Mission Dolores Park

July 9, 2026

This is not my first time to Dolores. As I’ve been walking around the city exploring, I often somehow find myself back here. I’ve entered through the Northwest corner a few times, and at the midpoint to the East once. My favorite place so far is at the Southernmost slope above the playground, where the view of the city is unreal, if you can handle the wedgie you inevitably get from sitting on such a steep slope. 

I guess my impression of the park is that it feels like a college quad, but for people of all ages. Once we were approached by a magician who was very funny until he asked us for money. Not that I blame him, how else is he supposed to make money? I appreciate the hustle, but it changed the vibe. I saw someone selling mushrooms on a blanket. I almost bought a board game invented by a man walking around the park trying to sell it.

Once I sat behind someone with a very large speaker, and listened to the music for a while. It’s not uncommon to see people sitting in small groups on blankets, or lighting up joints as they lay in the sun. I took the bus for the first time today, and it was definitely way more convenient than walking from Russian hill, where I had wandered to earlier this morning. 

I made a pitstop at the Four Barrel coffee shop. I sat at the back where you can see all the machinery, and enjoyed a Hibiscus tea. I love it. It is not something on the menu most places on the east coast, and it's a damn shame for them. 

There are giant burlap sacks of coffee and plenty of nice little tables for working or writing little notes. It was too loud to know if anyone was talking about getting laid off or founding an AI startup. 

In about an hour, I’m going to pick up the key to our apartment. I can’t wait to move in. It’s a weird place - a 1,200sf carriage house and a 1,200sf garden. Not a single door except for the bathrooms - basically just a loft and a living room. 

It’s the first place I toured where I felt like there was something really special about it. You enter through this wrought iron gate through a shared garden to a private garden. Its a tucked away perfect little secret spot. 

I can’t wait until I have a kitchen again. I really miss my stuff, our cooking, Nick’s coffee (he makes really good pour overs every morning). I’m tired of eating at restaurants and hemorrhaging money. 

There are a lot of really cool looking people in the Mission. I wonder if it’s because there are so many good vintage shops down here, or if there is a magnetic pull here for the casually chill folk.

I go back and forth between being really excited to live in this weird awesome city and feeling like I’m all alone, representing myself, standing in the face of the AI machine. Sometimes I feel closer to that machine than I do to my own community. I am definitely afraid of the certainty I feel that everything will change.

And then I say, what even is my community? And then I say, why am I so depressing? And then I say, why am I writing out this drivel instead of painting?  

In the morning, I felt like a bum when I stayed in bed, next to Potato. He purrs softly by my side as I drink my coffee long after it’s cold. I relish the peace of not needing to get up. I judge how slow and lazy I am. 

“How will I ever become a professional artist if I take so much pleasure in doing nothing? Where is my discipline? Where is my drive? I am a poor representative of the arts.” 

To which I say: 

“I represent nothing” puah (that’s a spit, like a sigh but more defiant), “I stand for joy, for myself and my freedom, who’s to say that I need to be productive every day, why not scroll tiktok, watch my shows, and eat seaweed snacks in bed until the late morning? Must I push and punish myself to no end?” 

To which I say: 

“Suit yourself, so called ‘artist’ and fade into oblivion, peter out into an old curmudgeonly fart who says oh I could have been but wasn’t.” 

And that really stings because there’s some real power to the threat of obscurity forever and it makes me feel sad to hear it. So, I am at a loss for words. 

Then I say, "Fine, you old hag!” and I rouse myself. And I paint.