1/26/03

I'm not watching the Superbowl. I thought this would be a good opportunity to have the city to myself, but I went to the grocery store earlier this evening, and while it was less busy than usual on a Sunday, the parking lot was mostly full, and I had to wait in a line with four or five people ahead of me. I guess there are a lot of hippie communists in San Francisco who don't care about football.

This football apathy seemed all the more striking given that earlier in the day, I'd been listening to an episode of the radio show "This American Life," which profiled the lives of people on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. Listening to the show, I learned that not only had all flights on the carrier been cancelled in honor of Superbowl Sunday, but also, the ship's course for the day would be designed to optimize the sometimes-sketchy onboard satellite television reception. Apparently, the ship was to set sail in the most reception-optimal direction and would sail at minimum speed until halftime. Then, at halftime, the ship would turn 180 degrees, and sail back at maximum speed. Then, they would turn around again, and proceed sailing as slowly as possible in the optimal direction for the second half.

Anyway, it struck me that the relative Superbowl apathy in these parts was just one more way that life in San Francisco is very unlike life on an aircraft carrier.

I ran some other errands today, and I took a long nap. I've gone out each night for the last four nights in a row, which is a lot for me. Wednesday night, I went to a double feature at the Castro Theater with Josh and the Suspect known as Pinkstinky, whom I will refer to here as K., because I feel kind of silly calling her Pinkstinky. Anyway, the movies we went to see were part of their Noir City series, which consisted solely of film noir movies set in San Francisco. The two movies we saw were very different, but both great. It was fun seeing what San Francisco looked like 50 years ago (in one movie, they showed the Great Highway, which runs along Ocean Beach, and it is unpaved). And while both movies were well-made, it was also fun to laugh at the cheesy overacting and antiquated slang.

I got to the movie a little early, and so took advantage of that to walk around in the Castro neighborhood for a while. The Castro is just on the other side of Twin Peaks from where I live, but I rarely seem to make it over there, even though I think it's a really cool neighborhood. I'd say the Castro is probably second only to Chinatown in terms of its specialization. Nearly every single business in the neighborhood is targeted towards gays. I walked into a hardware store on Castro Street, and saw that in addition to hammers and switchplates and weatherstripping, they also sold brightly-colored wigs and campy decorative items and toys. It's not just a hardware store--it's a gay hardware store!

I think it's pretty cool to live in a city with a gay hardware store.

Thursday night, I hung out with Jay for the first time in a while. We only seem to get together every couple of months, even though he only lives a couple of miles away. When I do see him, Jay always complains that I don't hang out with him more, to which I always respond "that's because you never call me!" And then he says "but I don't call anybody!" And then I say "well then, you can't complain!" And he says "but that's just the way I am!" So, you can probably see why we don't hang out very often, although I always have fun when we do.

He suggested that we go out for bad Thai food and then to a punk show. What I didn't realize until we got to the show was that the show was actually part of a series called "Three Punk Bands and a Drag Queen," so I was kind of confused by the fact that when we showed up, the audience was equal parts rocker types and transsexuals. The bands were OK. Very loud--I should have brought earplugs. I seriously fear for the future of my ears, and I think that evening alone ensured that I will one day be a profoundly deaf old lady. And between the bands, a drag queen got up on stage and lip synched to a punk song while wearing an outrageous costume and wig.

I actually wasn't feeling very well--I think the bad Thai food did something to my stomach, so I wound up leaving shortly after the third band took the stage. All their songs kind of sounded alike anyway, although Jay told me that I missed the highlight of the evening: the singer was so drunk that he fell off the stage mid-song. Oh well.

Friday night, I went to a "kickoff party" for my ten-year college reunion. Scarily enough, this summer it will be ten years since I graduated from college, and this party was to be a gathering of my classmates now living in the Bay Area. Of course, that group includes my ex-boyfriend who recently moved to town, but whom I haven't seen in many years. As it turned out, he didn't show up, but there was still some drama, which I'm not going to get into here, except to say that I thankfully wasn't a part of it, just an observer. As it turned out, hardly anyone at the party was planning to go to the actual reunion. I'm not either. Pretty much everyone I'd want to see from college I see anyway, and I was just in Chicago in October of 2001. Plus, I have opera tickets for that weekend, which is my official excuse for not going.

Then, last night, I went all the way over to Oakland to hang out with K. and watch while her boyfriend and some of his friends DJ'd. K. doesn't dance, and I was content to just hang out and chat with her, which I did until a couple of guys decided that they wanted to be our friends. One of them actually seemed OK, although he looked to be somewhere in his forties. The other spoke somewhat unintelligibly, and told us, variously, that he could pay K.'s tuition for her if she wanted to go back to school, and that he could get me shoes--he said that he had 45 pairs of shoes in my size, although I wasn't really clear on how he'd come to have those shoes since he also told me that he spent 16 hours a day hanging drywall for a living. He seemed to realize that his claim was a bit fishy-sounding, since he kept saying "you don't believe me, do you?" I assured him that I did. Both of them insisted that they weren't hitting on us, since shoe guy was married, and his friend had a girlfriend (not to mention that we were there with K.'s boyfriend). They were very protective of us, though--at one point, I was chatting with another friend of K.'s and one of them called me away to ask if "that guy" was bothering me. I assured him that we were having a very nice conversation about his thesis on Censorship in Indian Cinema. Apparently, there is no kissing in Indian movies, which I'd never realized.

But anyway, at the end of the evening, shoe guy gave K. his name and phone number, in case she needed tuition, or, presumably, shoes, and his friend asked me for my number.

"I thought you had a girlfriend," I said.
"Yeah, and you probably have a boyfriend, huh?"
"Yes, yes, I do," I lied confidently.
"Well, it'll just have to be on the D.L., then" he said.

I then had to tell him that I simply wasn't comfortable with that. I'm not the kind of person who cheats on my fictional boyfriend.

Anyway, overall, it was really a pretty fun night. But K. and I decided that next time, if this happens again, we'll be more forthright and just tell the guys to go away. Either that or pretend to be lesbians.