"Yes everyone needs someplace beautiful"

I want to paint a picture of California.
The past weeks have been a whirlwind. I've gotten in lots of quality time with my new Stanford friends. Sunday was dinner and a movie, Tuesday was a concert. We went to see Joey Ryan, the one who sings, "California California." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS4ceXqjvy4

He’s a great live artist with a really rich voice and beautiful lyrics. Anna said it was giving her chills and I agreed. It's one of those songs that really enhances my sense of place. There were poems that did that for me in Washington and this song has done that for California. "San Francisco San Francisco, your red bridge over the sea, keeps me safe and warm and free." It's amazing how art can facilitate your bond with a landscape.

Anna and I were joking about liking him so much we wanted to bathe in his singer sweat-don’t ask. It turns out he's friends with Rainer so after he played, Rainer told him and he came over and said hi and asked me very seriously what "singer sweat" was. When I tried to explain myself Rainer cut in and said to him, "It's just because you are engaged." Thanks Rainer, I love to be the queen of awkward.

Thursday night we went to the Roller Disco. That involved gold lamé tights, afros, disco music, Jameson and roller skates. I think I broke my butt bone, pinky and wrists and it wasn’t because I was falling down, it was because everyone else was falling onto me. At one point I even bonked heads with one of the guys I was skate/dancing with.
At these events I met friends of Rainer and Peter's, a group of guys who know Rainer from high school (they all grew up in the city) and one of the guys Blake had a house party Saturday night.

His parents kept their San Francisco house and moved south so he and his three best friends live in a four story mansion in Laurel Heights which is perched high up above the fragrant Eucalyptus trees in the Presidio and to the other side, above Golden Gate Park. This house was to die for. The doors had beautiful paisley printed screens hanging from them, the ceiling had circular crown molding and paintings of birds on the inside like the Louvre. The carpets were plush and beautiful as were the sofas and chairs. They had a grand piano and a lovely bathroom with a chaise lounge and mirrors on every wall. I couldn't help it, I had to sit on the chaise lounge and pretend I was looking in on the set of a Vogue fashion show, set in some elaborately decorated mansion.

The granite island in the kitchen was almost the size of my entire studio. The top two floors hold bedrooms and the top room is a viewing room with windows all on one side. At night we could see the lights of the city below. In the basement they had hired a DJ and had a dance floor, a foosball table and a pool table. I stayed out dancing with strangers until four in the morning. At one point my foosball partner and I decided to try to scale the fence and jump into the “foliage jungle” below. We were unsuccessful on account of some evil rosebushes and perhaps not enough heart.

Most of the people there went to Duke together but some of them went to Berkeley or U Penn. Now I not only have a midget/ napoleon complex to contend with but I'm developing a non ivy-league/near ivy-leaugue complex...It was a really fun group of people though. The next day Blake invited me back over for a brunch feast. One of the guys, Oliver is an amazing chef and he made spinach and mushroom frittata, asparagus and potatoes, peach and raspberry bread pudding and tons of other unbelievably flavorful dishes. We drank mimosas and sat on the lounge chairs on the porch. The sky was bright blue and cloudless. By day we had an unobstructed view to the bright red golden gate bridge, the turquoise waters of the bay with the white foam marks of sailboats and wind surfers. Behind the bridge, the hills of Marin are turning brown with summer. Even this is lovely because the contours of the hills stand out in different shades of brown, geometrically like a Picasso painting. The trees are still lush green. The brown hills and green trees are quintissential California summer. We even looked through the telescope at all the kite gliders and windsurfers skittering across the water.

Speaking of beauty, back to Thursday night I was taking a cab across the city to the Mission to borrow some disco clothes from my friend Jaime. The sky was blue with pink clouds in big patchy splotches like Vanilla Sky, with architectural beauties reaching up in white contrast. As I got to the mission the landscape changed. There are more palm trees, the beautiful people walking by are more exotic and dark- skinned, the restaurants more ethnic; there is just more of a salsa-soul feel.

Then there are the peirs down on the bay where I play soccer. From here you can look up to Northbeach and Telegraph hill where the Coit tower’s Greek, arched windows glow yellow and illuminate the white of the tower against the dark sky.

And here in Nob Hill, when I wake up the dappled light streams in through the thick leaves of the cumquat tree and lines the hardwood floor with patterned reflections of the window. Birds preen themselves on nearby branches- accustomed to me. The orange cumquats are fragrant and their scent drifts in to me on a light breeze. It is wonderful. And if you’ve read this far I hope this makes you want to come visit.