Union Square and Armistead Maupin

Life has been skipping along in San Francisco. Where do I start?

First, let me make a note about literary presumption. Armistead Maupin starting penning the wonderful "Tales of the City" series as a serial in The San Francisco Chronicle in 1976, 200 years after San Francisco was founded. He is one of my heroes and is one of many reasons for my pilgrimage. TOTC is a collection of 8 books that span thirty-five years, starting in the heady, libertine 1970's focusing on a mish-mash cast of characters and their ways of surviving in this aquatic town. Throughout his warm dialogue, he weaves in sub-plots of mystery and suspense but his signature technique is placing together two very different characters in an oddball San Francisco setting and seeing what happens. The result is often magic.

The reason I bring this up is that I've assumed my readers know all of this already. Do me a favor and pick up the collection. You won't regret it.

I'm big on synchronicity. My first night in Eric and Richard's guest bedroom I spotted a copy of Maupin's latest, "Mary Ann in Autumn." I was smitten because I thought Armistead's last work was "Michael Tolliver Lives." Mary Ann has wonderful references in line with 2010 (the year of its release) like Proposition 8, Facebook, boi slang, etc. and one of his characters visited Pier 39 to hang with the sea lions on the exact same day that I did! Or rather I read about the character's pit stop the exact day that I experienced it. Out of the hundreds of SF attractions, I took this as a good sign. There are several other instances of synchronicity in this city that keeps churning out surprises. But let's move on to the tourism section of my blog...

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After an apartment viewing near Haight-Ashbury where I discovered one of my roommates would be a boa constrictor, I had nearly abandoned all hope. The bedroom windows of said place would not open and lack of ventilation was the other suffocating dealbreaker! Since then, my luck has changed and new apartments keep coming into view. I'll do a rundown of the neighborhoods tomorrow. For now enjoy this clip of Union Square in downtown.





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