Rain, or rather, a perpetually falling mist. Everything is blurry. The Golden Gate Bridge is invisible, our street a white ribbon rising up and getting lost in the flat gray page of the sky behind Pacific Heights. It’s almost muggy, and the air is still, breeding insects. Last night, after the wind dropped and the temperature rose, I killed a mosquito, squashed into a red spot against the living room wall.

The closing night party for the Film Festival was on Thursday evening at the Masonic Center. We walked up the steps past an alfresco patio and bar, which I could not imagine anyone using on such a bitter night, and into the large foyer where a live jazz band played and a few tables were set up. Sticks of sate, (no sauce), a table of sushi where we were only allowed on piece each. Another table of Joseph Schmidt truffles, another with a selection of cheese. I stationed myself at the cheese table with a plate and loaded it with wheat thins smeared with supermarket brie. There, I fell into conversation with a stocky, gray haired man from Michael’s Film club, then made my way to another table, this one with handrolls. I helped myself to three, some peanut sauce, and a Calistoga. Then I wended back to Michael.

We bobbed around in the foyer as the crowd grew and the band seemed to get louder and louder. A guy I’d dated briefly before Michael appeared in the crowd with a thin long-haired girl and pretended not to see me. (If he hasn’t changed, I have no doubt that as soon as I was out of sight, he was frantically hissing at her that there was someone present he had to avoid.)

The Masonic Center can be spotted in the 1968 Steve McQueen film BULLITT, its facade with its faux-Egyptian carvings visible in a scene shot from across the street at Grace Cathedral. I’d passed it frequently, but this was my first time inside.

Film Festival parties were all about schmoozing and schnorring. Hungry filmmakers, writers, critics and other movie folk would descend upon the tables and gorge themselves (ourselves) on the free food, holding up paper plates, chewing, casting our eyes about to see what was offered, in what quantities and where it came from. Conversations were frequently interrupted by friends with bulletins about a table offering sushi/handrolls/sate/truffles/gelato/lavash/dolmades/jello shots in the other room.

The old flame I saw was a moody, good-looking Scorpio who , every time we went out, spotted some ex-girlfriend in the restaurant/movie theater. He’d spend part of the date with his head down, hiding his face with one hand like a mobster walking from a courthouse past reporters. I haven’t seen him in years, either because he’s moved from The City or because he finally cut such a wide swath through Bay Area women that he can no longer go out at all.