If You're Going to San Francisco

My sweetheart is a hippie girl and a high-tech geek. She's an earthquake survivor, a flower child, a dot-com pioneer, and a muse for a generation of beatniks. She bikes to work, buys organic, and organizes rallies to legalize same-sex marriage. She has a wild streak too. If you stumble into one of the local strip clubs, she'll give you an unforgettable lap dance that leaves you breathless (and penniless). The last time she met Tony Bennett, she captured his heart instantly. He still publicly serenades her every chance he gets. If I could, I would tuck her in every night, but she's roughly 46 square miles, way too big for my arms' reaches.

My beloved is San Francisco, the City by the Bay. If you've ever seen the way she rests her head on one end of the Golden Gate Bridge and snuggles under a blanket of fog, you'll lose your heart to her too.

Two weeks ago, Tango Baby, a local blogger, emailed me about her project called I Live Here: SF, a photo gallery featuring San Franciscans and their stories. Would I meet her on the opposite side of her camera's lens, she asked. Sure, I'm game, I told her.

We met in Cafe Puccini, one of my favorite Bohemian retreats on Columbus Avenue. Here, in the heart of vintage San Francisco, where China Town meets North Beach, she put her talent to work.

We climbed up to the attic of City Lights Books, following the visceral turns in a flight of stairs, to be greeted by a stack of Allen Ginsberg's Howl. As I hugged an oversize poetry book, Tango Baby's shutter flickered.

The result of the photoshoot is my humble tribute to the city I call home, my love letter to San Francisco.

By the time we were done, the city was twinkling with a million bright lights, outshining the starry sky. My new photographer friend and I gave in to the temptation of fresh pasta and crispy calamari.

When we finally got ready to part ways, we discovered we actually live about six blocks away from each other. As we rode the train home together, I could almost hear the city giggling.

My sweetheart has a wondeful sense of humor.

(Photo by Tango Baby.)