San Francisco, Day 1.

I got in late last night. Very late. My flight was scheduled to arrive at 11 pacific time, but due to some sketchy weather on both coasts, I ended up arriving over three hours late. Not my idea of fun, but it was surprisingly heartwarming to cross the security boundary in the middle of the night to find someone who means so much to me, camped out waiting for me. I was happy to get to Kurt's place safely, and settle in. At nearly 4 a.m., which my body treated as 7 a.m., I was sitting on the steps smoking a cigarette looking over at the darkened windows of the building that I called my home for six years. It felt longer than that, and sitting there, it felt like no time has elapsed at all, but time is truly an illusion, a constraint we've created for ourselves. Sometimes I feel like I've been cut loose from its boundaries.

I woke up at 8:30 and quickly got myself out the door to get some caffeine, to Peet's, my old haunt. I wondered if I'd run into anyone who'd noticed me gone, but expected that I wouldn't, and I didn't. Fine. I was able to get back to Kurt's and get some breakfast. Then I returned to Peet's, adopting my traditional role of "fixture in window," and since I've been here I've talked to just one person, and waved at another. To be expected. This is how it was when I lived here, inconsistent, and this is how it was when I used to return to Philadelphia as a visitor after I'd moved away from there.

So far, everything is going according to plan.

I expect I'll wander home (and by home, I mean Kurt's place) soon, after I finish processing some photos, after I finish writing this, and maybe he and I will go for a walk, into the Castro so he can show me everything that's changed, and then I'm going to have lunch with my friend David. While sitting at Peet's I see a few other regulars, have a few pleasant exchanges.

I'm neither as sad nor as excited as I thought I might be to be here.

So far, everything is going according to plan. Easy enough to accomplish when there is no plan.

*

9:30 pm. I'm calling the day a success. Had a really nice lunch with David, and we headed deeper into the Castro and parted company. As I walked back to Kurt's from there I ran into no less than five people that I knew to varying degrees, stopping to chat each time, and it made me feel, as I'd hoped, welcome and missed. I may not need to live here anymore, but I feel like it may always be a place I can return to.

Back at Kurt's I went down for a nap that lasted a lot longer than I'd planned, but given how little sleep I'd had the night before, I can't much complain about that. Now we're going to get dinner. Possibly Taco Bell. Just the good old days, as it were.