In 1989, prompted by a posting on a bulletin board at the San Francisco Art Institute where we were working on our masters degrees, my friend Scot and I rented a studio space on the moth-balled naval shipyard at Hunters Point. It was perfect for two idealistic young painters: big and drafty with thirty-foot ceilings [...]

My body slants under the weight of flash bulbs resting against my hip. The man from table nine exits the men’s room and grabs my free arm.
“How about another celery champagne for my lady?” he asks and points to his regular table near the band.
He has never seen me with a tray in my hand, [...]

Do you ever need to get out of town?  Not because you’ve been banished for, say, tying a police officer to a bear and throwing them in a canal, but just because you desperately need to go?  When I feel this way, I have a kind of physical reaction.  The back of my throat swells [...]