Go west, young woman.

Tomorrow I leave Miami bright and early with my travel writing class to traverse our great nation and come out on the other side - in San Francisco. Each of us is working on two stories for the National Parks Service about SF scenes and sights, and I, of course, wanted to write arts and literature features. Surprisingly, my maniacal pitch that stretched the national parks-books associative relationship beyond the realm of even the Bush-terrorist-Iraq linkage scheme actually worked. Apparently that summer spent interning for a politician in DC *did* pay off...I know how to use my words to weave shiny truisms out of a self-evident falsehoods.

Thus, I will be stalking the staff, authors, and customers at City Lights Bookstore for a legitimate reason for the first time in my life (usually I stalk them unofficially and while wearing any one of my many official disguise wigs). Subsequent to my full dose of book nerdiness, I will be working on a piece about the over 600 murals in the Mission District. One of which I am particularly excited about - it depicts a giant lobster dancing a polka. And we all know I have a thing for the King of Crustaceans...