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April 23, 2003
I don't want to jinx
I don't want to jinx the situation as I have only one day to go, but I've had a blast so far in San Francisco. Normally I have some misadventure getting to the airport or something, but even the flight over was good. I used up all of my good public transit karma traveling out to JFK, as every subway train or bus appeared instantly across Brooklyn. I arrived exactly one hour before the flight, the flight was on time, and checking in my bags went without a hitch, as I remembered to surrender my pocketknife.
Jet Blue is absolutely lovely. Service was good, the seats were fairly comfortable for coach, and there were no screaming babies. And cheap. Never forget cheap. You just can't beat their prices, or the wild amount of television. Since I don't really have cable at home, the Direct TV was amazing. I had 25 channels to choose, a little remote on the armrest, and some absolutely ridiculous headphones. When you have a shaved head, I really don't recommend wearing something with a metal strip that divides your head into two hemispheres. It's the same as the weird aurora that floats around my head after wearing a baseball cap. I surfed endlessly, as I am wont to do, but kept gravitating back to VH1 Classics. I watched for hours, as I was unable to sleep. This one girl who was about my age sat next to me, but I think she had hemorrhoids. She kept tossing and turning all night, making heavy tisking noises and heavy sighs. I finally gave up trying to sleep and turned the TV back on. After a few minutes, she turns to me and whispers tersely at me to turn down the volume because it is too loud. I'm actually certain it was hemorrhoids, or at least I hope she has them now. I was basically fine with it, I think I saw about six hours of videos from the eighties that I haven't seen in forever.
Dana L was at the airport and I was quite grateful for that, as it was 1 in the morning. All of my other friends were like, "Uhhuh. One in the morning. We'll see you for brunch." Dana and I had never actually met, as we had been communicating via my blog. This made his offer of picking me up extra special, and then he further impressed me by driving around the city, giving me a night tour of the city. We went down to the Castro district,out to the beach, and up to these two hills for a view of the whole city. The two hills are called the Twin Peaks, but the Spanish called them the Two Breasts. So we're traveling around these two mammoth boobies like a Subaru trail of sweat to the nipples for a view from the top. Just like real Triple D's, the view was magnificent and unobscured. We went to a pizza place with all sorts of froo-froo toppings like hummus and roasted veggies. Dana is a vegetarian like so many of my friends, but he knows that meat always be an option. I was also pleasantly surprised to see a poster for Mike Albo and Unitard, one of the funniest sketch comedy troupes I've ever seen. He arrives from NYC the day I leave, and the city will trigger an earthquake from all the laughter.
The first day I spent wandering around with Dana and Michael Lopez. We did some tourist things, most of which involved horribly obese tourists. Even the seals at the piers were horrified by the rolls of blubber attached to adults and children alike. After a certain amount of time with tourists, I couldn't even bear the thought of getting on the cable cars. That evening, we went to a gay bonfire beach party. It was hysterical because it was very cold and everyone was huddled around this huge bonfire. There were all these butch guys bathed in the glow of the firelight, making butch noises, when a mutant wave pushed all the way up to the bonfire with no warning whatsoever. Girlish shrieks pierced the air as the manly men frantically did the dry shoe dance toward higher ground. So much for stereotypes.
As far as beauty goes, I can see why so many people fall in love with this place. I'm in love with this place. I continually was amazed by the uniqueness of this place. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. It is liberal like NYC, but it goes a step beyond. All the public transit is electric, everyone recycles, and people apologize to the beggars that they can't give money. Nature erupts in some spectacular way everywhere you look; gardens, mountains, and the beaches give a totally different aesthetic than NYC. Don't get me wrong, I love NYC, but Michael Lopez hit it on the head when we were directly underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. He said that the Brooklyn Bridge doesn't have such spectacular scenery at each foundation. NYC is a city that spits on nature, covers it up with a grid system. San Francisco takes a grid system and shakes it up, usually as a result of an earthquake. Yes, Market Street divides the city, otherwise it grew organically, spiraling outwards. I'm continually getting lost here, but if you just chill out, you eventually get where you need to go. It's a philosophy that covers the city just like the fog.
Posted by G at April 23, 2003 10:28 PM