i left my friends in san francisco

By Todd Stadler · Sunday, July 1, 2001 5:59pm

Another day by the Bay, another hastily-composed journal entry (actually, for those of you playing along at home, I'm typing these up now that I'm back in Portland, but frankly, thinking about the narrative structure that creates makes my head spin, so let's just pretend this is all real-time, what-say).

Julia and I hoofed it over to the Mission for more street cred points and to bid farewell to Tpodd and Xy, as they are wont to be called.

After much grilling and cast-signing, Julia and I went a-wandering through the many "everything's a dollar" stores in the Mission. Okay, many things cost more than a dollar, but they just have that intensely frugal feel to them.

One store that beckoned me inside had a better selection of toys than most. They had this wonderful desktop pen-holder that was standardized for 1970's ballpoint pens. I suppose it was meant to add an air of professionalism to your otherwise slovenly workspace, but attached to the pen-holder base was an elephant head on a spring. As in "boing, boing". I don't get it. Am I supposed to wiggle the elephant's ears in moments of contemplating career changes? Why do I want this?

Almost lost among racks of really cheap robots was a series of birthday song tapes. Not content to simply provide insipid music for your child on his special day, this series strived to torture your child personally. Each tape sang a birthday tune with a specific name, and the packaging was proud of the fact that your child's name would be mentioned twelve times. Twelve! There's no way your child could deny you love him with a tape that repeats his name over and over like that! It also serves as a useful aid for amnesiacs.