Bhautik

On Tennessee Street
Dogpatch
Thursday afternoon

***

For me, this whole affair – life in San Francisco and its glorious festival of weirdness – started out in my pajamas when I was seven years old and living in London. I was sitting in the living room with my brothers watching “Star Wars” for the first time; I sat immovable for two hours, mouth agape, transported to that now familiar galaxy a long time ago and far, far away. My loving and supportive family watched this go from geekiness, through nerdiness all the way to an unquenchable dork-fueled fire.

My family has hopped from one Commonwealth outpost to the next, from Kenya to London to Sydney to Canada. My journey this galaxy far far away is appended to this, involved a career in biomedical engineering, more time at university that I care to think about, and at least one Star Wars marathon (one of the earliest dates I had with my wife). I kept on going, and three years ago I found myself newly arrived from Sydney, staring up at the Yoda fountain, about to start a job as a Research Engineer at Industrial Light & Magic. I’d inexplicably realized my dream. To my surprise this wasn’t the end of the road — it was just the beginning.

San Francisco is arguably the center of the known geek universe. Nowhere else in the world is there such a large-scale crossroads of science, engineering and art. By openly embracing wild ideas and nurturing them, this town doesn’t ask “why” but rather “why not?” With this freedom, people openly share their passions and creativity, inspiring others to do the same.

Coming to San Francisco, I feel like I’ve got room to breathe – it’s alright to show your nerdy side here, and if you want to geek out you won’t have to go far to find a hundred kindred spirits. A number of people whom I have come to greatly respect introduced me to photography. I found a creative side I never even knew I had and I was overjoyed to find that it had a technical side too! With this awesome marriage of technology and creativity, I’ve been experimenting with lenses, and by sharing my results in the hope that I can get someone else as excited as I was.

Now I carry around a camera with me nearly everywhere. My little hobby has become an obsession, and it has taken me places I didn’t even know existed. San Francisco tells hundreds, thousands of stories every day, big and small. Amongst the hustle and noise, a camera in your hand becomes a kind of meditation where you slow down, stop and watch these marvelous tales unfold around you. If you’re lucky, you might even get a good photo too.

San Francisco, you’re difficult and dorky, you’re weird, and honestly, sometimes you’re a bit smelly. But you’re also wonderful and inspiring and I don’t want you to stop dreaming and evolving. I live here, and it’s awesome.

***

You can see a slideshow of Bhautik’s photoshoot here.

Bhautik’s website is http://cow.mooh.org/

Sam

Warm Water Cove
Dogpatch
Sunrise

***

Sam Francisco

In truth, whenever anyone asks me what I love most about this City I always laugh at my own standing joke and tell them that to me, coming from London, I think of San Francisco as more of a village. It is so small and well connected that even if I don’t know someone quite yet, the chances are that we will already have an acquaintance in common. It is hard to go anywhere in this town without bumping into someone you know. Of all the ways this crazy, generous, liberal, diverse melting-pot has captured my heart, the reason I most adore San Francisco is because this where I finally found my people.

Alex Goncharov, Bernie & Chris Sullivan, Anna Lindgren, Anne Hauk, Cameron & Stephanie, Christian Whopperer, David Nakabayashi, Kiko MacHarg Singh, Mayank Singh, the Silver Fox, Sean Schur, Thomas Sprinkle, T-Shane Gilman, Tom O’Connell et al. Poker. Cary Ann Rosko. Opera. Dani Morrow. Russian Hill. Room mate. Elan Drucker, Tara Austin Weaver, Heidi Swanson. At the Farmers’ Market. Fatemeh Khatibloo. Walking, talking, drinking, eating, sharing. June Taylor. Ketchup. Genie Gratto. Getting to know you over cocktails at Orson. Hans Uhlig. Fast cars and boats. Ian House. Gingerbread Man. Jack Mongovan, Tim Alexander and Amy. Pub Crawls. Kathryn Otoshi. Secret Santa. Lance Winters and Dave Smith. Spirits. Nicholas, Jamie and Marlon Petti. Eating together. Olivier, Natasha & the Azancourt girls, Pierre, Carmen Olmedo, Pete, Amaury Le Leyzour, Clara Azulay, Ilya Afanassiev, Thomas Weibull, Julie Algret et al. Belden Lane. Katja Raesch. Crab & Champagne. Laura Pauli. Lunch at Campton Place. Marcus Nordenstam. Gigs. Penny Leyton. Brunch at Zuni. Rebecca Shearin, Anood Taqui, Jennifer Haynen, Linda Turchin. Urban Hikes. Julia Wiley. Organic vegetable mysteries. Sean Timberlake & D Paul Brown. City Guide Tours. Jennifer Jeffrey. Afogatto at the MoMa. Taylor Boetticher and Toponia Miller. Meat dealers. Victoria Livingstone, Tommy Burnette & Claudette Baigorria V. Burnette. Mission Taco Crawl. Wayne Garcia & Sher Rogat. A most beautiful Christmas. Vincent Toscano. International Pot Luck. Alice Q & James Robertson & Pim Techamuanvivit. Adventures in San Francisco food. Beth Spotswood. Washington Square Bar & Grill Birthday Party. Catherine Shattuck. From Head to Tail. With Wine. Daniel Jeanette. Andy Warhol. Ellen Poon. Come back soon. Jennifer ‘Cool Jen’ Maiser. My #1 role model for being cool. Francisco De La Torre, Mike Root,  Kris Ardent. TV-Night. Gilbert Davoud & Julia Fauchille. Saints Peter and Paul Church. Helen Silver. Running with. Jacqueline Patterson. Killer cocktails. Kevin McGowan. And the giant truck. Linda Voight. Secret recipe family mustard. Mark Deloura. Hiking in the drizzle to Flora Grubb. Richard Clarke. Glow. Shuna Lydon. How to hold a knife. Timothy Gibbons. Teaching him to cook. Jeff Shattuck. Questioning Anthony Bourdain. Tom Christopher, Clotilde Dusoulier. Bar Crudo. Amanda Berne. The “Samanda Dinner” Series. Brett Emmerson. Chocolate with David Lebovitz. Catherine Ross. Vegetarian.  Eric Dudley. Wiener Sputnick. Dottie L Guy. Hosing down a Burner at Decompression. Jeanne Stack. Champagne-bottle Karaoke on the sofa. Frederic Schmidt. Keeper of my heart. Guy Prince. Meat. Henry Preston, Hortense Bonneau. Karaoke at that brilliant dive bar that used to be on First Street. James Mann. Riding the lift at the Westin St Francis. Kimberly Lashbrook. Cooking together at Tante Marie’s. Mary Beth Haggerty. San Francisco friend #1. Delancey Street and the Werepad. Robin Suchman, Andrea Segovia, Jen Elson. True Blood Sundays. Stephanie Lucianovic. Afternoon tea at Lovejoys. Joe Doyle Ardent. My first Thanksgiving. My first jello salad. Tony Hurd, Michael Strickland. Fabulous Oscar Parties. Amy Sherman. After midnight at Bob’s Donuts. Brian Sullivan. So much: Not least homemade ice cream and Billy Idol impressions. Chris Tavelli and Duncan. Wine. David & Edie Ichioka. Photographing us whilst we slept. Debbie and Rob Morse. Gifts from the Garden. Joy, Jon & Oliver Alferness. Celebration at the Slow Club. Eric Klein. Crepe soirees. Jane Sales & Roger Nolan. Homemade cheese ice cream. Flook. Kristin Miltner. Miba’s hooking in to 100 speaker-gourds. Mazia Farzam, Michelle Todd, Ryan Otaga, Jim and Barbara. Neighbours. Steve Sullivan & Dana Coe. Matrix wedding. Willie Geiger. Flying kites on Crissy Field. Ana Romera. Keeping it clean since 2004. Christopher Horvath. The Princess Bride, 9/11. Jeanne Feldkamp. The epic Milennium Cookbook dinner. Delphine Doreau. Crafty. Jane Tunks. Snappy dresser. Michael Procopio. Cocktails. Steven Gray. Cycling up hills and over bridges. Andrew Morley. A watermelon and a pumpkin on Russian Hill. Clarissa Nantes. Walking through the Castro. Deniz Daldal. Speakers, bicycles and champagne. Jay Cooper, Jeff Sutherland. The Hulk wrap party at the Foreign Cinema. Michael Recchiuti. Christmas Tarte Tatin. And chocolate. Sylvain Doreau. Art. Derrick Schneider. Fancy Food Show. Jeanne Brophy. Banksy-hunting. Melissa Schneider. Teacher of beading to the luckiest citizens. Diana Girogutti. My first night in San Francisco. Julie Michelle. Photography.

***

You can see a slideshow of Sam’s photo shoot here.

Sam can be found online at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sixybeast/
http://flook.it/community/Sam/
http://twitter.com/SecretsSF
http://twitter.com/sixy

Sonia

Off 20th Street
In Dogpatch
Monday afternoon

***

Three big things happened to me when I moved to San Francisco: I found myself; I met the love of my life; and I got breast cancer.

I find that my life is constantly changing since I moved to San Francisco. The story I’m writing today is completely different than the story I would have written six months ago, which is completely different than the story I would have written a year ago, which is completely different than the story I would have written two years ago when I first moved here.

Two years ago, I packed up my little wiener dog Homer and moved to San Francisco. I grew up exactly 35.2 miles away from San Francisco, and even though Concord is just on the other side of the Bay Bridge it can feel like the other side of the country.

Eventually, I adjusted.

I learned to handle the crazies. I got used to the noise. I took yoga classes. I learned to cook. I got social. I made new friends and got closer to the ones I already had. I learned to wear layers because one minute it’s warm and the next minute it’s damn cold in this town. I started walking everywhere. If I couldn’t walk there, I rode Muni (trust me, no one takes public transportation in the East Bay), and when I got to my destination, I would proudly proclaim to my friends, “I rode the bus here,” like it was a major accomplishment.

Like a lot of people who move here, I found myself in San Francisco.

One year ago, I went on my last first date.

When a friend told me she had someone she wanted to set me up with, I had no idea that I would be meeting Mr. Right. Since moving to San Francisco, I had gone out on a series of first dates with nice guys that I didn’t click with. David was different.

We Facebooked. We emailed. We IM’d. We LOL’d. Finally, we made a date to meet at Broken Record in the Excelsior district.

We went into the bar and sat down and next thing we knew it was last call! We had spent six hours trying to out nerd each other. (I won by admitting I had seen the One-Man Star Wars Trilogy … twice.)

When the bartender kicked us out, David walked me to my car.

David: “I want to see you again.”

Me: “OK, when?”

David: “Tomorrow.”

I met the love of my life in San Francisco.

Six months ago, I found a lump.

I had just moved into an apartment with David in Dogpatch when I found the lump in my left breast during a self exam. (Don’t listen to mysterious government task forces when it comes to breast cancer. Always check your boobs, ladies!)

Within a two-month period I saw multiple doctors who told me the same thing: “I’m sure it’s nothing. It’s probably just a cyst, but just to be safe you should [get a mammogram/get an ultrasound/get a MRI/get a biopsy].”

It wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t a cyst. It was cancer.

I was shocked. I am a healthy person (except for the whole cancer thing). I eat right. I go to yoga. I was so scared, but I tried to handle cancer the way I handle everything else: by making jokes about it. “I have DCIS, which is a good kind of cancer. It’s also a crime show on CBS,” I would tell people. David wasn’t too comfortable with the jokes at first, but I knew he was getting used to it when we walked past the Hooters on Fisherman’s Wharf a few days after the diagnosis:

Me: “Will you go in there and get me a T-shirt?”

David: “Sure, I will get you one that just says ‘Hooter.’”

Not long after the diagnosis I had a lumpectomy, and the doctors were confident that would be the end of that.

Yeah, not so much.

Turns out, the cancer was not “the good kind of cancer” and was more invasive than they thought. A mastectomy of the left breast was recommended along with a lymph node biopsy to make sure the cancer hadn’t spread.

Wait, spread?!? That’s when my brain crashed. I couldn’t process anything. I was so grateful that we caught it early. I was so thankful that it’s only one breast. But at the same time, I was so angry. I was so afraid. And when I finally wrapped my head around it, I kept thinking, “I’m going to be a freak show with one real boob and one fake boob. I’m damaged goods!” But then a friend gave me some helpful advice: “We are all damaged goods. Some of us know the damage, others have emotional baggage to the tune of a freight truck. Needy? Passive aggressive? Co-dependent? Crazy? Lazy? No job? No money? No ambition? Want to be rescued? So one boob will be firmer than the other – who cares – as long as the vag works …”

Well said, my friend.

A week before my mastectomy, David took me out to dinner for my birthday at Waterbar. After dinner, we walked along the Embarcadero, and eventually, we sat down, taking in the view of the Bay Bridge. It’s my favorite bridge. You can have the Golden Gate Bridge, folks; I love the Bay Bridge. It’s the bridge that brought me to San Francisco. And it was there, in front of my favorite bridge, that David pulled out a ring and asked me to be his wife. This man; this wonderful man. We had no idea what was going to happen a week later. Maybe the cancer had spread? Maybe I was in for a long fight; a long, ugly fight that a lot of women don’t win. He didn’t care. He wanted to marry me. He knew my answer before I said it. The tears were a giveaway.

The doctors wheeled me into surgery a week later. I would know when I woke up if the cancer had spread. I was scared, but I knew that no matter what happened, it was going to be OK because I had David, and we were going to fight this together.

When I woke up from the surgery, I kept asking the nurses, “Did the cancer spread? Did the cancer spread?” And they kept telling me they didn’t know. I thought, “They’re lying. They just don’t want to be the one to tell me.” Eventually, they wheeled me into a hospital room where David and my family were waiting.

“Did the cancer spread?” I asked David immediately.

“No,” he said. “It didn’t spread.” Then he kissed me, and I started sobbing.

Today, I’m sitting in my Dogpatch apartment writing this story. Homer is sleeping in front of a fireplace. My fiance is designing our save the date cards for our wedding. And I’ve got one fake knocker, and I’m cancer free. I’m happy and healthy and me, but I can’t help but wonder what my San Francisco story will be six months from now.

***

You can see a slideshow of Sonia’s photo shoot here.

You can check out Sonia’s website The Sonia Show (www.thesoniashow.com)
Follow her on Twitter at @thesoniashow (http://twitter.com/TheSoniaShow)

Troy and Shilpa

Sloan

Native Style

“Fashion fades. Style is eternal.”

-Yves Saint Laurent

San Francisco is unlike any other city in the world. It’s not the epicenter of culture, architecture or fashion. It doesn’t try to be. It doesn’t pretend to be something that it isn’t, something superficial. Fashion is superficial. It changes constantly depending on the season, the economic times or whims of the designer in the house. Fashion struggles to reinvent itself. Many cities in the world use architecture for instance, to gain notoriety in the public forum. We don’t put billboards up for self promotion or attention. We would never fool with the International Orange paint color of the Golden Gate Bridge or string it up with lights to make it look like a dancing Christmas tree like the Eiffel Tower.

San Francisco is a constant; some might argue boring. Our pace is relaxed. We as a city are conservative in our actions regarding decisions that may change the look and feel of the city. It took us more than 12 years to replace an earthquake damaged freeway because its integration back into the city was critical. Moving cars wasn’t as important as the look and feel of the surrounding neighborhood and our underlying self-regard. Simple practicality is not always in the best interest of the behavior and characteristics of my city. This isn’t the mentality of Los Angeles, for instance.

Style is something deeper and more personal than fashion. It is like common sense, you are either born with it or you aren’t. You breathe style; it radiates and it is ever present in your personality. Style is beyond clothes and handbags. It’s about essence, individuality, and self expression. San Francisco expresses itself with peaks, valleys, hill and wet lands. This landscape creates discrete and intricate neighborhoods, microclimates and lifestyles. If you have ever seen the fog rolling over Twin Peaks or pushing through the Golden Gate Bridge you know what the city’s self expression looks like. I’m a native San Franciscan and that’s my style.

Where other cities fade, San Fancisco remains eternal.