I whipped out the chunk of paper in my front pocket tonight and it was my bus pass. It said OCT31 on it. Good till approx 6pm. October thirty first. I thought, isn't this date significant to me? It seemed like it should be but I couldn't remember. Then I looked at Marcie and said, "Today was the day I came to San Francisco. It's my tenth anniversary." Ten years ago today I went to the Nirvana Mudhoney show at the Paramount in Seattle and stayed up all night at Eben's house and walked with my backpack and guitar down to the bus stop in downtown Seattle to get on the Green Tortoise. I stood in line with a man in a light blue windbreaker (it was about 40 degrees outside) who would turn out to be my "buddy" for the trip. They use the buddy system. Turned out that the guy in the windbreaker was the first of many crazy people I would meet in the next ten years. Everybody on the bus pitied me because my buddy was fresh out of Western State Mental Hospital. Ten fuckin years. That's it. No need for estimating. Right on the money.