I. Rose in the Foyer

The house was distinguished from its neighbors chiefly by a blue-and-orange paint job that at least one resident – an attorney who lived on the corner – called “indefensible.” This is what the landlady told Rachel and Graham as the three stood in the foyer they would all share.
Those are my [...]

Is there some numerological, cabalistic lore the city consults in naming San Francisco’s bus lines? I’ve never really tried to divine whether there’s any logic to it; there probably is, and it’s no doubt disappointingly quotidian, so I prefer to think of the various bus designations as separate states of mind: there’s the stalwart, straight-line [...]

I sat on the edge of my seat as the streetcar clamored along the rails, my hands cupped under my legs while I gazed through the windows, awe-struck.  There were men everywhere. Men like me. Real men, walking too close together for Nebraska, some holding hands, some with their arms hooked around each other, others [...]

Hurricane Hazel and I arrived in the cool gray city of love on Thanksgiving day, only to find a surly slacker in our bed. Our host Dirk was a sweet pushover for lost souls–including newcomers like us, you understand–but the Gen-X whiner-dude occupying our room was not only obnoxious, but also singularly unattractive. His [...]