I was sequestered two and a half months in my apartment and neighborhood on a San Francisco hill without car or bus service. I had groceries and restaurant meals delivered. When it became obvious things wouldn't go back to normal soon, if ever, I bought a car.
Journal entry: 21 May 2020
Yesterday was my first extensive tour of the city since the March 17 stay-at-home order. It's pretty grim: businesses boarded up with some attempts at art --- "You're doing good!" says the cartoon bear on the boards at Club Moderne (Taylor & Bush; where the Yong Sang used to be). Other art looked like graffiti but I didn't have time to peruse since I was driving, not riding a bus.
Outside of open restaurants stood masked figures who seemed more scattered than appropriately spaced and who were barred from entering by whatever device ---table, counter, chairs --- the establishment used to effect an obstacle. None of the excluded people were well-dressed nor were expected to be. Before, they would have been overshadowed by strutting peacocks, clothes horses and the merely beautiful. Now, grim and gritty under the harsh light of a May day.
Maybe 20% of the population was out and of them many wore some sort of masking device ---scarves, proper non-medical masks, but those who didn't appeared defiant to my eyes, or clueless. One couple in their thirties was crossing Union Street at Franklin and seemed amused at the blue dust mask covering my mouth in the cab of my car. They were out for a stroll with no covering device I could see and thinking, possibly, "I'm okay and you're shit." But of the unmasked a set-upon defiance seemed to be the attitude. The woman crossing Sutter at Larkin had a backpack from which a yellow-tipped stick poked. Forty or fifty years of age, brown frizzy hair, and going who knows where.
A new place opened on the corner of 18th and Collingsworth in the Castro. It's sign read, "El Capitan," a new burrito place where my old favorite, Zapata, used to be. Too bad the landlord wouldn't give Zapata more than a year's lease, causing them to close. My new go-to burrito place, before stay-at-home, is still open I discover. I don't even know its name, but it's across from the Safeway on Church Street and Market near 14th. An impulse told me to stop and patronize them but I checked it: unnecessary exposure is not in order.
Driving around the city was easy now most Ubers were off the street (and stay-at-home, of course). We are allowed to go out for essentials. Construction of a certain kind is deemed essential, and around my neighborhood the sound of sawing, slamming and whatever, have picked up. At Ceasar Chavez and Valencia, the huge old St. Luke's hospital, twenty floors?, is being demolished, a wonder to see: exposed rooms stripped of their walls, reminding me of buildings in Mexico City after the 1985 earthquake.
Some things are as usual: a guy in a wheelchair propelling himself with his feet at Church and Dolores. People are out and about but far from the typical numbers and not at the same time, I guess. Yeah, but those boarded shops aren't coming back soon, nor will the strutting peacocks, the clothes horses or the merely beautiful.
Journal entry: 21 May 2020
Yesterday was my first extensive tour of the city since the March 17 stay-at-home order. It's pretty grim: businesses boarded up with some attempts at art --- "You're doing good!" says the cartoon bear on the boards at Club Moderne (Taylor & Bush; where the Yong Sang used to be). Other art looked like graffiti but I didn't have time to peruse since I was driving, not riding a bus.
Outside of open restaurants stood masked figures who seemed more scattered than appropriately spaced and who were barred from entering by whatever device ---table, counter, chairs --- the establishment used to effect an obstacle. None of the excluded people were well-dressed nor were expected to be. Before, they would have been overshadowed by strutting peacocks, clothes horses and the merely beautiful. Now, grim and gritty under the harsh light of a May day.
Maybe 20% of the population was out and of them many wore some sort of masking device ---scarves, proper non-medical masks, but those who didn't appeared defiant to my eyes, or clueless. One couple in their thirties was crossing Union Street at Franklin and seemed amused at the blue dust mask covering my mouth in the cab of my car. They were out for a stroll with no covering device I could see and thinking, possibly, "I'm okay and you're shit." But of the unmasked a set-upon defiance seemed to be the attitude. The woman crossing Sutter at Larkin had a backpack from which a yellow-tipped stick poked. Forty or fifty years of age, brown frizzy hair, and going who knows where.
A new place opened on the corner of 18th and Collingsworth in the Castro. It's sign read, "El Capitan," a new burrito place where my old favorite, Zapata, used to be. Too bad the landlord wouldn't give Zapata more than a year's lease, causing them to close. My new go-to burrito place, before stay-at-home, is still open I discover. I don't even know its name, but it's across from the Safeway on Church Street and Market near 14th. An impulse told me to stop and patronize them but I checked it: unnecessary exposure is not in order.
Driving around the city was easy now most Ubers were off the street (and stay-at-home, of course). We are allowed to go out for essentials. Construction of a certain kind is deemed essential, and around my neighborhood the sound of sawing, slamming and whatever, have picked up. At Ceasar Chavez and Valencia, the huge old St. Luke's hospital, twenty floors?, is being demolished, a wonder to see: exposed rooms stripped of their walls, reminding me of buildings in Mexico City after the 1985 earthquake.
Some things are as usual: a guy in a wheelchair propelling himself with his feet at Church and Dolores. People are out and about but far from the typical numbers and not at the same time, I guess. Yeah, but those boarded shops aren't coming back soon, nor will the strutting peacocks, the clothes horses or the merely beautiful.
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