I keep a second life up here now. Los Angeles is home, but the Bay got its hooks in slowly, the way the fog does, and at some point I stopped fighting it.

When I'm in the city I stay on Nob Hill, at the newly reopened Huntington, or the Four Seasons, or the Ritz when I want to disappear into it. I know San Francisco at the hours most people miss. The Ferry Building before the crowds. Dolores Park on a rare sunny afternoon when the whole city tilts toward the light. Pacific Heights at night, when the houses look like they're keeping secrets.

Music is the thread that runs through all of it. Lily Allen at the Masonic, Doechii at Bill Graham last November, and the night I watched André 3000 play his flute record at Bimbo's, which is the kind of thing you don't really come back from. I'll build an evening around a show without much convincing.

Then the food, and the in-between. Sushi at Akiko's. Caviar and tea service at the Rotunda, more than once. Dinner at Quince when the occasion earns it, Beretta in the Mission when it doesn't need to. Long afternoons that drift toward the ballpark when the weather cooperates.

Down the Peninsula it's a different rhythm. I've stayed at the Rosewood Sand Hill, where in peak season they put out Swanton Berry strawberries that ruin you a little for every strawberry after. Cuban at La Bodeguita del Medio in Palo Alto, where I stay for the cigar. And one afternoon at Bell's Books I walked out with a 1929 German book of erotica, the body as subject, which is the kind of thing I collect and the kind of detour I'll always make time for.

The men I meet here tend to build things. They think in systems, they're precise about what they want, and they've usually spent the week being the smartest person in every room. I'm not interested in competing for that title. I'm interested in the hour after, when the analysis stops and something else is allowed to happen.

I read the room before you say anything. That doesn't change with the area code. What changes is the texture of the evening: a long dinner where nobody's performing, a slow weekend in a house off Sand Hill Road where the only thing on the calendar is us. I prefer time that unfolds. Up here especially, where everyone optimizes for speed, I'd rather be the thing you don't rush.

I'm in San Francisco regularly, sometimes for a week, sometimes longer. I keep the circle small here too, a few new connections at a time. Travel down the Peninsula and across the bridges is easy. Farther afield, we can talk.

If you've been reading and recognizing yourself, you already know what to do. Reach out.