Long Ago
This was my boyfriend when I was in South Africa. Such a long time ago. Almost 30 years. I was at a large house party he was at and I had a rip in my jeans at the knee and he touched my skin through the rip although he didn’t know me. It was a very intimate gesture. He said nothing. I said nothing. He was high at the time and I didn’t know that. I just thought he was strange.
Pretty Green
The Early Days
When I first lived in San Francisco I rented a room out in the Avenues. It was often foggy and cold and damp and miserable. For entertainment, I’d go watch double features at The Balboa. I saw The Rapture there. Mimi Rogers. David Duchovny. The movies were so inexpensive that I would go without reading what the movies were about. Throughout that film I was all, What? What is happening? Deep breath. What the fucking fuck? It was fun.To be so bewildered.
When hungry, I’d get a burrito at Gordo’s up on Clement. Eat delicious Thai food down the street. When looking to read something, I’d visit Green Apple Books which was across the vital threshold separating one part of the city from he other. There was a market up on the corner from my house. I miss having markets on the corner. There was a Catholic school nearby and you could hear the children playing at recess which was a lovely sound. I remember remarking to one of my roommates how delightful I found it. She groaned and said, “I can’t stand it.”
The red dresser on the left there was painted by my Great Uncle Joe who was my father’s uncle. He did it with car paint so it had that fabulous shiny shellac. Look at that old Mac sitting on my desk. The black and white resting screen. I think that was the fish. I still have the desk. My tiny futon bed that I got up on Geary. It just fit one person.
Me. Cat in arms. Pajamas on body. Body in bed. All good things.
Papa
Star Glass
mixed up places, mixed up gin
My dad used to travel internationally for business when I was a kid. He’d get these liquor bottles while flying KLM. He’d bring them home and my mom would line them up on the bookcase in the living room. This cute white and blue miniature street getting longer every few months, making a miniature world, sitting right next to the books placed side by side which are also in their way miniature worlds. I thought photographing these little Dutch houses against the backdrop of North Beach would be charming. Later, I looked these tiny liquor bottles up and found that not only does KLM still make these, but they keep track of them and that, of course, there’s even an app for them. Anyway, blah blah blah, I think what we have here is (from left to right) #44 which was once part of an orphanage; #16 which is the sort of house that becomes wider toward the rear; #43 which, I guess, has had a lot of work done? Looking good, #43, looking good. Then we have #12 which is, maybe, an imaginary house based on actual houses; and #63 known as Keizersgracht 407 which I looked up on Google and saw the actual house on the actual street and discovered that there’s also a lovely actual canal too. Wow.
Finding these on the internet and being able to look at the houses and “be” on the street and zoom around was wonderful fun. Sometimes I like the internet. Sometimes.
you are being watched
flower hearts
dying words
Trunk
