God I love this place

I'll never forget the first weekend I moved to San Francisco and I was strolling down the street to get a coffee and my friend, Matthew P, was driving up the other direction and he saw me and stopped in the street and we chatted right there in the street. Now coming from the burbs... you just didn't run into people while around town. While we were chatting I said to Matthew "Wow... this is SO great just running into you like this." Now Matthew had lived in NYC and SF for quite some time, and he giggled to himself and said "Oh honey...just wait!"

Well 5 years 4 months and 14 days later, that one experience still symbolizes the single best part of living in SF for me. And today it was punctuated again of how much I still love San Francisco.

This morning, Pandy and I met Gabe and Matt for a nice brunch at Luna. At brunch, we had a ton of laughs (thanks to Mr. Duke's crafty wit) and then Pandy and I decided to stroll around the Castro and digest before hitting the gym. When we got to the corner of Market and Castro, we ran into Jimmysan...hugs, kisses, and chit chat...then 10 seconds later, Jeb and Russ came across the street to our corner...hugs, kisses, and chit chat...then 1 minute later Dicky strolled down to the same corner...hugs, kisses, and chit chat...

We all spent a few minutes bullshitting and laughing. We all said our "gotta go's" and went on our ways. God, I really LOVE that about living in SF. The random encounters. The community feel. It happens mostly everytime I go out into the Castro - always run into someone I know or someone across the street I wave "hello" to.

I'm so glad I discovered how much living in an urban environment - and particulary in my little gay village - means to me. It's amazing. It's comforting. It's home.

Oh - and another great by-product of living here is seeing crazy stuff in the local shops. Get a load of this coffee table for sale... LOL... yes, that's a coffee table. Neow that's a lion after my own heart.