And So It Goes

I wore the wrong underpants today.

Jesus.

They are cute, not sexy, wearing sexy panties to work is weird when you’re a nanny.

But man, they did not work with the outfit today.

I was wearing my favorite pair of painters bibs and I just picked the wrong pair, I mean truly.

On the bicycle ride home I was almost as fixated with my underwear as I was with my surroundings.  The speed and essence of the bicycle ride was almost negated by the uncomfortable riding.

I couldn’t wait to get home into my yoga pants.

Which caused me to forget my underwear woes and reflect on what an amazing difference a week can make.

Last week this time I was dodging bullets, well, perhaps not bullets, but fireworks, police squad cars, mobs of San Francisco Giants fans, drunks, the random flag waver, cars with howling people shouting, ‘let’s go Giants,’ cars honking, lots of honking cars, and the desire to get home as quickly as possible to change out of my nanny attire into appropriate date attire.

Which did not include said yoga pants.

I mean, I think I look cute in my comfy cozy with my hair done up at the back of my head, but I don’t look like date night.

Last Wednesday was a pretty explosive date night, lots of fireworks, this Wednesday, nada.

It’s done.

Or so it would seem.

I mean, I cannot ever know what a person is thinking, but it’s done.

That’s what it feels like.

And like picking my underwear out of my bum, wrong panties, cute, sort of sexy, purple, frilly things, I apparently can’t pick out guys either.

I mean, I know it’s all a crap shoot, but I have been told before that my picker is broken and it would seem to be the truth.

The thing is, despite rejection being God’s protection, as I was so pithily told today, I still think I had a moment, a minute, a sly, secret hope, that maybe, just maybe, there was something more to come.

No.

No phone calls.

No text messages.

No future date.

And that’s great.

That’s all the information I need.

Move on lady pants.

In better underpants.

So how to do that?

How to keep going out and doing the dating thing if what I am attracted to is not a good fit?  How do people do this thing, this weird relationship thing?

I got to know.

It really feels like this is the time.

I don’t ever recall being at a better place in my life and since I have been in some craptacular relationships when I was in horrid places, wouldn’t it make sense that now that I am in a really good place, I would be in some really good relationships?

Of course.

I am.

I am in a great relationship with myself, I love myself and I can say that without cringing, which, man oh man, there was a time and in the not too distant past, when I could not say that without making a moue with my mouth.

Now.

Well.

I do it every morning.

After I have had my coffee, after I have had my prayers and reading and oatmeal, and I have written for a while and did the hair and the makeup and packed the messenger bag and secured a second cup of joe for the road, then I look at myself in the mirror and I say:

“I love you and I forgive you.”

Then I smile.

Because, god damn it, it’s true.

I love this woman I am and I love the person I am becoming, I know there’s more growth and more challenges and I feel capable of walking through them.

Oh.

I know.

There will be feelings and emotions, I just cannot seem to get past that, but there will be growth and beauty and art and love.

Whether it is love of the women I work with or the women who work with me, or my friends or the fellows in my community, I have strong intimate relationships.

I just don’t have a romantic one at the moment.

I did think that it was coming down the pipe line with this past guy and that’s on me.

I accept that I had expectations without even realizing that I had them.

There they were.

Sneaky little fuckers.

However.

To be honest.

To not put too fine a point on it.

I cannot recall having had that kind of chemistry in a really long time and I think the hormones just blew me the fuck out of the planet.

It’s good to have that feeling.

I believe that it is vital and necessary to be attracted to the person you are dating.

I mean, it just makes sense.

And between last Monday night and Wednesday night I was sugar-coated in desire.

It’s not a bad place to be.

And like a good little addict, I want more.

Since the source seems to have dried up it’s time to go procure elsewhere.

That is not to say that I am so callous as to think I can substitute one man for another.

Rather that I don’t want to sit, lonely girl style, next to the silent telephone.

I have too much life to give and too much love to give.

And damn it.

I am a fabulous kisser.

Let me not waste the sexy sitting in a corner, let me not put Baby there, and let me loose out into the world.

Just, um, help me, will you?

Point me in a different direction.

I am wearing blinders, I always have, and I can’t see off to the sides, the man who might be in the periphery, the person I could be going out with if I wasn’t focused on “what if I had done it different.”

If it was meant to be you can’t fuck it up.

If it wasn’t meant to be, you can’t manipulate it into happening.

There is no going back.

Just moving forward.

With kindness, compassion, and forgiveness for the experience.

Because damn it.

I am worth it.

 

“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”

Flashback City

I was sitting in the audience tonight at the Hypnodrome for the Grand Guignal spectacular of The Bloody Debutante and I kept having these moments of deja vu.

What the hell is going on?

I mean.

I know I am ass out tired.

Sorry date.

Not you, I swear.

Just running amok after two little boys today, end of the week, running errands, twice to the market, once to the dry cleaners, over to the park, make the lunch, prep breakfast for the weekend, make the dinner, gather the snacks, and all other various sundry nanny and household duties.

You know.

Typical day at work.

At least I am getting used to it.

And the days, they do go by quick.

I was not even able to worry about the date, although on the occasion when I had a spare moment to think, I was concerned with what the traffic was going to be like, you know, first home game, third game into the World Series, San Francisco Giants.

But.

As it turned out.

I got done with work right after the Royals scored their first run of the evening.

The streets of the Mission were eerily quiet.

The normal Friday night melee was all inside cozied up in front of televisions and big screen monitors in various bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and laundry mats (I kid you not, if it was a place of business, it probably had a huddle of folks around some screen watching the game).

I had a pretty easy commute over to Wicked Grounds for the first leg of the date.

Which made me laugh.

First.

I haven’t been to Wicked Grounds in years and years.

And it’s a damn funny place to take a girl for a cup of coffee on a first date.

It’s a sex positive coffee shop that was opened, I think, but am not certain, by the same folks that run the Citadel, an underground dungeon up the road off of Market Street.

Butt plug with your Americano?

Ball gag on the Halloween pumpkin at the register.

Pictures of naked women in Japanese rope bondage scenarios.

I had a giggle or thirteen as I waited for my Americano to be made.

And.

As luck would have it, two dear and darling friends happened to walk in while I was paying for my coffee.

They were at the art gallery show next door and had popped in for coffees.

“You are everywhere!” My friend exclaimed.

“Carmen sandwich!” Her husband declared.

Yes.

Ah, friends, love my friends, so good to get squeezes and squishes and hugs when in slightly uncomfortable dating scenario.

First dates are awkward, that’s the nature of a first date, I think, but it didn’t help that every time I looked up from my coffee I was looking at the vaginal canal of a woman prostrate in rope bonds.

I didn’t know where the fuck to look.

It certainly encouraged me to make direct eye contact with my date.

I will give my date some credit, I don’t believe he was trying to drop hints (or was he?) about future possible dates, I think it may have been the only coffee shop in the neighborhood of the theater.

Besides, I don’t think Mister Leather had a coffee bar service.

Ahem.

The show was at 8 p.m. and despite my Americano, I was lagging.

But intrigued by the theater and the host who greeted us at the door to the theater and allowed us to sit front row in the handicapped reserved seating (as there were no handicap patrons at the show) which was really quite sweet.

I sat stifling yawns through the first half of the show and trying to appreciate the theatrics.

The first half of the show was good, but a little slow and I kept having odd thoughts and memories needle at me.

I could not figure it out and when the intermission happened I hoped that I would be able to make it through the rest of the show and not fall asleep on my date.

As it turned out, the second half was much more energetic and engaging and I got quite caught up in the theater and it was good, really good.

In fact, go see it.

If you want to take your Halloween honey somewhere fun and unusual next week, or even this weekend, this would be a great date.  The theater really is a great space and if you can afford it, buy a “Shock Box” which is basically a grand theater box that are rather tricked out and cozy and sexy.

Definitely a place to have a little canoodle or knee grabbing during the show.

The show is called the Bloody Debutante and it really is quite a bloody show.

At times it’s quite campy and I kept being reminded of something and then it hit me.

The Cockettes!

I first moved to San Francisco in 2002.

The same year the Cockettes documentary film came out.

I worked at Hawthorne Lane and one of the waiters took a shine to me, he was older, but I couldn’t tell you how old, fabulous, gay, and as it turned out a master seamstress and costume designer.

In fact, he designed a lot of the costumes for the original Cockettes shows.

To celebrate the documentary and because it was Halloween and no other city on earth quite does Halloween like San Francisco, there was a party for the movie and a fashion show and my friend from Hawthorne Lane needed an extra model for the show.

“He bailed at the last moment!” He hustled me in the dressing room at work as we were finishing our lunch shift, “you have to help, I need someone fabulous to rock it out.”

Well, nothing says stroking a girls ego, especially a fresh transplant to San Francisco from Wisconsin, like telling her you want her to model some fashion on a runway at the opening of a film.

I wore a hot pink rabbit fur coat with the most fabulous pockets and buttons and swag and geegaws sewn all over it.

I had on fishnet stockings and one of my garters snapped when I was walking.

I stopped mid catwalk, bent over, wiggle my bottom in the air, pulled it up and sashay’ed to the end to many a hoot and holler.

I had completely forgotten about my first Halloween in San Francisco until the second act of the show started and I realized that there were members from the Cockettes in the show and then it all suddenly flashed upon me.

Holy shit.

My life.

I may be just another nanny on the block.

But once in a while, when no one is looking, I’m on the run way in hot pink furs.

Because that’s just how I roll.

Fabulous as fuck.

 

 

Crazy Town

And it’s not because I am leaving and my emotions are in a ruckus.

THE GIANTS JUST WON THE WORLD SERIES!

SWEEP THIS BITCHES!

Ok.

Now that this is out of my system, back to the blogging at hand.  Although I don’t know how good this one is gonna be, frankly the entire world is exploding.

Literally, illegal fireworks, helicopters, sirens, screams (mostly of joy, from what I can tell at this point), honking–lots of honking.  I am at what feels like the epicenter of the madness, but from various check ins around town, everywhere in town is the epicenter.

The Mission, however, truly does feel like ground zero.

I was looking for parking when it suddenly dawned on me that I was in a very intense little pocket of San Francisco if I was to get caught in the celebration.  I was on Albion Street next to Kilowatt and the third to last pitch was being pitched and the crowd exploded and I got a horrid hot flash of anxiety.

Not my car.

Not my car.

Not my fucking car.

Park now.

I saw the cops in riot gear and I sent a little prayer to the heavens, please, God, help me find parking.

I am not one to pray to the parking gods, I think that is silliness, but I just fucking did.

I found parking.  And I believe I will be staying over night in San Francisco.  I cannot fathom even attempting to move, it would be folly.  Especially since I am parked at 15th and Julian.  I would have some crazy people to get through and it is just not worth it.

Not that I don’t doubt the fans deserve to celebrate, they certainly do, I just do not need to risk some one else’s property to get back to the East Bay.

And I tell you what, it was hard enough for me to leave the East Bay today.

I did not want to come into San Francisco.  I did not want to say good-bye.  I did not want you to see me cry.

Boy howdy did you see me cry today.

A lot.

Oh well.

It was worth every single tear shed.  I love this city, crazy with glee, morose in the fog, rainy, sunny, cold, windy, salty San Francisco.

I can officially say I will be leaving my heart in San Francisco.

I may come back to retrieve a piece of it or two, but this is my home, irretrievably and for always.  San Francisco is my home.  You have treated me so well, so special, so sweet.

You have been a dirty hooker too, but we won’t talk about that right now, we are waxing nostalgic.

I remember one day sitting at the top of Dolores Park looking over the city and I just did not know what was going to happen, how I was going to stay, and how that was going to look.  I did not want to go back to Wisconsin, I did not want to give up the ghost, I had been infected by this city and I could not shake the feeling that I was supposed to be here, here, home, here in the Mission.

“It’s kind of weird how many furniture stores are on this street,” Stephanie said to me as we walked down Mission Street over ten years ago.

I had just gotten a look at the room I was sub-letting in the Mission on 20th and York.

WOOOOOHOOOOOO GIANTS!

Sorry, got distracted.

This is harder to do than I thought–both acknowledging the feelings coming up around leaving and just writing my blog in the center of the madness.  I snuck into the shop to use the bathroom and print of my bicycle invoice to take on the plane with me–I have no intentions to pay customs on my bicycle as I come into the country.  I just printed off two copies, one for the bike box and one for me to carry on the plane.

I got a sweet, sweet, sweet message today from Barnaby.  He is just such a pumpkin.  He called me internationally to tell me he will be meeting me at the airport and we will go to the apartment and drop my stuff and then go to a cafe in the neighborhood (this is good I will want to have a bite of breakfast–landing at Charles De Gaulle at 8:40a.m.) then off to see folks and he has even arranged to hook me right into the necessary fellowship that I so need and crave.

He also said it was really, really, really cold.

I have not checked the weather yet and I am realizing that it may really be a good idea to get a winter coat before I go.  I love my Chrome hoodie and jean jacket layer combo, but it may not really be enough.  I am going to give it the old college try before I go to get myself an appropriate coat–the one Matt gave me too big, the one I got from my mom in Florida, not quite a good fit after I kept trying to make it so, so…time for a winter coat.

I have not thought about a winter coat is so long.

Crazy.

This whole thing is crazy.

Crazy wonderful and wild and weird and overwhelming.

I sat at the top of Dolores Park and cried.

I did not want to go home, I did not want to go back to Wisconsin, which had stopped feeling like home already and here was San Francisco, a jewel, a haven, a home and I was not ready to give it up.

I did not have to, as it turned out.

I do not have to now either.

It will always be home base.

Just not where I lay my head any longer.

They say home is where the heart is and as I make the last of my adieu’s, I can say this much is true.

Oh God.

That was a horrendous bad big firework and now the cops are here.

It’s time for me to go.

I love you San Francisco.

Please don’t burn yourself to the ground tonight, I want a city to come back to and visit down the road.