Start the day with a well-balanced overpriced coffee in an industrial setting.

Here is another place packed with visual stimuli, along with weird smells and busy sidewalks. I love roaming through all the shops, venturing deep down the aisles to hunting for all things odd and unknown. So much to see, I wish I had extra eyes!

Adobe Bookshop brings me much happiness. Not only are there a zillion wonderful used books of all kinds, there is the man behind the books, Andrew McKinley. He is the heart and soul, and his wise, welcoming and super fun personality draws all sorts of colorful characters to gather and be eccentric.

Located near to the Alamo square's Painted Ladies is this wonderful gothic "stick" Italian villa with a long weirde history. Built by a Candy Baron in 1889, it's housed variously; a Russian Czarist nightclub, Jazz musicians, Satanists, a Manson family member, and one of the first 60's Hippy communes -Calliope. Creepy as hell enshrouded in fog after dark.

If you can get past the bourgie factor and/or you work down the street like I do, you will come to love this place. It has some of the best food in the city, a Blue Bottle coffee, and an observation deck from which you can watch the ferries come and go, emitting their weird beeps and disgorging tourists. The people who work here are great too (whether or not I dated a baker from the Acme Bread kiosk because of a Craigslist missed connection will be left to history).