Bay Wolf

From the window of my school bus, I saw people (grown-ups!) ripping up asphalt from the park with their bare hands. It was 1971 and we were stopped (impeded by protesters) at People’s Park on Dwight Way. In my mind, I stood solidly with the people, hoping they would prevail against The Man. I’d decided a few years before which side I was on, when the National Guard helicopters circled above our house and the Alameda County sheriffs opened fire on Berkeley protesters (killing one and blinding another). I checked to see if my hair had reached my shoulders yet. I ...

Duende

Fran broke my heart just by showing up. You see, I was hopelessly, tragically in love with Robbie. I spent my days dreaming of impressing him. I had hero fantasies involving me pulling people from burning car wrecks and saving lives by deftly administering first aid on the scene while Robbie watched from the sidelines, impressed by my 14 year old medical prowess. In my mind I was the girl in the field in that Andrew Wyeth painting, crawling towards Robbie instead of a farmhouse, felled not by polio but by the devastating effects of true love. My situation was perilous. So ...

Mua

I can't swing a dead cat in this town without hitting someone I've dated. Ok, that may be an exaggeration, but living in the same place for more than fifty years is a heck of a thing. You live with your past. For instance, you may think that Mua is at Webster and Broadway, but to me it's that place across from God's Gym, which is the place run by that bodybuilder I used to know about in the space that used to be World Exercise Equipment store where my friend worked and I hung out a lot back in the ...

Roy’s

They don't think I'm a bitch in New York City. My propensity for speaking directly and not wasting time with meaningless pleasantries about the weather doesn't count against me there at all. It's appreciated. New Yorkers, in my experience, tend to be efficient in their approach to most things. I love it there. It's my spiritual home. There is a sense that no one has time to waste. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the service in New York restaurants. It is, in a word, professional. And while we have food in Northern California that rivals New York in terms of ...