W12 Part A Reading Notes on Tales of the City

Reading notes are from Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin.

• Taking the plunge to move to San Francisco after living in the east or south is very cliche, but understandable. 
• I don’t think it would be very possible to just move on a whim with no job lined up or apartment today. 
• Hippies and killers— what people still think live in SF today! 
• I’ve never heard of banana cow, but looking it up it’s a mixed drink, but they had a bottle of it. Strange. 
• Connie’s apartment is like all her knickknacks threw up all over the place. 
• “World’s cleanest Orgy” that’s quite the article title, and article in itself, I’m not sure how that’d slide today 
• Connie is definitely much more of a free spirit than Mary Ann. 
• This guy is really pushy and creepy, just a hippy creepy over negging creepy.
• I’m still trying to figure out why Connie keeps a spare key, does she loan her apartment out often? 
• Ew, Connie brought home creepy guy. 
• “A view, a deck, and a fireplace for under $175” and that’s impossible anywhere in California today. Not even in the Central Valley or the mountains is that plausible. 
•  Mrs.Madrigal is quite the interesting character... very floaty. 
• She’s the landlady who “adopts” her tenets, very fitting. 
• Social Safeway... that’s just weird. No one actually meets someone in a grocery store, right?
• Generalizing is dangerous, why would all girls know everything about Chinese cooking, and why get offended she can’t help nor doesn’t want to?
• Robert is probably going to come back later in the story, I mean they bonded over asparagus and hollindase sauce. 
• “Abstinence causes pimples” well that’s quite a slogan to have for yourself. 
• Connie is awfully hung up that a one night stand doesn’t remember her, isn’t that the point of a hook up?
• Danny sounds like the awkward babbling nerd, gets a girl at home, discusses ecology. 
• Do employment agencies still exist today? I’m not sure if I’ve seen one ever...
• Too many art history majors in SF, I snickered at how that’s still true today.
• And Ph.D.’s being clerks, that’s still true today sadly.
• This guy she was sent to seems like the kind who expects his cute employee girls to hook up with him, just based on how he asks how uptight she is.
• Mrs.Madrigal is nice, a friendly welcome joint, very SF. 
• Garbage really is revealing about people, people throw away a lot of info that’s personal about themselves and should of been shredded or disposed of in a different way. 
• I want to grow an avocado too, but I never tried. Growing kitchen scraps is pretty successful usually though. 
• Mona is quite the silly character. 
• Mona scoring her an interview is super nice, and lucky they needed a secretary. 
• I love Mary Ann’s atttiude about why she moved here and how she says it.