city day.

yesterday, i had a city day, and it was just LOVELY. at 10am, i had a meeting with kathy henschel, a friend of a friend of marshall's who spent her working life in management at an oil company, and her nonworking life singing in choral groups all over the bay area. she's given me some pretty good job contacts, so i called her when i got to town, and we got together yesterday for coffee at her house.

she lives at the top of san francisco. and i mean, the TOP. san francisco is basically one big hill in the center. she lives just about at the top of it. on a street at a 60 degree angle. it was frightening. but i made it and we chatted about her life (she's really interested in coaching and mentoring - something she did in her working life, and something she enjoys now cultivating the next generation of art patrons. we also talked about other people i could contact, and places i should check out, and she invited me to a violin concert at berkeley in a couple of weeks. all in all, it was a great conversation, and a great opportunity to further connect myself here.

on her suggestion, i went to the asian art museum downtown, which was beautiful. but freezing. i was there for over 4 hours, and by the end i was a human art-appreciating popsicle. the galleries followed the spread of buddhism from india across asia, also covering the influx of islam as well as the existence of earlier religions - hinduism in india and shinto in japan. it was really fascinating. but by the end, if i saw one more smiling buddha, i was ready to scream. and that would have been very un-zen (zen buddhism - meditation buddhism - is actually a lot different from tibetan buddhism, which is different from other kinds. why didn't i learn this stuff in school?!)

then i met up with marit! and her friend meg, who had come into town from tahoe to buy a car meg found on craig's list. so we all hung out together for dinner at this wonderful chill restaurant called "chow" in the haight districts of sf. (THANK YOU to olivia and juan for the lonely planet sf guide. it has been my BIBLE this whole time). THEN (if you can believe it, i hung out with MORE people), we went to meet their friend merce who was looking at an aptmt nearby, and wanted to know if i was interested.

well, it's gorgeous, but at $850 a month and no income, i think i'll pass for now. however, one woman who is moving in - ruth, a friend of merce's (follow me?), is very cool. she's teaching pre-school (you know, early childhood ed is a soft spot for me!) AND she just moved from manhattan, where she was involved in....DRAMA!!! so, i got her number and we need to hang out, because, as i said, i have no friends.

then we all went back to piedmont, where tracy graciously hosted marit and meg for the night. we watched 'notting hill' and passed out by 10.

it was not super exciting, but a packed, fun day for me. with a) job stuff, b) friend stuff and that's about all i need. tomorrow, i meet with some people at odc dance company. WISH ME LUCK!