WEST in FEBRUARY : San Francisco

The ladies we'll be staying with in Palo Alto are super nice, all doctors, all cute and trendy. Meghan is an artist at heart, it shows on the pieces that flood her walls. Casey lives in Anchorage, Alaska, and it took her a whole day of zig-zaggy travel to get here. Weronika, who practices in Memphis, walked up to me and hugged me as though we were already best friends, and it seemed to happen even quicker than that. She would be joining Hannah and I from here to Big Sur and Los Angeles, and I think we lucked out. She has so much jazz inside her it's bursting from her enormous peacock tattoo. I talked to Weston when we arrived and didn't tell him that I would be sending him a postcard from every city I stop in. I'm headed in to San Francisco now finally, on the Caltrain to meet Connor and Anders for dinner and drinks. Cannot wait to be in the city, but it's nice to have this quiet moment to breathe, listen to Ray, and stare out the window.

Connor made a delicious butterfly chicken with potatoes and carrots and Anders made an olive tampenade. I drank Sierra Nevadas at the kitchen table and kept the conversation going. Connor critiqued me as I washed the dishes, and I realized that some friendships never change. We took a shot of whiskey and went out in Lower Haight. We walked past a girl climbing out of a taxi with her friend and she could not walk - and it wasn't just because of her 6 inch heels. She had obviously had 18x the amount of whiskey that I had. I walked her towards the motel that her friend seemed to be headed towards, and she stopped to hold onto a car in the parking lot, and proceeded to urinate like a racehorse, right down on the pavement, standing up, and a good portion of it got on my shoe. I finally got her over to the door where her friend stood, and was offered $20 for my trouble. I should have taken it, if only to get my shoes cleaned. I fell asleep in a vent-induced-memory haze.

In the morning we walked to California Street down Clement, passed Asian grocery stories and I bought two fish for Mary Beth and David. I hugged them very hard because I was late and hopped on the California 1. A drive with Mary Beth to Sausalito over the coolest bridge on the planet - goosebumps galore, and brunch at the restaurant we always eat at overlooking the bay with its sailboats and it's sunny sea air. I decided I'd buy one of the houses on the hill here when I finally write the next Great American Novel. I told Mary Beth everything about my life between bites of eggs Benedict, and she said she has a good feeling about it all. I do too. Then we stopped at the Pirate Supply Store which greatly exceeded my expectations. I wanted to stay forever - and MB was proud to know me. I feel like part of a community with 826 and I think I might have to always live in a city that has one. Or open one wherever I go. Bought messages in a bottle and postcards from the Mighty Pacific and Pine Needle Scurvy Tea.

The Bubble Lounge was closed but that brought me to the best bar I've ever been to : Vesuvio. Squished right next to City Lights Bookstore, it had the perfect atmosphere, the perfect crowd, the perfect music - CCR and CSNY and all that jazz. I felt like there were conversations in this bar that would make things happen in the world. Kerouac drank here. Vonnegut drank here. I drank here.

Lucy and I met at City Lights and I bought a postcard. We ate at her favorite Chinese restaurant in North Beach, and a Chinese New Year parade came in - dragon, fireworks and all, and we sipped flower tea and caught up on the last 6 years of our lives. I had forgotten how much I like her. I had forgotten how much we have in common. Free spirits just like our parents. Artists, thinkers. Hannah told me that she thought that even if we weren't step-sisters, Lucy and I would definitely be good friends. She walked me down to the wharf after we said hi to Mossimo the cat - her read hair flowing under her black stocking cap. She's gorgeous, and so easy to talk to.