4/20 Expect Delays

You are not shitting me.

Seriously.

San Francisco.

The amount of smoke over Golden Gate Park this evening as I was riding home was stupid.

I mean.

It can be foggy in the park, but this was something the fuck else.

It was already getting a little crazy out there when I was heading into work today at 12 noon.

Vendors setting up stands with water and ice.

Just chilling on the sidewalk waiting for the cotton mouth to commence.

I actually rolled through a smoke cloud at the Pan Handle.

I was grateful to get to work and not have to deal with it all too much, in fact, I had rather forgotten, I work in the Mission, people are always smoking up, not much different.

It was when I went home that it was messy.

All day love fest with the marijuana leaf and it was stupid on the roads.

I split lanes at one point as this car was not moving on the green light.

“GET OFF YOUR PHONE!” I hollered at the dazed and confused young woman driver who was texting and sitting through a green light.

Then I zipped by.

Thank you God for lane splitting.

Seriously.

I suspect pizza delivery drivers are making a lot of money tonight.

Grateful to have gotten home safe and sound, to lock up my scooter, shoot out a flirtatious text about a possible date and hustle up the street to the market to get some coffee before doing the deal.

And there’s the motorcycle

Hello ex-boyfriend.

Why you got to look so cute?

Ugh.

And I’m on my period, end days you know, but it does not seem to matter right now, I feel like I am just at the top of my game.

Not to be all ego and that, no rather my body is hormonally doing the dance of Saint Vitus trying to get some.

It did not help when he hugged me later.

Was that a “mmm” on my neck?

Maybe not, maybe it was just my imagination, like that hand at my waist lingering just a moment.

Dude.

Watch out.

His room mate caught me watching him walk out the door and I blushed to beat the band.

Well.

He does look good in those jeans and that blue flannel, flattering.

And moving on.

I know better.

I am pretty certain he’s got a lady friend.

And it ain’t me.

And I’m pretty sure it’s serious.

Or.

I’m pretty sure we would have hit it by this point.

There’s still chemistry there.

That’s ok.

I think right now I have chemistry with a lot of men.

I’m not saying that to stroke myself off, I’m still single over here, going to bed alone, but not lonely, thank you, in my little studio by the sea.

But.

There’s interest.

Oh yes there is.

This is fun, I thought earlier, intercepting  a few messages about “thinking about you” and well, yeah, me too, thinking about you.

I do sort of feel like I am on fire and it feels good.

I am a house on fire.

Burn me all down to the ground.

I’m not upset about this, I’m not looking to change it, I am completely accepting this heat and enjoying it.

Perhaps it is the apex of something.

“There is more to you than, that, that,”  he hesitated.

“That thing in the desert,” I interjected.

“Yes! You are so much more,” he beamed at me tender with sweet deep eyes, my friend patted my arm, “there is something that is going to happen in that time, you’ll see, it will be great.”

It will be.

I’m positive.

There is so much.

And.

There is more time than I thought!

I got my weeks confused.

I still have two weekends before my next school weekend, I had this big idea that I had to have papers written this weekend.

Nope.

I have another weekend before I go back in for my last round of classes before summer break.

I have never been more excited for summer break in my life.

Seriously.

So I can have some play time this weekend and not get my undies in a twist about having to write papers.

Thank God.

I’m still moving forward with reading and making sure that I am caught up with it, but I have some breathing space.

And as of yet.

A completely free Saturday.

I have thoughts of things I want to do.

Sex.

Ahem.

Heh.

Yoga.

Doing that deal.

Getting my nails done, a little mani/pedi will be a nice treat.

Sleeping in if I want.

Like I ever do.

Well.

I sort of did today, I decided to wait on the yoga before work until tomorrow.

Wednesday’s I go in a little early as I have an evening commitment that I am adamant about getting to, so I go in early and leave early, not the best day to squeeze yoga in as well.

But tomorrow.

Yoga it up I will.

And hopefully by the time I do head to work the 4/20 will have been cleaned up and swept away for another season.

Unlike my hormones and sex drive which just seems to be coming out of the closet.

“Oh my forties were insane, enjoy them!  It’s the best time, really, the sex was amazing,” she said and smiled.

I’m sort of understanding that on a very new level.

Maybe I’m just comfortable in my skin.

Maybe I’ve just been in one place long enough.

Easier to hook up with a sitting target than one constantly on the move.

Maybe, after all these years, I finally am embracing the sexy that I have been told I have.

“You are so fucking hot,” he messaged me.

Thanks man.

I appreciate hearing that.

It’s nice to be acknowledged and it’s really nice to just not give a fuck.

This is where I am at in my life.

I don’t have to ask for approval or permission.

Not from you.

Not from me.

I think God’s got me covered pretty good.

I’ll go with God.

And if you don’t think there’s a lot of God in sex.

Well.

You haven’t heard me in the throes.

Ahem.

It’s all about the love.

Or the loving.

But whatever it is.

More please.

Thanks!

 

 

I’m Back!

Sort of.

The Internet connection is still shitastic.

And my landlord told me two days ago that she paid to have a faster service.

Not down here.

Nothing’s faster.

Get your money back.

Oh well.

Hopefully, at some point I will have access, there always does seem to be a magic moment when I do manage to sneak online then I will transfer the blog from here in my MAC Word documents to my WordPress site.

I have missed this!

Four days since I have last blogged.

Me no likey.

I had entertained the thought of writing my blogs long hand then taking photos of them and posting them via my Iphone, but I never got around to it.

I did read a lot.

Nearly finished Michael Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue.

Now that I have my computer back, I don’t know that I will be kicking through the book quite as fast. I will certainly finish it, it’s good enough to be finished, though, and I have to say there are some bits of it that don’t quite sit well with me. Perhaps it’s because I worked around the neighborhood that the author is describing and I lived in a rather rough part of East Oakland. There’s something in the language of the characters that does not ring true.

Fiction is not supposed to be “real” per se, but it has to read true to me and there are times when it does not read true.

Then again, it’s a good enough read that I am going to finish it.

Not tonight, though.

Tonight is all about the blog, if I do manage to get it up online.

I am writing it anyhow.

As I was riding my bicycle home along Irving, flying into the wind, the salty smell of ocean, very fresh tonight, the breeze bracing, brisk, almost cold, but not quite, I kept thinking what am I going to write about?

What did I do over the last few days that is noteworthy.

I cried a little bit on the corner of Hyde and Grove outside the Burger King across from the main library.

And not because what you think.

That is, should you know what that neighborhood is like.

Crack head central.

It wasn’t cuz I was smoking it, scoring it, or looking to turn a trick.

But I got all sorts of propositioned.

I wasn’t crying either because I had lost my abstinence or gone off on a flame-broiled binge at the Burger King either.

It was because my scooter, out of the blue, stopped running.

Right at that particular corner.

It smells bad.

See aforementioned crack head reference.

Add to that the charred smell of carcinogens people were stuffing into their glazed 4/20 faces.

Oh, yeah, yesterday, on top of it being Easter, it was Easter on 4/20; everyone was baked out of his or her heads.

Wafts of pot smoke.

Ponderous billowing clouds of smoke drifting all over the city, but most especially from the Upper Haight.

A neighborhood I had the pleasure of riding my scooter through.

I took her out yesterday.

I was not thinking about Easter.

I did not know that Kezar was going to be closed.

I did not know that because of the massive construction project happening in Dolores Park that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were having their Hunky Jesus contest and Mary Magdalene Pageant in Golden Gate Park, as well as the traditional little kid fest Easter Egg Hunt that was happening.

And yes, oh wise city that you are, who decided to schedule Sunday Streets (the event where the city shuts down a length of street and leaves it open to bicyclists and pedestrians only) in the Upper Haight?

What the holy hell?

I was completely not ready for that.

I had thought that I would ride my scooter to my commitment at Church and Market around 5:30 pm’ish and have a nice late Sunday afternoon ride.

I was chilling in the back yard enjoying a big mug of chai tea after having had a delicious kale salad with all sorts of fresh veggies in it, a salad I had after a beautiful walk on the beach with very few people out (I should have cottoned to it then, that the city was crazy elsewhere. Whenever it’s nice at the beach and it’s empty, something else is happening.).

I knew it was weird for the beach to be so deserted; it was 70 degrees out yesterday, clear, sunny, gorgeous, light breeze, beach weather in San Francisco for sure.

I just figured it was because it was Easter Sunday.

I was not thinking about the melee just a few miles away from the quiet, sleepiness of the Outer Sunset.

Nope, I was thinking I would chill in the back yard for a bit, read my book, enjoy the sunshine and when the time was right, why, I might even take a nap.

Plans changed.

Quick like.

I got a text message from a friend asking me what I was up to and it became apparent quick that I needed to meet up with this person and grab some coffee and then go to an earlier showing of get my head on straight I done fucked up, with my friend.

He was not in a good place and I said meet me for coffee at three p.m. and we’ll hit the four o’clock at Our Lady of Safeway.

I got my stuff together, pulled on my gloves, popped on my helmet, pulled the choke out on the scooter; kick started her up and zoomed off into the Inner Sunset.

And right into the worst traffic I have ever seen in my life.

For all of two intersections I stayed behind the cars in front of me.

Then something in my head said, “Fuck this,” and I graduated to splitting the lane in Nano seconds.

I cut through traffic, I rolled up through the maze of crazy taking it really slow, there was no other way to do it, but getting through.

It was crazy pants.

I don’t ever want to do that again.

But I can say with no little pride, that I did not kill it once, that I glided through, carefully, but I did it, I got through.

It still took me 45 minutes to get to Church and Market.

But get there I did.

I stopped.

Got coffee.

Did the deal.

Hung with my friend.

Then afterward as he was leaving to hit a dinner commitment I got a message that my laptop, my baby, my blog-producing machine, was ready for pick up at the Apple Store downtown.

Woohoo!

I hopped on and headed out.

But I got to admit, something felt weird, I felt weird, things felt off, the scooter felt, well funny.

I had a hard time suddenly relaxing into the flow and I got uncomfortable.

Should have listened to that feeling.

Because as it turns out, nothing says good times like stalling out at Hyde and Grove.

Well, maybe having all the hairs on my neck stand up and whirling around as a huge man with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth comes up and tries to hug me.

“Yo, It’s cool, I know you from the meeting, you Cindy, right?”

“NO, I am not and I don’t know you, back off,” I said and put my arm up to fend off the incoming hug.

“Yo, my mistake, it’s cool,” he said and turned to jog down the stairs to the underground.

But that was it.

Last straw.

I could put up with the homeless dude trying to offer to help me kick it over, “no thanks, I got it,” I could handle the guy that tried to solicit me, “not hooking,” I handled the guy who spare changed me too close, “Nothing, I got nothing,” but that last dude did me in.

I fired off a bunch of texts and started making phone calls.

I got a number for a tow company that deals with motorcycles and I got a friend to come down and keep me company until the tow came.

And when the tow came, revelations.

“Didn’t the guy who sold this to you tell you about the reserve tank?” He asked.

“No,” I said.

And in all fairness, he might have, but I had no recollection, and I had checked the tank three times and each time I saw that it was half way full, even with all the stop and go traffic, it was half full.

“When it gets to about half way, you need to turn this little knob here below the choke to the reserve tank, otherwise it won’t feed gas to your engine,” he demonstrated, and then started my scooter right up.

Then what?

Only charged me $20 for the service call.

My hero.

“Bike Guy Motorcycle Tow—you never know when you’ll need a tow.”

Stephen Goodloe, you are my hero.

My friend made it down to me about the same time as Mr. Goodloe did and said he would follow me home as I rode out into the dusky twilight, headed, yes, back through the park, but by this time the roads had cleared and it was smooth sailing all the way home.

I didn’t get my computer.

But I did get to learn about the reserve tank!

It’s nice to be sitting at the keyboard again.

I look forward to heralding you further with more tales from the life of Auntie Bubba again real soon.

Like tomorrow.

If I can get online.

Blame it on the Weather

Wow.

There is monkey shining  happening all over this fair city of ours tonight.

Damn Gina.

Get your 4/20 on.

Fuck me.

It was nutbuckets at work and Kai happened to mention, of course, it’s 4/20, it’s going to be lunacy all day.

I forgot.

4/20 the national holiday for smoking as much pot as you possibly can.  Or eating it–only in San Francisco, gluten free pot brownies.

You think I’m kidding.

In a city that is already fairly notorious for pot smoking, today is like some high holy holiday.

Pun unintentionally intended.

If only the monkey’s at the zoo kept it to the pot maybe it would be a little more manageable.  I mean, once you’re high, who the hell gets off the couch?

Do you see a lot of people out there “stoned” driving?  Motherfuckers usually be too lazy to get off they asses and order a pizza, let alone get out there and mingle it up.

Or they are in a comatose from trying to top off the burritos they got at Taqueria Cancun with a double scoop of Salted Caramel ice cream from BiRite Ice Creamery.  Then, they make it to Dolores Park and crash in the grass.

Ah grass.

Remember when a lid was not a hat?

Remember your parents picking seeds out of a sack?

Remember slinging QP’ers with your friends?

Hmmm, I don’t.

But that’s because I am allergic to marijuana.

Did not stop me from living with a pot head for a good five years.  Good lord could that man smoke.

Good lord all the fruitless arguments I had with him.

“Do you have to smoke before we go into the movie,” as he whipped out a one hitter and stuffed it with some stinky blueberry nugs. Or stuffed the bong for his morning wake and bake.

Oh, I got the patter down.

This particular ex slung a lot of pot.  Grew a lot of pot and smoked a ridiculous amount of pot. Pot. Pot. Pot.

In fact, he’s probably stoned some where right now.

God bless him.

I did not know I was allergic, I just thought that I was getting really, really, really high.  But the pot that I was smoking was not very good, I was just so sensitive to it, that I was getting high off it (note to younger self, if it had been good, you probably would have died doing the bath tub bong hit from the cut off 2 liter 7-Up plastic bottle).  I found out later after I got really truly sick, from of all people, my mom, who told me she was also allergic and my dad, good old pops, used to test out how good the pot was by having my mom smoke it.

The sicker she got, the better the pot.

There is some thing wrong with this picture, isn’t there?

Anyway.

Here’s what happens when I smoke:

I laugh my ass off.

I pass out.

I vomit.

The laugh my ass off part lasts for all of five minutes then I would vomit and pass out–having unfortunately locked myself in the bathroom at the party house.

Not the best way to meet your new boyfriends friends.  And to top it off they were aficionados.  Truly.  These boys knew their pot and they knew how to grow it and where to get their clones from.  Can you say Northern Skunk mixed with blueberry Sativa cross pollinated with, oh never mind.

They were all rich kids, but my ex.  He met them through a bizarre set of circumstances that shook out like this–UW Madison fucked up his dorm assignment, he should have been staying at Ogg Hall–where another couple of my previous boyfriends had hailed from–but got reassigned, on the state’s dime, to The Towers.

The Towers and the State Sider, private dorms for the rich and privileged set of out-of-state kids that go to UW Madison.

There he fell in with a pack of East Coast monied trustafarian kids.  They all had connections, they all had disposable cash, and they all adopted my ex, who had a very green thumb and expensive tastes and knew which parking lots you could steal sodium halogen lights from for your hydroponic grow room.

It was a recipe for horticulture that eventually led to many a lost night of sleep when the cops busted down the door and discovered said grow room.  Thank God they did not discover the scale under the bed, the stash of four thousand dollars in the mini fridge in the bedroom, or the just harvested pounds that he had distributed not even the day before.

Oops.

Oh and guess what?  Possession is 9/10s the law, even if you are allergic to pot.

Even if your boyfriend tells the cops that the plants were all his.  Apparently if you’re on the lease, like I was, you’re culpable too.

Damn.

Lost my two grand that I was saving up for a road trip to California to play frisbee golf across the Western United States to lawyers fees.  I got off by “donating” a $200 fine to D.A.R.E.

Thanks honey.

Yes, you read that previous paragraph correctly, frisbee golf, or Disc Golf, if you will.  I played for a few years and my ex was actually an amateur who dreamed of going pro and would play the tournaments to get points up for a place at Nationals.

I have seen some amazing things thrown across a field.

Actually, I rather miss it.  I just realized that Golden Gate Park got a frisbee golf course back in 2006 or 2007.  Maybe I’ll go throw a round next weekend.

I was there covering the opening event with NPR.  I was interning at KQED radio (where I was informed that I had the talent to be an announcer and the voice, but that I needed to go back to the Midwest and work in a small market until I got my chops up and then move to a small city system and then, maybe if I was lucky, fifteen years down the line I could get a part-time gig with NPR).

Not so much, thanks.

The neat, yes, I said neat, thing about covering that story was that I was actually the “reporter” who broke the angle to KQED.  No one had ever heard of the sport when I brought it up, I had found it in a press release that had been sent to the station, most of which end up in the recycling, but this one I scooped.  And it ended up getting air play.

Fairly cool.

Wow, that was a total digression from the topic at hand.

Or was it?

Our minds tend to wander a little when we’re high right?

Back to the post.

It did not help matters that it was glorious today.  Super sunny, warm, hot even, for San Francisco anyway.  I actually saw riders come into the store who had broken a sweat.  I haven’t broken a sweat on my bike in quite a few weeks.

Speaking of, I hope the entire Mission stays high tomorrow and sits at the park, it’s just me and the GM running the show.  We are short-staffed.

It could get interesting.

And with that realization, I should wrap this little guy up and start thinking about getting to bed.  I will be busy tomorrow.

But at lease I won’t be getting stoned online chat calls.

Seriously, it was liked getting prank called all day long.  I felt like I was on a Simpson’s episode with Bart calling into the shop and telling me to let Prince Albert out of the can.

Al Co Holic?  Are there any AL Coholics here?

Uh, yeah.

I see you there in the grass with your bong blazing right along.

Now, just stay there, ok?