Without much input, I’ve been reassigned to a previously occupied 2nd-story corner apartment. It’s not bad actually, though adjusting is a little odd. It’s so unlike anywhere I’ve lived, yet oddly so close — just a building over and a floor down.
I explore how it feels by walking around the chain of rooms, as the place is laid out on a loop. Some of the rooms are still set up with generic prop housewares as if for a real estate listing. I get a strong feeling of fondness here, unexpected acceptence of the new situation. It’s in things like discovering the single long, high bookshelf running across the series of front rooms, already stocked (by whoever lived here last) with good and interesting bond. I feel the same way when I gaze up to the highest part of the ceiling, a peaked triangular glass double window showing gauzy windows to an upper floor mezzanine and abundant houseplants.
The front door is inset from the 90° wraparound walkway outside, so people frequently cut through my little doorway alcove — I sometimes open the door and startle someone walking past. The view is just different enough to be mildly disorienting, almost refreshing at the same time.
Yet, while I look, I see workers from the city chopping parts of a tall tree in the street. There’s some new ordinance or decision, and public lighting can no longer use natural supports — either a lawsuit or some natural preservation thing. So the tree on the sidewalk just outside, the one that the community rigged up themselves, is now having many branches cut out because it’s the fastest way to meet the ordinance. It’s regrettable.
I hear the San Francisco noon siren for the first time in many years. It’s instantly recognizable, but there’s some kind of muffled announcement afterwards. I take it there’s some kind of provocative race angle in it? Something about “the Chinese”? So I’m a bit disappointed, obviously. But I should mention, for the record, that today actually is Tuesday, and I actually was asleep around noon when this would’ve happened.
I find out about a term Google has for a category of tool, from a “lake of hammers”, a colorful metaphor. The manager I’m talking to claims it isn’t fun to say, which I happen to disagree with. Lake of Hammers.
I am surprised to see that the Amanitas mushrooms I forgot about have actually ripened over time. They’re a pleasantly shiny smooth purple on each end, both cap and root.
My wife and I are walking down Market St, and as we cross the crosswalk aggressive sports cars cut close around us. Later we’re riding scooter together up Market when the bike falls over at an intersection. I take a shortcut through a college campus. Only halfway down, where I thought there were ramps, instead there are concrete stairs. Bullshit non accessible bullshit. Instead I exit out through a side door, passing by a plaque memorializing and praising an Italian design course or academy.