I have a distinct and vivid memory from when I was working as a summer associate at Morrison and Forrester. As is typical for me, I worked far too many hours there, and one sunny Saturday morning or afternoon, when I had to prepare a research memo by some unreasonable deadline on late Saturday evening or Sunday morning, I rode a cab from the lovely Pacific Heights flat where I was living that summer to the cold personality-free office on California and Battery in the generally-empty-on-weekends Financial District of San Francisco.

It caused me physical pain to be working so much during the weekend; emotional pain as well. As the cab winded its way out of Pacific Heights, through Russian Hill, past Nob Hill, Telegraph Hill and Lombard Street, through China Town almost to the Embarcadero, I saw through my back seat window hundreds of happy people doing what everyone should do on the weekend - - relaxing and having fun, with friends, family and neighbors. But there I was, all alone, and going to work.

And I remembered the Saturday previous to that one, when I myself had enjoyed a taste of sunny summer San Francisco life, hanging out at the North Beach festival with my summer crew of friends; riding our bikes up to the top of Coit Tower, then down the Pier 21 to check out the beautiful sea lions, back to their (also in Pacific Heights) flat to listen to the Beastie Boys, dance about the apartment, then, laughing, shoot pool at a neighborhood bar.

Remembering that prior Saturday, a part of me wished that I had never experienced, in such short-lived appetizer form, what summer should feel like; it made it so much harder, and made me so much more miserable as I sat at my desk and surveyed the piles of papers, case books open in piles on top of each other, and almost-blank word processor screen on the terminal before me.

This week, and the recent weeks past, as well as most likely the week in front of me (at the very least) I'm having (yet another) of those summer-associate-Saturday-crunch-times. Except it's every day, every night, I lack free time; I sit here working. I love what I do; I just do too damn much of it.

And that's why it doesn't help matters that I also keep having North-Beach-festival-Saturday moments, most recently one involving seeing a back-yard garden overflowing with flowers and birds, with fountains and memorial plaques reading "summer of 1995," with iron and ceramic patio tables and benches, with steps onto the second floor balcony floors bearing sunroofs bearing glimpses of pillow-laden living rooms below and a back drop of stunning San Francisco half-moon pierced views, not to mention a bleach blonde cat endowed with a remarkable acrobatic sense of balance doing gymnastics up and around ladders and railings painted white.

Granted, it must be merely escapism at most. But, like hors d'oeuvres with no supper, these flashes, while delicious, are ultimately unsatisfying, reminding me too viscerally of how hungry I am.

Perhaps then, the most reasonable, albeit imperfect solution is to avoid those moments altogether, or at least until I learn ultimately to make time for a full meal. The pain of knowing, of remembering vividly, of feeling precisely what I am missing is too sharp and long-lasting to justify the much shorter-lived bites.

Or, as I sit here and page through my scrapbook of memories, some of them painful, many others, divine, maybe, despite the consequences, it still is worth the trip.