Dolores Park at night is a beautiful place.  I can vividly remember one of my first dates with The Supportive Boyfriend.  The doorbell rang shortly before midnight.  Opening the door revealed the grinning self of The Supportive Boyfriend, and a furry form beside him.  "Surprise!", he said.  He was taking his roommate's dog for a walk and I joined him right then and there for a midnight jaunt to Dolores Park.  It was a serene and cool place, and we were practically the only people in it.  We stopped at the southwest corner to gaze on the lights emanating from the downtown high rises and the Bay Bridge.  TSB laughed at my reluctance to cross the wet grassy slope to reach the swing set (I have an irrational fear of wet grass.)  We swung as high as we could go, then I wound the chains as tightly as I could, then let go and laughed as the swings unwound with increasing speed, the world spinning around me. 

An Asian man was attacked by a gang of twelve youths after midnight at Dolores Park.  He was severely beaten and stabbed multiple times in the gut.  He attempted to crawl his way up the steps and finally collapsed at the bridge; now he barely clings to life at the hospital.

I get very confused as I try to reconcile the Chronicle breaking news with my own nighttime experiences of Dolores Park.  San Francisco is a wonderful city, but it seems like it's becoming the scene of more stories like this.  It's very disturbing to read the growing number of accounts of gang violence targeted against persons of a particular race.  It makes me wonder if and why this group of people is specifically targeted.  It also makes me wonder how the city and the Bay Area in general has come to this point, and what is the best way to prevent these crimes from happening.  Is it because the liberal sensibilities that characterize the Bay Area makes us soft on criminals?  Can these crimes be prevented by an increased police presence? (Sorry Oakland).  Should citizens be allowed the means to protect themselves?  And finally, what is the world coming to? 

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with my neighborhood sandwich shop.  I noticed it a couple of years ago when it opened just half a block from my apartment.  The shop front was painted in bright blue colors with loud, cheerful letters screaming out its name.  Despite these efforts, the shop stayed empty for the first six months.  It was like a ghost shop, I used to feel bad for the two employees forced to hang out there all by their lonesome day in and day out.  Then the SF Bay Guardian published its "Best of Bay Area" issue and somehow this empty, sad storefront had won the "Best Sandwich" award.  I know not how or why, but there were lines out the door from that day forward.  On sunny weekend days, there would be a huge mass of people clustered around the shop, milling around, and blocking the sidewalk from innocent pedestrians trying to make their way through.  The sandwiches ARE wonderful though, I'm sure the secret to their success is their "dirty sauce" which they toast into the sandwich bread, and which is probably made with crack.  But really, an hour wait for a sandwich?  And masses of hipsters are okay with that?  It's gotta be the crack. 

I ventured out to the sandwich shop today though.  I figured it being a weekday, there wouldn't be insane numbers of crack sandwich addicts milling about.  Indeed, I only had to wait fifteen minutes for my sandwiches.  Another endearing thing about this shop, they give their sandwiches such unique names.  I told my Supportive Boyfriend that I was going to pop round the shop for a sandwich, he called out, "Get my wallet and buy me a sandwich too.  Get me a Smell What Barack is Cooking."  I was like, what?  Did I hear you right?  But yes, the Smell What Barack is Cooking Sandwich is apparently stuffed with slices of ribeye steak and smothered in smoky barbecue sauce with many other things besides.  What this has to do with our esteemed president, I know not.  But the description was heavenly enough for me to get one for myself as well.  I unwrapped it five hours later, cooped up in an airplane and sick of the pretzels.  Even cold and soggy, it was wonderful.  I took one tentative bite, and then exploded into a feeding frenzy that nearly took one of my own fingers.  I guess I'm not crack invulnerable after all. 

Just after my plane landed, I reactivated my cell phone to find an irate text from my Supportive Boyfriend.  Apparently the sandwich girl had mixed up my order.  Instead of putting in two Barack sandwiches, she substituted in a plain veggie sandwich that had nothing but a piece of eggplant in it.  I'm kind of glad that by pure chance, I ended up with the true Barack sandwich but had to call my Supportive Boyfriend back to talk him through the crisis.  While I was talking, I noticed other passersby giving me bemused looks.  God know what political allegories they were thinking of as I yammered away at my phone, "Well, we were supposed to get two Barack Obamas but they slipped in an eggplant instead?  That sucks!  We should get our money back!" 

Argh, I stepped on my Venus razor blade in the shower and made my bathtub look like some crime scene.  Band-Aids clearly weren't sufficient and my EMT boyfriend could not be dragged out of bed.  Left to my own devices, I:

1. Tracked blood all over the house while limping around searching for useful supplies.  My search yielded: one pair of scissors, one Super Absorbant tampon, three wimpy Band-Aids, and a big bottle of Purrell.

(Supportive Boyfriend:  Quit stomping around, I’m trying to sleep!

 Me:  I. Am. Injured.  What kind of supportive boyfriend are you?)

2. Propped my mangled toe on a chair, took a few deep breaths, and poured Purrell all over it.
3. After I stopped screaming, unwrapped the tampon and cut up the wadding into manageable pieces.
4. Glommed all the tampon bits onto my toe.  My blood made a nice adhesive.
5. Tamped the whole thing down with an outer layer of Band-Aids.
6. Scrubbed all the blood out of the wood floors.  

Finally, now I can relax and watch Glee on Hulu while drinking sake!