- I didn't have a good sense of where I was in relation to everything else in the city (anyone who knows me even a little is wholly unsurprised by this, I know). I went to a little Thai restaurant a few doors down from the hotel, which was outstanding, and once my tummy was full, I set out to explore the city a little.

Had I turned right and walked a couple of blocks, and then gone right again, I'd have found myself in the heart of Union Square, where all the great shopping is in SF, where there are street vendors and, I discovered today, the world's most awesome Walgreen's on Market Street.

Of course, I instead made a left and another left, and found myself in a neighborhood that would have made my mother bless herself and have a heart attack. There were a handful of lovely restaurants and theaters along the way, but they were nestled between rundown liquor stores and boarded-up buildings, and there were pigeons absolutely everywhere. Oof. But today, I headed to the right side of the tracks, and all was well. Yay.

Other random thoughts from San Francisco:

-- I'm at a meeting where everyone pretty much knows each other, and I only knew one person when I arrived yesterday. This, coupled with my being socially inept and shy and 20 years younger than everyone else, is generally not a good thing. But at the opening reception, I somehow connected with two incredibly lovely, gregarious people who introduced me to everyone and made me feel like less of an outcast. And one of them is a year younger than me (I looked her up on Friendster last night; I know, I'm a scary stalkerish lame-o), which is amazing. I have a little bit of a crush on her, I think; she's incredibly smart and also really personable, and I was so grateful to her for not being a Mean Girl.

-- I'm shocked by how open the people who are 20 and 30 years older than I am are about their ailments and their medications and whatnot. At breakfast, one of my table-mates rationalized his eating sausage by explaining that he's on 40mg of Lipitor, and another guy busted out his ziploc bag of pills in the middle of the meeting. I've been seeing a lot of this at meetings lately -- even more than people whipping out their knitting in the middle of a session, which also seems a little inappropriate.

-- In the wake of my Friendster obsession (which had been waning until I looked up my girl crush last night), Sharico directed me to MySpace, which I think skews somewhat younger than Friendster. I didn't like it -- people's pages kind of gave me a headache, and I just can't fathom using that medium as a primary means of communication with real-life or virtual friends. But I did stumble upon a girl from my high school who'd nearly died of a heart problem in 9th grade, and one has really faced the fact that life is short.

-- My hotel provides complimentary yoga gear for the guest rooms, as well as an assortment of board games that guests can borrow, but there is not a single damn vending machine or gift shop or anything (the guest services book tells me that there's a Walgreen's up the street if I need sundries, but it's as dodgy as the Market Street Walgreen's is awe-inspiring). But they did put out Diet Coke by 10am, so they get points for that.

-- I feel glad for the Powerball winners, and I can't help but think that if the Smelmooo and I win the lottery like we plan to, people will think we're undeserving. But I think I'm okay with that.

-- I'm a big fan of taking the stairs rather than the elevator, but it's kicking my ass. I'm on the seventh floor, and every single time I come up to my room I'm winded. What is up with that? I'm in relatively good shape -- I'm no marathon runner, but I go to the gym with some regularity, and I'm not sprinting up the stairs or anything, so it's unsettling to me that I'm breathing heavily by the sixth floor.

-- I went ice skating twice this weekend, after not having been for probably eight years. I'm no Kristy Swanson (whore), and I'm not particularly graceful or elegant on the ice, but I was still sort of amazed how easily it came back, after some initial serious unsteadiness. There was this old guy lacing up at the same time we were, and we weren't sure whether to call him whimsical or crazy -- he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat -- and then all of a sudden I spotted him falling backward, cracking open the back of his head, straw hat several feet away from him, blood all over the ice, him just lying there in a heap, staring up at the ceiling. It was so awful and scary and there were like five skate guards attending to him and trying to help him off the ice. And just seconds before I'd been thinking how wimpy kids today are, wearing helmets while they ice skate. Poor old guy; I wonder if he is all alone and whether he cracked a hip or something.

-- I'm trying to stay on east coast time while I'm out here, so I was up really early and watching bad TV. Dawson's Creek was on, an episode I hadn't seen, and Katie Holmes was being such a prissy little bitch I wanted to smack her through the screen (and she was wearing a really stupid hat, to boot). And Michelle Williams was all smitten with Henry and dressed up for a Valentine's dinner with him and she looked young and adorable, a little rounder but basically the same as she does now. I feel like there should be Team Potter and Team Lindley shirts at Kitson, and I would totally buy and wear Team Lindley.

That's all I got.