The Mission is too cool for me

I'm sitting in a café in the Mission in San Francisco and am having the feeling, as I often do in such places, that a. I am the only person in the entire Bay Area without a tattoo and b. there is a particular definition of "urban cool" that I will just never fully understand. I am enjoying the fact that this café is large and airy, with great light and excellent coffee. But the man ordering coffee right now has dyed black chin-length hair (and bangs?) and is wearing a pair of skinny black jeans that cling so tightly to his legs that it is impossible to determine where his pants end and his elfin black boots begin. Perhaps the pants don't end at all -- maybe they're connected, sort of like how firemen's pants are actually attached directly to their boots so that flames can't lick up their calves. Except in this particular case, the only things licking anything are his tattoos, which are creeping up his neck and down the back of his hands.

 

Whoah -- just as I wrote another woman walked up, dressed all in black, but this time with vinyl black leggings that ALSO flow directly into black elfin boots. As far as I can tell, the two of them are not personally acquainted. Have I entered some weird twilight zone where everyone's pants must connect to their footwear? Am I at a disadvantage for wearing capris?

 

Also, there are four boar heads on the wall. Like, actual boar heads. With big teeth and everything. Oh, Mission district. How I love to hate you.

This is the blog for Salt Magazine.

Comments

[Kate]

I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Kate

http://educationonline-101.com

[ugg classic 5815]

The first circle of Hell isn’t really all that bad of a place, seeing as how most of its residents ended up there more through bad luck than bad choices.

[JKE]

Yes, it's amazing how many "individuals" now decide to brand themselves with tattoos. For a devastating analysis of this bovine phenomenon, search for this:

Exposing Shallowness, by Theodore Dalrymple

[electronic medical records]

Wow, that is so cool!

Kevin