juliana, there's a piece on North Beach in today's Salon, I thought of you. Though it's more a nostalgic thing.

juliana, there's a piece on North Beach in today's Salon, I thought of you. Though it's more a nostalgic thing.

Thank you very much for pointing it out! I will have to print it for my neighborhood friends. I especially love this line:

All the North Beach stories stagger down to the cross-eyed shitfaced sea, and I put in my hand and bring out whatever I can find.

Oh gods, and then this just killed me:

We know the pot of gold is bogus, but we still keep going there. We've been doing it for years -- as young men, not so young men and now not young men at all. We keep heading to North Beach, keep turning left on Churchill Alley out of the Broadway tunnel, even though in those 30 years we have never yet once hit the jackpot, felt the supreme high, made the scene, danced the dance, met the chick, seen the best minds of our generation doing anything, let alone walking through the Negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.

But it doesn't matter. There's always next time. And when you finally begin to understand that there ain't going to be no next time, that this is it, that's OK. You don't need North Beach to give up its secrets because you know them all. Because you're on the corner of Grant and Green in this sad old Italian valley beneath its two guardian hills looking down like kindly old paisans, and the waves are lapping down at Aquatic Park to the north and the filthy numberless alleys of Chinatown lurk to the south, and the glasses in every bar are full and Broadway is stupid jammed with John Dos Passos sailors and the Palmistry sign is reflected in the upper windows of Vesuvio and the parrots are flying above Washington Square and the Mason Street cable car rattle-clatters onto Columbus and you're at the dead center of town, the bull's-eye, where you've been a thousand times before and where you will always return, where you left your heart, and where you found it.

(edited to close italic - Liese)

Dinna mean to kill the thread with North Beach talk. Come back!

I was just absorbing the ambience created by the article, juliana. Not dead, just being reflective. While North Beach may have those things that make it distinctive, I think we all have feelings for various locations that are very similar. And it makes me kind of sad that I don't have a place that I feel that way about anymore.

Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

I have a problem with Kimi Rikkonnen going to Ferrari. I like Kimi, hate Ferrari, like McLaren, hate Michael Schumacher.

I was eating lunch. (Quesadilla that got overly-greasy because I wasn't careful enough about the oil temperature.) Trader Joe's Southwest Salsa (with Jicama) is so yummy.

Just got back from the doc. My anemia appears to be staying at bay. But my B12 levels are low, so monthly shots. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee fun.

North Beach goodness.

I have a problem with Kimi Rikkonnen going to Ferrari. I like Kimi, hate Ferrari, like McLaren, hate Michael Schumacher.

::sniffsniff:: Megan, I had no idea! t Makes out with Megan

One of us!

One of us!

One of us!

One of us!

One of us!

One of us!

One of us!

Day two of diet. Send chocolate. Otherwise, will have to cut a bitch.

Have already eaten pronouns.