Baseball and the City (04.01.00)
I'm not sure what this is. Not a journal, exactly, because my journal is for me, not for the vultures of the net who keep track of each other's lives with online diaries. Not a thousand words, either, though it's closer to that.
It's impressions. A look at life, maybe. God, doesn't that sound pretentious? *chuckle* (Oooh, performance art, how *pretentious*!)
It's eleven thirty at night. The Pacific Bell Giants Stadium just opened, and the first game just ended. There are hundreds and hundreds of people on this train. A visible fraction of them are wearing brilliant orange, carrying bags, wearing hats and jerseys proclaiming their loyalty.
The old lady next to me tells me they won the game. She must be in her seventies, with sunken eyes and fake eyelashes, dark-red dyed hair -- almost burgundy -- and lipstick bordering on fuschia. She's got a friend named Ruth who's more of a strawberry blonde, sitting two seats ahead of us. Ruth's eyebrows are real.
The train's a cacophony of sound, everyone laughing and talking it up. I'm not sure what 'it' is, exactly: if I listened carefully enough, I could probably pick out some conversations, but the truth is, I'm listening to an MP3 I ripped, almost at full blast. Conversation is an endless babble above that. The intercom announcements are lost in it, even though I take my headsets off to try to hear.
I'm not a city person. It is, therefore, a hell of a surprise to find how alive it seems, or how alive it makes me feel. I realize I'm covering old territory, but there's a vivacity that I've never experienced anywhere else, and it's fascinating.
They have extra trains running tonight, for the game. The lady next to me said that sixteen thousand people were stranded in the city when the stadium had a preview opening and there weren't enough trains running that night. I imagine a lot of those people were royally pissed off.
I've been riding the trains for three weeks now. Granted, I have no particular schedule I have to keep to. For my own sanity, I want to be in to work by ten, leave by six, but there's nothing holding me to that. Catching the next train is no big deal. I've skipped half a dozen express trains in the last couple weeks because they were crammed too full. Gas prices keep going up, and so does the number of people taking mass transit. I've heard them swearing when the express runs fifteen minutes late. I'm glad I'm not that time constrained.
*laugh* We've just stopped at Bayshore. At least, that's where we think we are, and the question of where we've stopped is abounding around the train. I've taken my headset off just to listen to it.
There's a concession worker from the stadium in the aisle, a tall Asian man of some sort, who has just finished his first job at the stadium. He's wearing a -- hell, I've forgotten the name. A cap without a crown, a printer's cap sort of thing, and he's got a dreadful cowlick springing up from it. He's got a free ticket on the train, and thinks the train is a great thing. No parking, no gas -- "I enjoy the train." He speaks English very rapidly, with an Asian cadence, but not much accent.
Ruth and her friend beside me are ushers, it turns out. Not-Ruth, the one beside me, is a 49ers fan, and thinks my laptop is cute. She's right. It is. The Asian guy pegged me as a commuter -- asked if I'd just gotten off work. That, at least, wasn't true. I was at work until 7, but that's not so bad, even if I got in at 9. We rolled our Q1 products out this afternoon, everything at once, so the whole tech team hung around for hours fixing tiny details. It was actually kind of satisfying.
Listen to me. 'Q1'. Three weeks ago I had no idea what Q1 meant. Three weeks ago I lived in Alaska as an effectively unemployed web designer. Three weeks ago the world pretty much turned upside-down.
I haven't spent a lot of time in the City: waiting for Ted to get here before I start doing tourist things. Still, when CHI flew me down to interview me, I had an afternoon to myself and I spent it doing San Francisco. All I did was take the cable cars up to Fisherman's Wharf, and watch the sun set over Alcatraz, but it was truly incredible. It felt so alive.
'Alive' to me has always been wilderness. There's a similar feeling within a city. I never knew.
Last weekend I went up to Sacramento for a RWA meeting with Sarah; getting there required taking Amtrak, which required finding the Amtrak station in San Francisco. This wasn't inherently hard: it stated plainly that it was at the Ferry Building.
Not a single fucking thing in the world told me where the Ferry Building *was*. Eventually Cera's boyfriend Jim (ah, he must love that designation) told me; the reason I asked him was because Cera said he talked about the Ferry Building like everyone knew exactly where it was.
This is because, once you know where the Ferry Building is, there is absolutely no mistaking it for anything else or anywhere else. It is a Landmark, one of the sort that you Can't Miss. In fact, that's true. It has a giant clock that you can see for miles, but dammit, you have to know where it is.
For what it's worth, it's at Mission and Embarcardo, only several yards before you walk into the Bay. To the east, the northeast, really. Not a long walk from where I work, though the entire Horde assured me it was a goodly distance. Twenty-five minutes, maybe, and that not a break-neck pace by any stretch.
I've found San Francisco to be like that, thus far: much closer together than I expect. Kind of a pleasant surprise, getting from one place to another on foot without much trial or tribulation.
God, coming back from Sacramento. I got into the city at 8, and the next train to Mountain View wasn't until 10. I spent half an hour, maybe a little more, listening to a blues man on a corner. He was good, and I wonder if he had a home. I don't think so: he had the worn-leather look that so many homeless seem to. But he had very blue eyes in that leather face, and a greying brown beard, and he made eye contact with me once and wouldn't look away until I started grinning. Then he smiled and nodded, and let me go.
There was a guy, another musician, who stopped to play with him. The other guy was in his twenties, maybe early thirties, and was with a long-haired man and a woman. He played harmonica and bass, and they had a hell of a good time performing. I'll go back there later and get a copy of one of his CDs, maybe. I left a buck and all the change I had in his box.
Watching people in the city wakes some strange responses in me. It makes me want to be cooler than I am, to belong to the groups of beautiful thin people who crowd down the streets. It's not, I suppose, an uncommon feeling for me. Welcome back to high school. It's not exactly envy, I don't think. Or maybe it is: longing, envy, I don't know.
My feet are hot and tired. This is the downside to walking so much, especially in tennies. I spend a lot of time sweaty, uncomfortable. I want my sandals. But the exercise helps my mood, and a twenty-minute walk to a theatre or store is kind of nice.
I went to the movies tonight, saw Erin Brockovich, which is the first thing I've really done alone since I got here; going out to meals doesn't count. Full theatre and a responsive crowd. I enjoyed myself, and walked back down the street to the train station watching people coming away from the ballpark and going out to parties. It was a hot day today: even at 11 at night, there was still heat radiating off the buildings.
Going into the city makes me want to talk about it. I'll see if I get in enough to make it worth a webpage. I'm sure inthecity.com is already taken, but maybe I'll check.
I'm tired. Being in the city seems to give me this kind of quiet tiredness, where listening is enjoyable and thinking is less so. So I think maybe I'll listen for a while now, and forget the rest.