All Over Coffee came down off the shelves again yesterday. I thumbed the pages. I sighed over the India ink washes. It even smelled good.

San Francisco on the brain. I searched casually for real estate, and, on seeing the prices, shouted "WE'LL NEVER EVER LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO!" "Never say never," said The Husband.

There are thousands of people to lust after, to fantasize about. All of whom, she knew, would be impossible to get along with. Still, she wanted them.

That's true of cities, too. I'm certainly guilty of lusting after a place I only knew for a few days. A fling with somewhere I might not get along with. Turn ons: great food, stunning architecture; turn offs: the unhelpful woman manning a public transportation booth where we were required to have exact change. Drunk on the steepness of hills, enamored with hotels named for poets. It haunts me. I even passed a girl carrying a City Lights bookbag yesterday on my way to the market. As if she were planted in my path.

The last time I read All Over Coffee, it described a world right outside my window. But now? A plane flight. At least two days by car. A lifetime of walking.

The illustrations in this book now join a small selection of illustrations that are capable of stirring up great emotion in me. The old-looking rose-faced children in Tell Me A Mitzi. The Aubrey Beardsley-esque line drawings done by a friend's cousin in a book of Latvian poetry. And the 1970s greeting card that sits in my office, three pairs of colorful tennis shoes resting on a porch railing over an autumn sunset, telling me on the inside that Life Is Good.

The smell of taquerias and burnt coffee in early morning.

Life is good, and still glowing with promise.