Grass pierces concrete

My street has so much character.

First of all, 2 houses down is a Russian day care. The whole back yard is covered in astro-turf and toys and every evening hoards of women speaking Russian come to collect their kids. Except for one little boy who’s dark hair and skin seem more Middle Eastern or Latino… his dad picks him up in a black Lincoln town car. Hm.

Across the street is a flower shop that this lady runs out of her garage. Never talked to her, but I think it’s cool that there’s a flower shop on my street. A few houses down from her is an old Chinese man who sits in front of the window ALL day long and watches everything. At the pot house one of the guys has the antlers of some animal wired on to the front of his car. Then there’s the limo business that parks 3 limos at Safeway….

But I think the “security guard” takes the cake. He apparently purchased a security guard hat and badge at a thrift store and regularly wears them to patrol the street and call DPT when someone blocks a driveway. He and his family members sit in their cars (they have a lot of them) that are backed into the driveway and sit there for hours watching movies on a laptop. Um… either they have a lot of tension and need to “get away” to the driveway or else they don’t have any furniture inside.

I went to the SF Green Fest this weekend. There were 100 speakers and 400 vendors — it was like the Urbana for hippies. I’ve never seen so many dreadlocks in my life. I got all kinds of cool samples from organic salad dressing to fair trade chocolate to baby laundry detergent to cliff bars… But I think the best thing by far was a piece of paper made from elephant poop. That’s right, 75% elephant poop, 10% corn husks, and the rest other recycled fibers.

While all these inventions and creative sustainable solutions are quite inspiring, I left feeling really depressed. All the hippies (and normal-looking people) seemed so free and happy. Some of the hippies were even twirling around and dancing in the middle of the room, letting their long hair and skirts and frocks or whatever you want to call what they were wearing swirl in the air. I think I felt inferior — like, I could never be that free. But somehow because I know Jesus I am supposed to be ale to do that kind of thing. Not that dancing at a Green Fest is the ultimate measure of freedom or anything… but anyway it caught my attention.

But I also know how NOT free people are when they don’t know Jesus, so I was also sad for them for that reason. It’s like false freedom or something. But then there’s the dimension where maybe they do have elements of freedom tht I can learn from cuz us Christians have often lost sight of what freedom can look like… sigh. Confusion once again. But I really loved the hippies. And they reminded me of how much I love Jesus.

Today I had a meeting in San Mateo with all the other Family Advocates and Site Supervisors. This one woman brought pipe cleaners, modeling clay, yarn and knitting needles, and m&ms to keep us occupied It was great fun.

I had my first day at the Institute for Human and Social Development today! It went well. I really like my supervisor. It was mostly filling out papers, pretty slow and chill, since I don’t have any responsibilities yet, and also cuz it’s thanksgivign week.

I felt the need to take a picture of myself in the morning. Weird, huh. Like it’s drilled into me that mom is supposed to take a picture of the kids on the first day of school in their new outfits. I had to make myself feel special or something

I’m sitting on the back deck watching the suset over the ocean — it’s like hot pink fire over a layer of solid purple-grey water. Today was a classic Indian Summer day; it was hot and clear and gorgeous and everyone was out taking advantage of it. I went to the mall to return a few things and it was weird to see all the Christmas decor inside when outside everyone was in denial at the coming winter.

This is the close to an ordinary weekend, but it seems magical, almost — all these normal and not-so-normal things… maybe it’s just this city, but who knows?

On Friday I finally got a job offer! Well, two, actually. Which was just about perfect timing since I was feeling like the whole week was, what we call in a crew race, the graveyard (the last 75-95% of the race right before the final sprint where you want to give up and die). So one of the jobs was actually at InnerChange, doing office stuff and recruiting and getting to visit potential new sites. It actually sounds really neat, but I’m not sure I’m ready to commit to that… so I’m going to take the job at Head Start. It’s a Family Advocate postion, which is essentially a social worker on campus at a Head Start school. I’ll have about a 60 family case load, 10 of which will be teen moms with infants. So it sounds a bit overwhelming but I’m excited to put my HDP skills to work, speak Spanish on the job, and learn more about Food Stamps and low-income housing and speech pathology and CPS and all kinds of random things I’ll have to learn.

Also on Friday I had my first grown-up dinner party. My housemate Lily and I discovered a while back that we knew some people in common so we decided to have them all over together. I don’t know why it felt so much more grown up than other times I’ve had people over… maybe cuz our guests brought wine and flowers… and Lily and one of the guys who came are 30… but anyway it was lovely and I forgot how much I love cooking something yummy and lighting some candles and letting people come rest and enjoy in my home.

On Saturday I went to my Green Job Skills training all day. We talked about multi-cultural gardening and where different foods originated. It was very Guns, Germs, and Steel-esque. I think I need to re-read that book. So many weird things come up at this class, though! One of the conversations was about “medicinal” plants including marajuana and psychadellic mushrooms and the like. I’m really confused about it, now, because I’m wondering what God’s purpose was for plants before the fall, and how plants themselves changed as a result of sin. I’m guessing nothing was poisonous before… but what about shrooms? Were they alwasy hallucinogents? Or maybe they were but having hallucinations wouldn’t be a bad thing? And what about other less-controversial drugs, like caffeine? Is it just a cultural thing to be against Peote but consume several cups of coffee a day? Anyway, I have some research and pondering to do… discussion welcome.

THEN on Saturday night I went to this Artisan event, this British charity that is seeking to unite Christian artists around the world. It was in the Minna Gallery in SOMA, which is a club with roving art displays where hundreds of high-end folk gather nightly to drink and dance and be hip. So it was a great venue both from the artistic and strategic viewpoints. There were people from Dreamworks, Lucas Film, Pixar… people in the fashion industry, a group from the San Francisco Ballet, graphic artists, advertisers, you name it. Everyone was dressed pretty artsy, too. But we just gathered to worship and pray and fill the space with praise and get to know eachother and it was just amazing. I’m so glad things like that are happening. It’s such a threat to the enemy, to the powers of competion and fame. Something weird was going on in my spirit as soon as I walked in, though. I got a massive headache and felt sick to my stomach and was hyper-aware of the spiritual battle in the room. Not sure if it was about my struggle as an artist, the battles in the different industries, or the space itself. Yeah… I never really know how to respond when I feel that way. I think I was interceding but I’m not sure about that, either.

So today (Sunday) I went to Dolores Park church. It was my second time. I think I’ll go back again. But I saw the CRAZIEST thing before the service started. This old lady, probably in her seventies in the pew in front of me spit out a piece of gum into her hand and TUCKED IT BEHIND HER EAR. I am not even kidding. Did she think nobody would see??? Or is that just so normal for her that she didn’t care?

Then in the afternoon I decided to go for a bike ride and enjoy the Indian Summer myself. I rode down the Great Highway along the beach and then cut over by the zoo. I wanted to go around Lake Merced but the traffic sort of scared me, so I decided to go up 43rd Avenue. Riding all the way through the Sunset up to the park was a trip — I felt like I was going back in time, imagining people moving into these houses when they were brand new, probably after the earthquake when things were being re-built… maybe taking advantage of the GI bill… (my history skills are really lame so of course I don’t know when either of those happened or if they were even in the same decade.) But I was imagining. There are some adorable little houses in the Sunset. At the end of every block I could see down to the ocean and the sky was just getting orange. I just LOVE that feeling when it is warm outside and the street is quiet at the end of the day and you can see wet driveways were cars had been washed earlier and hear people cooking dinner because the windows are open and smell curry and all sorts of things wafting out to the street… this city is really growing on me

And it looks like I’ll be here for a while.