The Inner Sunset in the Fog

Fog ceiling half the year. Residents have made peace with it the way Venice made peace with water. Irving Street between 9th and 19th is a small-town main street — bakeries, hardware store, butcher, fish market — low-slung and unconcerned with trends.

Arizmendi Bakery at 9th: worker-owned cooperative, daily pizza chosen democratically by the bakers. Sourdough crust, because this is San Francisco and all bread is sourdough by what feels like municipal ordinance. San Tung does dry-fried chicken wings glazed in sweet-spicy sauce that shatter like something between a wing and a candy apple. Line forming by 10:30 AM, which tells you everything about the wings and the neighborhood — practical, patient, willing to wait for something good.

Climb toward Golden Gate Heights where the streets tilt at angles that make your calves burn. On clear days: Marin Headlands, the Pacific, Farallon Islands. In fog: approximately forty feet of visibility, an intimate walk as if the fog shows you the neighborhood one house at a time. Nobody seemed to mind the fog. Nobody ever does here.