After dropping off my bags and getting settled in my hotel room, I decided that since I was only like a 15 minute walk away that I'd go explore the neighborhood I lived in during my short-lived residence in San Francisco. This was the building I lived in located on the corner of the 3-way intersection of Market, Sanchez and 15th Street.
...this guy! Check out his outfit! It's like...actually, you know what? Making fun of this guy's outfit would be like tackling a a guy with no legs. I mean I'm not exactly a fashion maven, but even I know not to mix my wide-waled raver cords with any of my (many) leopard-print silk robe-shirts.
With our costumes all finished, we walked out of my apartment door and were immediately met by this insane crowd of people. My apartment was on Market and 15th like two blocks from the heart of the Castro. Which means that Halloween in my neighborhood looks alot like...
We parked the car and started walking over to the party but then we had to stop and wait because Wacky Dad ran into a buddy of his. (Of course these two are friends). Wacky Dad kept telling us that TwirlyStache was some kind of "really important artist" (of comedy facial hair maybe) and suggested that I take a pic of him. I was only too happy to oblige.
...the seals and sea lions (which was another activity ganked from Meredith's itinerary! Thanks, Mer!). The sea lions and seals were SO FUCKING FUNNY to watch and we stayed there watching them for hours - or at least we would have if they didn't stink like a giant, hot, fishy asshole. Seriously, I know that they're really cute and you don't want to believe me, but the smell was unbearable. You can literally smell if from hundreds of yards away. I kept telling myself "Relax, you'll get used to it." But when after 15 minutes I could still taste the smell in my mouth, we decided it was time to flee in terror.
After I was finished laughing at her TrapperKeeper, we headed over to the Golden Gate bridge to do some sight-seeing. But it was super-foggy so we decided to save it for another day.
And here's the northwest view from the top of Coit Tower. (Yo, as much as I kid around about having trouble adjusting to San Francisco, it really is hands down one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Everywhere you go, you look around and there's a view that makes you go "Whoa." If only they could get improve the public transportation and figure out a way to import tons of slutty girls...)
This is one of the pictures that Meredith STOLE FROM ME and used in her recap of the visit. She pretty much summed it up best when she said "The ledge was covered in coins that people had slid through the window, in an apparent attempt to harm anonymous passers-by. That, at least, was one sentiment we (as New Yorkers) could relate to." Hahah.
Then we drove around and decided to check out Telegraph Hill and the Coit Tower. (This was all Meredith's plan - I told her to think about some stuff we could do while she was visiting and she showed up with a motherfucking internet-researched itinerary that she typed up in a Word document and emailed ahead of time! Hot Damn!). If you look in the middle of the horizon in this pic, you can see Coit Tower.
...even though San Francisco prides itself on supporting the openly gay, they still totally care for their citizens that for whatever reason haven't gone public with their orientation. They even have a whole aisle of specialty products to accommodate them. So progressive!
Heading back home. (Home! Arrrrgh!) On the way home we stopped at a Rite-Aid looking to buy the game Scrabble. A few weeks prior, Meredith challenged me to play Scrabble online (I'd never played before!) and I ended up beating her - and she wanted a rematch! Anyway, in the store I noticed that...
Oh, did I forget to mention that the elevator in my townhouse opens out into an open-air deck that's accented by florescent pink pieces of translucent plexiglass? Meredith strikes a quick (80s) pose before...
Who the fuck buys a hearse and then is like "Hmmm, it's pretty goth but NOT GOTH ENOUGH FOR ME! I'm gonna need to get me some plywood and some stained glass and build a little evil church on top." If had me that shit I would've totally redid it to look like the Ghostbuster's car. (Although, now that I think about it, I'm not sure if that's more gay or less gay?)
After another solid week of apartment hunting, I finally managed to find an awesome apartment. I was the master bedroom in a two-story, four bedroom townhouse on the corner of Market and Sanchez Streets. My three roommates were all in their mid-twenties and all worked together at the nearby Cheesecake Factory.
So on Friday, I got my bed delivered there and decided to spend my first night! (But then it turned out that directly below was an furniture upholsterer workshop and I was awoke at 6am by sounds of four men conversing loudly while using staple guns. The floor was so thin that it literally sounded like they were making furniture in the room with me. When I told my really cool totally nutty, fifty-something year old, ex-hippy, almost-roommate that the noise was waaaay too loud and that I was pretty sure I'd be unable to work there he said "Awww man, I've been trying to find a groovy roommate for months and you're like it, man. Don't you think you could just like, start getting up earlier?" Doh. As cool as the place would've been, it was unfortunately back to apartment hunting for me. (nooooooo!)
So I ended up finding a huge room in a 6,000 sq ft loft in the Mission and decided to take it. The guy who owned the place was a film archivist and most of the other 6,000 sq feet were filled floor to ceiling with film canisters. It was crazy!
On Saturday I walked down to Mission Delores park and decided to enjoy the sunshine and read a book. Then this noisy truck pulled up into the clearing in the middle of the park and when I read the side of it, I almost got on the phone to book a one-way back to NYC.
The view down their block. So it was around this time that my "not feeling too well" turned into a full-on 102 degree fever. Between all the late nights and my nervousness about moving I'd literally made myself sick. I decided to try to find a bodega nearby where I could buy some Advil and juice and ended up wandering around aimlessly for a half an hour before I found a place. (My search was further complicated by the fact that everybody looked at me like I was a crazyperson when I asked about the nearest "bodega." They were like "Oh, you mean liquor store?" I was like "No, like a corner store. Like a place that sells bread and milk and cigarettes." They were all, "Yeah, a liquor store." Me (okay, not saying it but thinking it) "Yeah, whatever you fruity San Franciscan. Nice fanny pack." After securing juice, a sandwich and some med-i-cide, I got silly with Alysha's TiVO and spent some q-time with my buddy Tylenol PM.
Whatever nervousness I was feeling after learning that SF was a lot smaller than I'd previously thought was quickly washed away when I arrived at my temporary home. Check this place out! My good friends Alysha (who I met working at ModemMedia back in '98) and her awesome boyfriend Brian were in Paris for a month and graciously invited me to crash at their place while I apartment hunted.
White man dreads, burlap shirt, flowing hemp pants and some sort of hemp-rope utility belt with all sorts of satchels (that like contain "powder or ground unicorn horn") hanging from it. To all of the people that sent me email complaining about the "dirty hippy gifts" that my friends in NYC gave me at my going away party...we rest our case.
....SHAZAM! San Francisco Brian is here! "Seriously, you should wear that on the plane out there. People will totally think you're a native that was just visiting NYC. You look great. You're totally going to fit in out there!"
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