This is very hard right now. I had no idea until a few moments ago that Mark had died. I was searching the internet for his phone number again because our mutual friend Kevin said he would call him and fill me in on Mark’s latest details. And then I saw this site… I figure I’ll get my feelings out now since writing usually helps me process information but I can’t promise to be eloquent.
I was Mark’s girlfriend in college at San Francisco State University. We met in 1984. He was hanging around my dorm, we met and that was it, we were hooked. We had many mutual friends and we all hung out together and “partied”. After a semester both Mark and I moved out of the dorms and moved into apartments 2 blocks from each other in the Western Addition. He was on Haight and Pierce and I was on Pierce and Oak. We spent most nights together, usually in his place and he had the wonderful ritual of reading every night before going to sleep, as mentioned by all – he was a voracious reader. I had done this as a kid (read before bed) and was happy to readopt it with Mark. I still do it today.
Mark shared a lot of his dreams with me. We shared a lot of laughter. We often went to the park to swing on the swings with our friends. We traipsed around town and had philosophical conversations. Things were good and we were together until 1986. We used to listed to so much different music together, such a eclectic variety. And whenever we listened to one of our favorite bands, the Velvet Underground and the song Pale Blue Eyes would come on he would look at me with those amazing deep eyes of his and say “you’ll never be able to hear this song and not think of me” and even now, over 20 years later, he was right. I remember so many things about him and still, not enough. I remember when he got his job at Clean Well Lighted Place for Books – which was a dream come true for him then.
One thing I remember so clearly is a conversation we had one night. We were both afraid of death but Mark seemed even more so on this particular night. We talked about death a lot but now I’m not sure why that was exactly. On this night we promised each other that whoever died first, we would “meet” the other person (on the other side) when they died. I remember we were both crying and he asked me, “Even if we break up? You’ll still meet me when I die?” and I promised him with all of my heart and I meant it. I never, in a million years, thought that he would die before me. And all the years that went by without talking to him, I never forgot that conversation, nor my promise to him and it absolutely breaks my heart that now I won’t be able to keep it.
I was the one that was there when he and Aaron stole the paintings from MOMA. I was the one who convinced them to return them (in the Stonestown parking lot). That was a crazy night and a crazy few days following. Mark was so funny when he took those paintings. He wasn’t even thinking and he didn’t “break” the door open, it wasn’t really shut properly he told me. He always wore that big overcoat and so he hid some of the paintings in it and ran across the street to Aaron’s house. And then he went back for the others. Then Aaron came to get me at the wedding party we had crashed. I was so shocked when I saw the paintings at Aaron’s house but in retrospect, Mark was living in the moment when he took them and that was one of the things I always loved about him. His ability to live in the now, his propensity to break rules, his true love of life.
I regret that, when I started missing him and wanted to contact him in 2006 I did not. I went so far as to find his phone number and address on the internet and not call him. I can only say now, that I’m honored that he was part of my life, even if it was only for a brief moment in time. He will remain in my heart forever. He deeply touched all that were fortunate enough to know him. What an amazing, beautiful, charismatic, perceptive, insightful soul.
Kimberly Anne Hoffman











