In today's installment our friends at the Tenderloin Geographic Society help you, the worrisome, transplanted San Franciscan become a naturalized citizen. Observe, as we issue The San Francisco Green Card.

By: The Tenderloin Geographic Society

If you have followed us for some time, this week's column may prove redundant. However, there are sufficient inquiries of "What's all this about?" to warrant a fuller explanation.

The charming and attractive readership who have visited The Society's site will have taken note of a promulgation of citizenship services. Make no mistake, this is no grandiloquent pitch hinting at import and credibility. But lo, there is an official-looking document and everything you need to put your bureaucratic anxieties aside.

Through a collaboration with friend of The Society and Real Working Artist, Imin Yeh, our dream of providing validation for non-natives became a reality through the Art of the Downloadable Craft (aka, how to make art on company time).

The project came about during a disenchanted interlude: the dichotomy of living in a city allows that you'll hate it, love it, and hate it again--often in the time it takes to walk a block of this faithless city. One can only hope for a newer, stronger love to be borne out of that dark time, to rise phoenix-like from the ashes of smoldering misanthropy.

Or perhaps you move to New York or Portland. Either way: problem solved!

We stayed on, found a way to make it work; in turn, we'd like to pass on what we've learned and teach for a better San Francisco. One that visits its friends in the East Bay.

The craft component of this is easy enough: download the pdf here and print out, administer the oath, sign, and poor man's laminate (with packing tape) or use your home laminator. Keep the card in your wallet; if anyone challenges that you're not a real San Franciscan, read them the Caen riot act on the back of the card.

Yes, nothing says "official" like a hand-lettered card emblazoned with Emperor Norton.

You're welcome, San Francisco.

The Tenderloin Geographic Society is San Francisco's home for colloquial cartography and citizenship services since 2006. Stay tuned for the Tenderloin Report. If you've missed any episodes, you can always catch up here.

Larger, PDF version available here.