The view at the entrance to Spencer Alley in San Francisco early on Saturday morning (abandoned Christmas tree in foreground). Because there is a lot to do today and because the Safeway at Church and Market is a madhouse during peak hours on the weekends, I decided to get grocery shopping out of the way in the foggy dawn when hardly any other residents of the Mission had risen yet from their warm beds.
The walk to the supermarket took me past Aardvark Books, where the inhabitants of the front windows were just beginning to prepare to surrender the independent nocturnal life that belongs to them when the store is closed.
An abundance of negative energy beams out from the notices and admonitions plastered all around the store's entrance. I like this. The reactionary vehemence of committed readers is a welcome alternative to the numbingly bland, smiley-face ethos that prevails at most other levels of Northern California culture.
With my head full of glossy dust jackets, I barely noticed the grossness of the Safeway and zipped in and out quite painlessly.