dear cable car: my last ride home from work on you. it went well, even if i did not get my favorite spot (front, right pole.) no doubt i will miss hanging onto you for dear life as you cut through the fresh air, when i am suffocating in some homeless person’s armpit on the bus, but without your clamor outside my window, i will be able to sleep again.
dear broken promises: i can only imagine the scene where this vase was forcefully smashed against the stone wall on powell street, leaving shards of glass and dying flowers strewn across the sidewalk. was the cable car going by at that very moment?
dear pretentious neighbors: do you really think your french “no parking in our drive” sign (or whatever it says, as i don’t speak the language of my ancestors, like 99.9% of the population here) is necessary, or are you just showing off?
dear nob hill gazette: badinage and bacchanalia? seriously? i do not think your magazine represents our neighborhood’s demographics. seriously.
dear grace cathedral: you are famous for your bronze frieze front entryway– a replica of the gates of paradise– but i rather prefer the shire-like wooden doors around the back.
dear sf traffic sign wording decision makers: i’m sure this was the result of a several years’ long process of writing-by-committee, but you make it sound like vehicles have a mind of their own, they are going to “run” away from the hills, cable cars and fog.
dear dashiell hammett st: you are the latest discovery in my attempt to trod off the beaten path when walking home.
dear monday morning: it’s just another manic commute, me with all the other commuters, clomp-clomping our feet as we descend the cement mountain.
dear scaffolding: every time i walk beneath you in this earthquake-prone city, i feel like i have a death wish.
dear orange scooter riding toddler: i appreciate your truly new-age approach to journeying the labyrinth. you cleared out all the tai chi-ers in search of their sense of time, space and inner harmony.
dear bus: i am always happy not to be on you when you whiz by me, going up the crazy hills. throwing all the passengers into one another’s laps/bags of plastic bottles.
dear swings atop the hill: some nights on the way home from work, i swing in you. despite the inevitable sand in shoes.
dear tourists: now that it’s july, throngs of you have invaded san francisco in polar fleece jackets, camera straps and khaki shorts. having been raised in a coastal new england community, i am decidedly patient with your cluelessly annoying quarks. but one daily event kills me a little bit inside, everytime. when riding the cable car, and the gripman shouts, “next stop, sacramento!” you need not giggle and repeat what he just said. we are not actually going to sacramento–merely sacramento street–and from what i’ve seen, he has no interest in humoring you.
dear creepy tourist man: i took this photo of you on the sly, while you filmed me and the cabled hill ahead without shame. i wonder how many vacation photos and videos i unwillingly star in?
dear spring: you make a lot of people i know sneeze, but i am enjoying your arrival this year.
