Tuesday night was the Independent View party at KQED. After work at DS I took the Hayes all the way down to Market Street and got off near Fifth, intending to catch the 21 Bryant, which would let me off almost in front of KQEDS. I hate waiting for a bus, even when I have a book to read. My usual strategy is to walk along the bus route, periodically checking to see if it’s coming so I can hurry forward or double back to the bus stop. I walked to the stop near Fifth and Tehama. No sign of it. I walked another two blocks down to the next one. Still no sign. I walked

I had returned to my old neighborhood. The 21 was what I used to take back when I lived on Tehama with Tim. The neighborhood hasn’t changed much. There is still tht bare, backstage feel, still the mural of the beach on Bill Graham’s old building. The parking lot I used to cut through when I walked donw to the M&M for a sandwich is now fenced in. I can remeber the old parking lot attendant who used to work there telling me about seeing the concrete of the lot swell like a tide during the ’89 quake. We’d felt the house on Tehama rise and fall as if a giant had picked it up a couple of feet and dropped it.

So I walked, and walked, down Harrison past the End Up (visiting there one night with Scott Winnett, who stood beside me and made catty remarks about everyone’s clothes. The decor had reminded me of Rock City, a cheesy amusement park I used to visit in Lockout Mountain, which featured colored lights and plastic fairies stuck to cavern walls.) Past the Line Up (eating there with Michael and seeing a roach rise out of my salad, its antennae waving.) Down towards Eleventh Street (riding my bicycle to and from China Basin and my loft on Minna), down to the 16th Street Safeway… A bus didn’t show up until then. I was more than halfway to KQED. The bus was packed and I had to squeeze myself on. It wasn’t until I popped out at Mariposa that I realized Michael was on it too.