Driving home on the freeway yesterday I eased on the brakes on the winding downhill connection between Highway 1 and the 280 because of all the flashing police lights stopping traffic from taking the freeway entrance onto the Southbound side. As I continued past I could see police lights flashing on the other entrance across […]
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************************ I wrote this essay a few years ago when I started to realize that wildfires were going to become a norm every fall in California. I saw the PBS documentary, “Leave It To Beavers” when it came out and I’ve been obsessed with getting the word out about how much they could help to […]
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I knew the virus was coming for us. It started in China in 2019 and by February 2020 it was in Europe. Italy and Spain were completely in lockdown. Public health officials kept warning that San Francisco was two weeks behind Italy. In two weeks we would have more sick and dying than Italy if […]
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Every year in San Francisco there is an “Escape From Alcatraz” triathlon. The athletes start on Alcatraz island and swim 1.4 miles in the bay’s icy waters until they reach a beach in the Marina District where a crowd of on lookers form a runway of receiving lines that the swimmers run through high fiving […]
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This Fall, when the water temperature dropped suddenly, I went to go buy my usual 5/4 (stands for 5 and 4 mm thick) hooded wetsuit from my favorite wetsuit company. I scrolled through the women’s section and became panicky when I couldn’t find any hooded 5/4 suits for women, just men. Having a great winter […]
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James was a bartender at the restaurant where I worked as a dishwasher and line cook. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. He was like a sculpture or a model. He was the only person I had ever met that actually worked out in a gym and was compulsively healthy, always […]
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I was still a teenager, maybe 18, when I was living in San Francisco in a large Victorian flat on the third floor. My roommates were all adults in their 30’s and all except one were lesbians that were cool and powerful and fixed their motorbikes on the sidewalk downstairs. I was very intimidated by […]
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I went to move my truck for street cleaning this morning a little before nine. In my peripheral vision I saw what seemed to be a homeless lady that was maybe a little bit nutty, walking towards me in a pretty rose colored short bathrobe and white slippers. Well those aren’t going to stay clean […]
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Last week Britt and I went to a wedding. It was a quintessentially American wedding in that it joined two people, with two different cultures and heritages together. At this wedding a first generation Chinese/Vietnamese American bride was marrying an Irishman that had only just arrived here a few years ago. Speaking with a strong […]
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First of all, I hate crowds so I really can’t stand crowded yoga classes. But I’m really trying to do two yoga classes a week because it calms my mind, makes me more focused and reduces sports injuries. So today, since I hadn’t done my second yoga class, I forced myself to go to a […]
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So my cheap landlord hired a grifting contractor that has suddenly found a thousand things that have to get done with our apartment. The contractor decided that he needed to fix our bathroom subfloor around our toilet even though we’ve never had our toilet leak before. He casually informed my husband that they’d be doing […]
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On New Year’s Day, my husband Britt and I drove our dogs out to San Francisco’s Ocean Beach. We parked next to a guy that was about to go surf the jumbly, stormy waves. Out of the back of his truck he pulled out an orange soft top board. Britt and I exchanged eye rolls. […]
Read more »A couple of years ago, outside of my apartment, a pigeon flew past me frantically flapping his wings but barely being able to fly higher than about my shoulder. A pink plastic bag was attached to his foot. With each attempt to fly, just as he was becoming airborne, the bag would fill with air […]
Read more »I saw this dad walking along Valencia street one morning. The giant toddler he was carrying was actually bigger than I drew him because I thought it would look like I was exaggerating. I don’t know if the dad was short or the toddler had exceptionally long legs but I swear to god his legs […]
Read more »I woke up to an orange sky and a heavy brown haze hanging over the city. Smoke from a fire a few hundred miles away was pressing down on San Francisco. For the second year in a row I dawned my dust mask every time I left the house and a coating of ash settled […]
Read more »Remember back in the 80’s when we’d settle around the TV to watch Miami Vice on a Saturday night and every time there was a drug dealer on there’d also be ferociously barking Rottweilers and German Shepherds? And everyone was like, omg, Rotweilers and German Shepherds are so scary, only drug dealers have them! Well […]
Read more »I took a walk early one morning in a nice neighborhood up the hill from mine. Half way through, I came upon two crows eating a rat. Of course I was totally grossed out but also worried because maybe the rat had been poisoned.
Read more »A few years ago an historically huge swell hit the Bay Area. It was too massive for us to surf anywhere but Britt and I wanted to witness it. We drove along the coast oohing and aahing as giant mountains of water collapsed and rolled over on themselves, exploding into the shallower water inside. Highway […]
Read more »I finally figured out this spring how to successfully launch a white fly eating brigade of ladybugs successfully into my garden. Every year I used to try to use ladybugs to kill bugs but it was never effective. Then a nice gal at my local hardware store gave me these tips and they worked! Here […]
Read more »A guy on a motorcycle passed me yesterday by driving around me on the wrong side of the road. I glanced over at him and saw the he was wearing a helmet, a leather jacket and flip flops. The flip flops made me cringe. My mind flashed back to the motorcycle accident that happened outside […]
Read more »Last week there was a break in the incessant wind and fog of spring on the coast. The sun came out and the surf calmed down at my favorite beach. It was a Tuesday so the beach was empty. The dogs and I were the only ones that saw the big grey whale surface just […]
Read more »I recently witnessed the greatest moment of work rebellion ever. You know when you’re at work and you’re like, “No one’s the boss of me. You may have my physical body for the next 8 hours, but you can’t have my mind.” ? It was basically that sentiment being acted out with a six wheel […]
Read more »I’ve had a dream of growing grass in my mud pit of a backyard ever since I got my big, glorious dog Jasmine. Her two favorite things to do are relaxing and luxuriating and relaxing and luxuriating on grass. So this September I dug out all the useless clay soil around my patio and replaced […]
Read more »One morning last year, I got up before dawn to move my truck so I wouldn’t get a street cleaning ticket. I swung the door open and gasped. There he was, my neighbor’s raccoon. She had told me recently that there was a family of them living under her house. He was sitting on my […]
Read more »I was waiting at a stop light one afternoon when a big hawk dropped out of the sky in front of my windshield. He snatched a pigeon out of mid air and landed with it on the roof of a car next to me. The light turned green and I drove away still watching the […]
Read more »Years ago a little Brazilian shop opened up next to the place I do yoga. The owner happened to live down the block from me and I would see her and her little black and white dog, PePe walking to the store each day. He was a blocky little Chihuahua mix that liked his freedom. […]
Read more »This weird thing happened a few months ago near my apartment. I saw a butt. It was shining in the sun on the sidewalk about a block away from me. People were walking by, glancing curiously at the butt and then moving on. A few gross guys were lingering, standing too close and discussing the […]
Read more »Sometimes I slip down the social media rabbit hole, swiping through one successful and amazing artist or designer after another. I scroll through them all crying out, “Why them? Why not me? Why are they so lucky and successful and I’m not?” Then my honest self, my adult self, answers my question. “Well Sunde, maybe […]
Read more »A couple of years ago an airplane crash landed at the San Francisco airport. Witnesses described it as “cartwheeling” down the runway. Cartwheeling. So now, whenever I fly, no amount of wine spritzers or expired pain killers from the dentist can erase that phrase from my memory.
Read more »I used to have a popular pie cart called Pie Fridays. I’d wheel it out on Fridays but that wasn’t why it was called Pie Fridays. It all started on Friday nights in a bar in San Francisco. I was a bartender there. I took over Friday nights expecting to make way more money but […]
Read more »Thank You San Francisco! There’s this weird thing that people in San Francisco do that I think is really condescending, disingenuous and gross but also funny and ridiculous. Instead of taking their old used filthy junk to the dump they pretend like they’re doing everyone a huge favor by offering it to us…for FREE! They […]
Read more »The only thing worse than losing our beautiful, brave, perfect dog Dee Dee after 17 years was living in a still, dogless apartment afterwards. The very soul of our home had disappeared. The grief was overwhelming and paralyzing, but the void of having no dog at all was unbearable. I started trolling pitbull rescue websites […]
Read more »Surfing for the Resistance The night President Pussgrab McGrifter was voted into office I threw up my chicken sandwich and went for a long, panic stricken walk. I cried for days and then became pissed off and outraged and wandered around talking to my TV and Twitter feed. Then my outrage evolved into purpose and […]
Read more »Hello! I’m working on a zine about all my years surfing in San Francisco. It’ll have illustrated stories, cartoons, art and a graphic novel surfer spy series. Here’s one of the stories for you to enjoy! Seals Are Weird! A sexual harassment story from the sea. I hate seals. There, I said it. I’m more […]
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