A very happy Thanksgiving to all and a very happy birthday today to my sister Erica who turned 33 at 3:47 this morning. We spent the evening together over a dinner of my rendition of our dad's lime chicken and a special chocolate birthday cake that my nieces helped me make. Nicole is 11 now and Jessica, 7. Since coming home in August, I've watched in awed wonder at what amazing little people they are growing into. Jessica is playing the piano, is the most finicky eater on earth and can't get her hands on enough books to read. Nicole is rapidly becoming a teenager, is obsessed with cooking shows and makes me laugh often. They are both angels and I am thankful to be back in their lives.

We spent Thanksgiving together with old friends north of San Francisco and I reveled in the feast that was unlike any I've seen in two years. Last Thanksgiving I spent watching Kill Bill and eating tofu red curry and Laotian beef stew with sticky rice so this Thanksgiving I savored the food all the more until I slipped quietly into comfortable food coma.

Yesterday was a glorious crisp fall day and I borrowed my roommate's bike, helmet and padded biker shorts and went for a four-hour bike ride. I rode from my house, along the coast up to and across the Golden Gate Bridge and back, down to the Marina Green, back up to the bridge and home again along the coast. I used to be a real wimp on hills but it seems all those warrior poses I've been doing have toughened up my quads. San Francisco never seemed like a very bike-friendly city considering all the hills, but I'm starting to look at it like a big bike playground.

It's late. Jai heads back to India tomorrow and we'll spend his last day in San Francisco hiking in the hills for old time's sake. I will be sad to see him go but am excited to see him off into his next adventure.

Repatriation continues. Today I wonder: what does it mean to live in a city? Generally speaking, cities attract people who like action, have a zest for life and derive fulfillment from their social networks (i.e., "friends" to anyone not down with SF urban-tribe-lingo). Most of these people would probably also like to describe themselves as "spontaneous." So how is it that the life of your average city-dweller is an unceasing pre-meditated continuum of dinners, drinks, parties, meetings, outings and appointments?

"What do I want to do today?" is rarely considered and "Let me check my calendar" is the standard reply to a friend who wants to get together. "We should get together!" we say when we run into an acquaintance on the street. We should? Why's that then? I used to be the first to click the "Yes" button on an Evite but now I'm scared to even open the blasted things because I know the organizer can see that I've looked and I really don't want to come across as disinterested if I don't reply or select the non-comittal "Maybe" option (which, mind you, did not even exist only two years ago. what then??). But really! How am I supposed to know what I am going to feel like doing four Sundays from now?

A year without consulting a calendar definitely did me some good. I am starting to think that if I can't remember it, I probably might think twice about planning to do it. It's a bit of a paradox isn't it, that those of us who yearn to spend quality time with friends and do cool crazy things are not necessarily supported by the constructs of the societies in which we live. How can I throw away my PDA and say "maybe" to those far-off commitments and still have any friends left at the end it all? Anyone? Does this even sound like me? PDA consulting/phone tag playing/double-booking Allison? It doesn't sound like me to me, but I guess I've changed and am still getting to know myself...



I spent Friday night unpacking boxes and organizing the kitchen with my roommates. I could have spent the evening out as usual, I mean, it's Friday. But I will always remember that in travel, days cease to have meaning. One day slowly gives way to the next and a schedule is dictated only by the sun and your body. I'd never remember the date and usually forgot the day of week. Sure, I forgot birthdays and anniversaries (sorry everyone) but I never felt so free. Admittedly, part of me is reluctant to let that freedom go.

The real, simple truth is this. I love my friends and I'm not sure I've always done such a good job of letting them know that. Before I left to travel, I was spread so thin that the people most important to me did not necessarily know how I perceived them or our friendship. I'm trying to fix that. It takes time.

The best part of unpacking was unwrapping the few things I bought while traveling. Nearly everything had a perfect place and brought back waves of good memories and stories. I hung two strings of Tibetan prayer flags on my back porch where they're out of the sun and in the breeze all the time. I tied them with a fisherman's bend knot that Jai taught me.

I think my roommates are plotting to fatten me up. When I first interviewed for the new place, my roommate-to-be pulled out a batch of cinnamon buns. I asked her if it was a usual occurence to have sugary food laying around and without hesitation, she assured me that no, it would definitely not be laying around. Instead, as I later discovered, the Costco supersize boxes of Svenhard's danishes and candy bars are carefully hidden from view inside the food cabinet. Too bad I have X-ray vision, a keen sense of smell and the willpower God gave a puppy.



It was one of those wonderful freak, unseasonably warm weekends in San Francisco. I got my dancing fix at the Sublounge, felt oddly out of place at the 5th Annual Scorpio Ball, did yoga in the sand, made French toast at Jai's going-away brunch, and sat in a sleepy daze while slowly roasting at a birthday bonfire at Ocean Beach for danah and her fellow Sagittarians. Good times. It's Monday in the cube and hot damn, it's lunch hour!

New photos finally up from Halloween and Mary's visit. Enjoy!

Not only does the firewall at work block my personal email account rendering me virtually cut off from friends and loved ones while at the office, but the blasted ancient IBM ThinkPad T21 I am using is also rejecting my photo card reader. I even called my secret connection in IT Support but it was all for naught. I'll have to burn a CD at home and you'll all have to wait another day for these inexcusably tardy Halloween photos.

Part of San Francisco's charm is its dozens of hills that afford astonishingly varied views from all over the city. On a run the other morning, I discovered a gorgeous lookout near my house, Golden Gate Heights. From up there on that clear morning, I saw a perspective on my city I'd never seen before. Downtown and the Bay Bridge (outside the fog zone) lay to the east, Golden Gate Park and Golden Gate Bridge to the north and an incredibly close vantage point of the expansive Pacific Ocean the the west. I love my new neighborhood. The funky, friendly and foggy neighborhood of the Inner Sunset is home to one of America's best medical schools (UCSF,), a myriad of yummy, inexpensive multi-cultural restaurants, trendy boutiques and cafes, and is a stone's throw from the city's greatest playground, Golden Gate Park.

It's been a tradition since the 60s that on Sundays, thousands of bikers, rollerbladers, walkers and runners flock to the closed main drag of the park to escape whizzing traffic and city commotion for the day. Soccer, ultimate frisbee, football, rollerdancing, drumming, juggling, poi, capoeira, tai chi, swing dancing: whatever your thing, you can find people doing it in the park and feel free to join on in. One dude, the Guru of Rollerskating, David Miles, has been lugging out speakers and his funk, disco and hip-hop records to accompany his skate-dancing on a flat section of pavement in the exact same spot since the late 70s. His following has grown and now he leads dozens of skate events in San Francisco every year in addition to his Sunday tradition in the park. I took a rollerblading lesson from him a couple years ago when I was trying to impress a boy, but ended up cracking my tailbone and swearing off the bloody things. They now sit collecting dust in the garage until another rollerblading boy comes along and presents a challenge.

When I was a kid, my dad, sister and I would rent crummy old rollerskates with mismatched laces and negotiate the hills of JFK Boulevard. We'd make daisychains on the lawn of the Conservatory of Flowers and visit the science museum or the Japanese Tea Garden. A tradition that has endured longer than most any other, my weekend escape into the park continues. This past Sunday, Jai and I borrowed my roommate's bikes and rode the entire length of the park. We watched David doing his roller-thing and critiqued the swing dancers before riding all the way out to Ocean Beach and back. Dude, I love my town.

I once spent a Halloween in London. It was the fall of 1999 when I worked on assignment for BP-Amoco with my old company Scient. I remember being amused by the Brits take on Halloween and its accompanying "fancy dress"; that it's all about the kiddies donning their scariest costumes and knocking door to door for candy. I dressed as a Japanese geisha that year and explained to my friend Tony who was dressed as a green-haired bride of Frankenstein type creature that here in San Francisco, it's all about assuming a role; throwing on a costume that makes you feel and maybe act crazier, sexier, scarier, wackier, or more creative than what society might accept from you on a daily basis. I suppose it's a little like Burning Man in that way.

Mary arrived on Saturday, just in time for Halloween festivities to get under way. We fueled up for the party weekend at Dottie's True Blue Cafe, my favorite quintessential American breakfast joint complete with bottomless coffee, blueberry pancakes the size of your face and a portion of coffee cake big enough to choke a horse.

For the big night out, Mary dressed as a naughty doctor in white leather and I was a scantily-clad witch in black feathers and lace. After a few hours at the Opel party at the Gingerbread Warehouse, we headed off to the Brass Tax 4:20 Renegade Party, an annual sunrise party put on by my favorite music crew in San Francisco and easily one of the best events of the year here in SF. We shared the sunrise and nasty beats with a fantastic crew of creative, wacky types in brilliant costumes. One favorite: a salt shaker wielding a butcher knife = "Assault with a deadly weapon".

The setting of the party, a small park at the end of a long jut of land on the Bay in Hunter's Point was home to the U.S. Navy’s Radiation Defense Laboratory during WWII. The land here has remained a toxic dump site, home to the majority of San Francisco's poor black residents living in derelict housing projects, and land that officials like to consider "out of jurisdiction." Murder and street violence is everyday in this place. As a resident of Hunter's Point once said in a documentary entitled Straight Outta Hunter's Point, "We are like roaches. They have tried to shoot us. They have tried to poison us. They have contaminated our land and we are still here." It's a forgotten wasteland and an odd location for a party. Though it was free and open to all, none of the neighborhood residents awoke to join our motley crew on the dancefloor.

On election night, we shared a dinner of fresh crab from Fisherman's Wharf accompanied by steamed artichokes, sourdough bread and white wine with Jai and his roommate Mattia. We watched in stoned silence as Bush won the election. The mood here was somber. People were enraged. My sister cried at the thought of raising her daughters in America during the next four years. I voted in my first presidential election ever and ended up with a knot in my stomach. The thing is that I care more about Bush winning than I do about Kerry losing. I can't say I thought he was the best choice to replace Bush and often felt utterly woeful that he was the best candidate the Democratic party could muster to face off against the incumbent incompetent. I'm not particularly interested in politics but a friend of a friend who is wrote a brilliant blog entry here.

It's official. I'm a Nick Warren groupie. Mary and I went to see Way Out West at a club last Wednesday. Thanks to small turnout for the event and a bit of gumption, Mary and I finagled our way into the band's VIP suite to meet Nick and Jody, WOW's co-creators. Jody had been giving me the eye throughout the show and Nick fancied the pants of Mary, so with free Jack and Cokes from their suite, we were feeling quite welcome. After a long chat we walked them to their hotel with their record cases in hand, true groupie style. Nick wrote his email address with my Sharpie on a CD for Mary, I got three XXXs from Jody. Mary and I giggled like schoolgirls and went on our way, ecstatic and a bit relieved that they did not extend the invitation up to their room.

I started work yesterday at my old company, Siebel as a part-time contractor. Commuting in the rain, sitting at this desk, listening to the Indian engineers over the cubicle wall blathering away to one another in Hinglish, drinking Flavia pre-packaged Chai, I wonder if maybe it was all merely a dream. Did I ever actually leave this place? At least I've got broadband. Photos of Halloween and Mary's visit coming soon...

My dear friend Mary I met in Goa is here visiting and has extended her stay to Sunday. I've been a bit out of blogger commission during her time here because we've been up to trouble every day since she arrived. A recap of our madcap adventures coming soon...