I just finished reading The Piano Tuner which is one of those short novels that everyone who reads the New York Times also read. It's a fine book. The main character meets a woman who intrigues him and they have some time together in a new city. He tells her to "take me to your favorite place" or something similar and they're both a little breathless of the intimacy of this gesture, in 19th Century Burma. In any case, that line works great here in San Francisco with people I already knew. I got to eat a sandwich on a beach with my pal Gordon [and suffer painful sunburn because I'm too stupid to wear sunscreen in early June, heck I'm a New Englander!] and have some great Vietnamese food with my friend Judith and then go watch the sun set at some other rocky beachfront park.

Today is sitting inside and recovering from too much sun, doing laundry, and quality time with cats where "quality time" means reading near where they are sleeping. The other day I walked and walked around with my friend Peter, culminating in a steep hillclimb back up Potrero Hill where I had to ask myself whether $1.50 was too much to pay to avoid climbing four blocks seemingly straight up. I decided yes.

This evening I'm going out with library friends from the Prelinger Library and elsewhere to talk about Big Library Ideas and eat more good food. Usually I come to San Francisco planning ot eat a burrito a day, but this time I'm trying to save the mega-meals for eating with friends so I don't get that oogy feeeling that can accompany the burrito a day diet. So far so good. Roasted garlic leftover from the party for lunch, iced coffee in the afternoon, hungry for dinner.