Number 9

When I lived in "the city", I rode the bus...everywhere. Even though I had a car, I still rode the bus, mostly the number 9 bus that went out to the neighborhood I lived in, Vis Valley. Vis Valley, or Visitacion Valley is on the sort of on the edge of The Mission, The Excelsior and Hunterspoint/ Bayview. It's in the sunbelt of the city, which was why I liked it so much. My friend and I rented a big old house, with hard wood floors, green and purple tile in the bathroom, a huge bathtub, a scary laundry room where all the raccoons lived, and a kitchen that didn't have room for the fridge, so it had to be in the pantry.

Anyway, I would spend half my life, walking down to San Bruno, smoking a cig and waiting for the "9" bus. It was the bus that took me directly down town to the financial district where I worked. Going to work was never too bad, because I was toward the beginning of the line, so I could nearly always get a seat, but coming home, that was a whole different experience. Coming home was like entering a giant tuna can, packed to the brim, and then riding it 60 miles an hour down the freeway until it would start letting us poor prisoners off...one stop at a time.

The reason this came to me today is because of all the space I have now. I live on an acre, all of my neighbors live on at least an acre. It takes me ten minutes to drive to work. This is so different than what I've been used to most of my adult life. Commuting to work, used to take up the majority of my spare time, it was "me" time, time for me to read, listen to music, daydream.

I was flipping out today, about missing CA. Sometimes I miss it so much it's like a physical pain. This morning, my friend and I were going to go out to breakfast, and instead we went through Mickey D's drive through and went for a drive out around the lake. It sort of helped, a little. I'm feeling like a beached whale, a fish out of water.

How do I make myself really happy right now? I have so much resting on my shoulders, that I don't even have time, on most days to pee by myself.

In the ideal world, I would have a week to myself. I would go back to San Francisco, I would wander down Haight Street to El Balazo and get myself a burrito from the bitchy burrito ladies, think of them as San Francisco's version of the "Soup Nazi". If you didn't ask just right, you would not, no matter how hard you tried, get the "hot" salsa from them. Once you finally scored your burrito, the next step was to find a place to sit. My favorite place was upstairs in the "cloud" room. One of those burritos and a Corona would be enough to rejuvenate me right now I think.

I want sun in my life again, sun in the metaphorical sense.

I want the sun of a good day.

The kind of day that just opens up and takes you somewhere magical.

I want a more woman centered life.

I'm feeling too normal, to common, to ordinary.

My friend told me today that my city actually has a pretty good sized lesbian gay community, but I have yet to see it. I see people sometimes that I'm sure are gay, but it's way more hidden and underground than I'm used to.

This is something I need to explore.