Let's go adventuring!

San Francisco beckons to me all the time. When I visit, I’m surrounded by beautiful people and big hugs and cheek kisses and a city that has growth policies I respect.

So, last weekend, even though by all financial standards I shouldn’t have made a trip a week before Christmas, I went. To see Queenie and Carl and Frank and Grace and all of my other friends that were working Dickens Faire. I couldn’t have made the drive by myself, so luckily Mattie was down to go and drove with me.

We arrive. The hotel came very highly reviewed and was relatively cheap (but not the bottom of the barrel… all good signs), and was off of Market. And about a block away from the Tenderloin. Hm. Pulling up, there was a pack of homeless dudes shouting about one being the King of Everything, which made me think of that Sara Barielles song, and I wanted to ask him who made him the King of Anything, but naturally, I value my life, so I kept walking. The front desk guy was an absolute idiot (turns out he’s the owner’s cousin..OF COURSE, or he would’ve been fired) and when we get to our room, we can’t help but laugh. There are cheesy jungle scenes painted along the upper edge of the wall, the beds are two small, shaky, twin beds, and the shower head looks like it’s been there since 1973. We wander up Market, past drunks that couldn’t walk and small Asian women bundled in 12 jackets hurriedly sifting through the dumpsters. I cut off the bite marks on what’s left of my pizza and leave it on the edge of a trashcan so someone who’s hungry won’t have to sift for it. When I walk by 5 minutes later, it’s gone, and I smile.

We try to sleep, but the ice machine and ancient elevator thump through our paper thin walls all night and we wake up tired and short-tempered. I go downstairs, politely ask to check out and when I’m told that I can’t without a 24 hr warning, I politely throw a bitch fit and get moved to a more adequate room. Matt and I move our bags and head out to Dickens.

After finally getting inside, I can see his face light up. He’s never been to an indoors faire like this, and I can see that he’s marveling at the transformation. There are shows on every corner and he meets my wonderful friends and we eat wonderful food and wander, buying a few nifty cups and leaving early. We stop by Frank’s apartment which, funnily enough, is two blocks away from our shitty hotel. He’s being a gem and picking up his best friend/roommate from work so she doesn’t have to bike in the rain, but recommends we wait for him at a café around the corner called Hooker’s Sweet Treats. We wander up Nob Hill, walking in the rain just because we’re young and capable and can, and finally get curious why we haven’t found it yet. I ask a lady if she’s heard of it and her expression flickers warily when I say Hooker’s. As soon as she realizes I’m referencing the café, she smiles and says she buys the sweet cheddar biscuits whenever she can, and as she walks away I actually take in what she’s wearing. I look at Matt and he’s shaking his head and laughing under his breath. “Did I just ask a legit hooker where Hooker’s was?” He laughs harder, and we continue downhill chuckling. Only here, I say. What a random story that’ll be.

We grab Frank and Jen, who I immediately fall in love with, and go to grab a bite at a Mexican joint. Quickly, because we have to pick up Queenie and Carl to go to the Castro Theater to see Tron. The hammered brass ceiling is a marvel, and I feel like a child staring up up up and smiling and the dark Buddhas and Indian gods that ring the center. The organist plays for ten before the curtain rises and the movie starts. Frank forgot to grab his 3D glasses to I have to go up to the lobby and grab him some, slipping on umbrellas and punching a woman in the head in the process. I go the other way coming back, and all the sweet queens are much more understanding then the bitchy lesbians on the other side.

I smile at Frank and kiss his cheek, happy that he’s here with us.

My guys and I wander the Castro afterwards, laughing at the antics of drunkies and discussing the more disgusting aspects of the city, like someone who shit in Frank’s lobby last week. They had to pressure wash it off of the wall. Ugh. I like being reminded of the unglamourousness of the city; it keeps me from feeling like an awestruck tourist.

We part ways with Carl and Queenie, giving big hugs and professing love. They’re my de facto gay husbands, we laugh. I’m going to move in to their new flat with them in three years when I’m done with my grad degree and we’re going to take San Fran by storm. We’ll buy a flat in one of the grand Victorian houses and they’ll be the uncles to my foster children.

Frank, Matt and I head over to where Jen is working her double shift of the day as a cook at a rad indie bar not too far from the Loin and the hotel. She makes me a stoner sandwich (nacho cheese Doritos in a grilled cheese with tomatoes) and Matt and I people watch and I smile at Frank as he sings cheesy rock songs and plays drums on his knees. I adore him so much it aches. I can feel it palpitate and pulse with the rhythm of my heart while I look at him, and I’m happy that my affection, while one-sided, has such a worthy recipient.

We go to leave and he says he’ll be leaving shortly after us, and shows me his brass knuckles that he keeps in his rear pocket to ward of zombies and crackies. Zombies, for those of you who might now know, is an endearing term for those who may not be on drugs but are still crazily wandering the streets anyway. He laughs loudly when he recounts the time he was almost mugged by the grocer outside his building; the guy said, “Hey, can I have your wallet?” And he showed his knuckles with a smile, and the guy smartly backed away, hands in the air, saying, “nevermind, friend.”

I hug him, big and deep outside. I push my face into the curve of his neck, deeply inhaling the herb scent that’s been on him all night. The sage he burned in his apartment earlier, maybe. I would hug him every moment of every day for the rest of my life if I could. If he was less of a conundrum. Of a heart confusing mystery. I still hope for a future that has him in it on a more regular basis, but I’m trying to keep it in check. I don’t want to love Frank so much that it’ll hurt me.

This is where the trip gets hilarious. We drive the few blocks back to our hotel, find amazing parking, and notice that it’s in a tow away zone for street cleaning the next morning. Whoops. Time to go hunting again, and we finally find something halfway back to the bar 40 minutes later. Walk back to the hotel. Hookers and drunkies and crackies and indie kids thinking it’s so posh to be in the Loin are raucous all around us. We get back to the hotel, note that the idiot is back on shift, and head up to our new and hopefully quieter hotel room. Why isn’t my key working? Mattie, try yours. Hm. What’s that sound? Is that…Russian? And sure as shit, a half naked Russian man opens the door, yelling at us, and I hear in broken English from a woman further in the room, “WHAT DO THEY WANT?!” as if we’re the people from downstairs suddenly manifested at her door, about to break in and ravish her old, soft, commie body. This is our room, I say. Where is our stuff?! And he points downstairs, and Matt and I look at each other in bewilderment that quickly becomes anger as I feel like a tornado rushing downstairs to unleash banshee hellfire on this fucking retarded establishment.

There sits our bags by a desk downstairs, easily accessible by any of the tweakers that wander this lobby, and I feel my fury bubbling up. I explain the situation, seemingly ten times over at this lumpy, stupid mass of man, and he keeps passing the buck to someone else. Look, I say. I know this isn’t your fault, but this is completely unacceptable, and you need to fix it. I want a nice room, right now, and I’m not going to pay for it. He does, lucky for him, and we go to bed. I’m happy you didn’t unleash on him, Matt says. Anyone who’s worked customer service has been in that position, but if it’s not fixed tomorrow, make the owner cry.

We sleep.

Al’s Diner the next morning with C and Q. Delicious food and being served by the oldest working waitress in the city. She serves Queenie a tomato soup that is “pure east coast; no one knows how to make it but my sister,” which is word-for-word what she said last time I ate here in the summer about the Navy bean soup. Needless to say, each was phenom, and we left fat and happy. Going down to Market, I found an antique silver fork, stamped in 1874, that was twisted and molded into a ring that was just my size and only five bucks. Finish it with a frog beanie and my shopping in the city was done. I was pretty proud about my restraint.

We drop off Queenie and Carl, hit Amoeba on Haight, where Matt gets the Pixies first record, and drive home. As we’re driving through Pomona, Matt gets the genius idea of hitting Aladdin Jr, one of our fave Mediterranean spots, and we do so, leaving again being happy as a clam.

I arrive home, tired, glowing, and so happy that I went. Financially, it was a flat-out stupid move, but I literally felt like killing myself before I went, and I had to run away to my favorite city to smile with my friends and kiss their cheeks and hold their hands and hug them to me to feel myself love vividly again and remember what life without pain can be like.

I feel like I’m counting the heartbeats before I can see them again. I love you, friends.