Alamo Square Park

July 8, 2026

After a walk south on Fillmore Street, I entered Alamo Square Park at the steps on the North East corner. It was cool and foggy, but once I rounded the bend towards the lawn, I noticed plenty of people out with dogs, reading, and walking briskly. Wandering through the lawn, the forested crest of the hill, and the dog run, I noticed that there were many beautiful flowers in bloom. As a newcomer to the park and the city, and given the novelty of much of the surrounding plant life, I plucked some eucalyptus leaves from the ground where they had fallen and plotted off to Beluna cafe. 

I sat at a table downstairs, with a spicy tea. I quickly found myself deeply immersed in existential thoughts, after overhearing yet another conversation between strangers about AI startups. A fellow creative sitting next to me complements my micron pens, and mentions that he was recently laid off. 

I am wondering at the odds that all coffee shops in San Francisco have one of each type at all times - one AI founder, and one unemployed creative - like a microcosm of the state of the city on the whole. I am thinking about my students, incoming students, and the nature of employment - or what it might become in 10, 20, maybe even two years, if creative people continue to face such discouragement in the market. 

I wish I had thought to pack a more substantial palette. I wish I had more options for my paints. I spent so much time over the last month or so since we learned we’d be relocating out here carefully wrapping and packing my paintings, carefully tucking our dishware away, loading up boxes of miscellaneous things I wasn’t sure I really needed, and fantasizing about leaving them all behind in a fit of nihilism. (How long would we be out here? How much do we really need?) But also, I love my things and I don’t want to throw them away. 

As far as paints go, and given that it is now my profession (since I resigned from teaching), you’d think I would have arranged a more complete working set. As it is, I have a limited number of watercolors that I picked up at a great little paper shop in Japantown. 

My lack of preparedness somehow feels apt to my state of mind, as I watch my husband leave every morning and go to work at his AI startup, and the door closes behind him, and I look at our cat Pickle, who gives me a judgy snort before curling up beside me, and letting me scratch him under his chin. 

Our other cat, Potato, doesn’t like hotels and spends most of his time hiding under the covers. I imagine he is wishing the time away until we can go home again. Fortunately, unfortunately, we signed a lease today after a LONG process of heartbreaking options that cost far too much after groups of startup bros started bidding on rent. Bidding on rent! Can you imagine? We’re not in Pittsburgh anymore. So we’ll be leaving the hotel room, but not going back to Pittsburgh anytime soon. 

I couldn’t get the red right on the eucalyptus leaves for a long time, too red, then too magenta, then too peachy, then too light. But I got it eventually. As the shop closed, I dotted in the final specs of insect damage, added a weather note, and wished that I had ordered another spicy tea for the road. 

Back to Japantown now, to our hotel to check on the little dudes. Nick should be home soon, and until my studio lease starts, or my house lease starts, my days look like walks in a very cool and hilly city, painting in cafes, and checking on the cats.