Perspective

How fitting for my last blog of the year. I'm sitting by my silver, tinsel Charlie Brown Christmas tree that I negotiated for somewhere in the Marina. Nothing fancy, but serves its purpose.. kind of like the pizza that I just bought for the forlorn man sleeping outside my apartment building's door.

Today, I got rear-ended by a car. Some punk decided to buy a Jaguar at 24 years of age and take it for a spin in San Francisco. I'm okay. Car is fine despite a new scratch amongst others. Such is life. C'est la vie. I left bummed about the whole "accident", just to drive home within five minutes and find that there was a new resident outside my apartment building trying to settle into his makeshift bed. Everything fell into perspective upon hearing his honest cough. I say honest because often times the residents are drunk or high on some sort of drug. It's not hard to tell from their coughing, smell of alcohol, or crazy talk that they're on something. This man just seemed like a hardworking person who found himself in the situation he is now facing - not like those suburban transplanted teenagers or runaways roaming Haight in tattered North Face jackets with hiking packs.

I offered a meal on me. He politely declined. Humility in front of me. I went down the street and got a medium pizza. I left one box with half of the pizza in it with him. Offered the only thing I could give: a smile. "Thanks so much sweetie," he said.

I haven't been called that in a long time.

The other half is in front of me as I sit next to my tinsel tree.

Best pizza reminder.