Moving: From the Park to the 'Hood

I'll be moving next weekend from foggy, quiet, parkside Inner Sunset to newly-chic but still-a-bit-seedy Hayes Valley. After living in what some of my Mission-centric friends might consider the suburbs of SF for the last five years, it will be a new urban-dwelling experience for me to be right in the middle of it all. My new street, Fell, is one of the major westbound arteries through town, running along the edge of Golden Gate Park's panhandle, smack next to where I grew up as a child in The Haight. Since then, I've lived in the Outer Richmond (a former sand-dune where my father lived for 14 years and where I resettled during the dot-com boom) and Noe Valley (where lesbian couples go to buy homes, walk dogs and push adopted/artificial-insemination-produced babies in strollers). Damn. My friends may be right.

Spent most of the weekend packing, cleaning, organizing and getting rid of excessive crap I've been schlepping around for years. Some of it's difficult to face; boxes of negatives, slides and contact sheets from my father's 30-year career as a photographer, my mother's antique breakfast-in-bed set, and the giant box of clothes and camping gear Jai left when he went back to India. My new minimalistic approach to things belies my sentimental attachment to tangible memories.


The long weekend (alright, who am I kidding... all my weekends are long weekends) also afforded me enough fun and enjoyment to keep some balance and sanity in my life. Took a kick-ass yoga class at the Yoga Tree for some home-practice inspiration. Saturday I went to the Pancake Playhouse party where the blacklight made me glow in hues of yellow and white and I greeted the new day with good friends, blueberry pancakes and soft rock hits of the 80s. Afterwards, my friend Mattia and I drove to the Marin Headlands to watch the sunrise over the Golden Gate Bridge and city skyline.

I'd put a photo here, but I've yet to replace my lost camera due to the fact that I can't bear to do the research. Anyone have recommendations for a small, 5 megapixel digital camera with good manual settings?