Am still on New York time, it seems. Otherwise there is no excuse for waking up on Sunday morning well before the dawn's early light hits San Francisco and reflects off the enormous red & white broadcast tower on Twin Peaks so that it suddenly looks like it is standing right alongside the steeple of Mission Dolores when in fact they are miles removed from each other.
And just like yesterday, I have this hyperactive urge to be out of the house and breathing in the local air along with the local sights at an hour when the streets are largely empty both of cars and people.
Emerging from Spencer Alley onto 16th Street I feel excited to discover exactly what particular articles of crap have been abandoned on the sidewalk during the night.
And this morning, in an area that I already know very well, I seem to see all kinds of lettering that never managed to engage my eye under any other conditions. Coming home from a trip can, it turns out, be just as stimulating as going away.
Vintage street cars on Market are clanking along reliably, but with next to no passengers. Just before I left on my trip these street cars made the front pages of the local papers when one of them rammed an SUV from behind and shoved it into the back of another street car at an intersection in the Castro. As far as I could tell, they did not appear to be in a dangerous mood today.
The floral tributes above are arranged against the door of one of the many empty and abandoned churches owned by the fabulously wealthy and ultra-conservative Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco (lead sponsor of any and all anti-gay legislation). Some of the properties are earthquake-damaged, others too sparsely attended to justify their upkeep, but since they are not taxed the course of least resistance for the Church is to let them rot.