Kookiness and Goodness

I struck up a conversating with a girl in the cafe today about SF vs. DC. She had only visited DC once, in the summer, and she walked around in a long, flowery dress and flip flops. When Washingtonians, as is their custom, asked her "What do you do?" immediatley upon meeting her, she answered, not wanting to be defined by her 9-to-5, "I run, drink wine, explore, swim, hula hoop! People thought I was a hippy."

"Yeah..." I said, "If I met a girl when I was living in DC, asked her what she did, and she answered, 'I hula hoop,' that would be a story to tell for weeks."

You San Franciscans just don't understand how out of touch you are with the rest of the country. I mean, I love it here, and I love San Franciscans, but...

Okay, look, I really have come to deeply admire how exceptional the people in this city are. How beautiful, artistic, bright, original, creative, adventurous, peaceful, and vivacious everyone is.

Add to that goodness: yesterday in the cafe a guy sat next to me and asked for a Droid charger. I'm loyal to Apple, so didn't have one, but the guy on his other side did. Turns out he'd forgotten his Droid charger at home too. So he bought one at Walgreens for $15. When he left, he offered it to other dude.

"Hey man, you can have it, I don't need it anymore."

"Oh no man," the first guy said, "Well, at least let me give you some money."

"No bro, it's yours."

"Well thanks, man. I'm going to pay it forward. Give it to the next person who needs it."

I love that about this city. If that kind of generosity makes those two guys – who I'm pretty sure I saw working on spreadsheets at the cafe – hippies, then I'll take the good with the smelly.

But it's still the exception.