My Protanoptic Life

Friday, May 7th was my last day working my contract at GWOS. I had thought my contract ended a week earlier, and had bought a plane ticket for that timeframe. That detail was an oversight on my part, and it cost me nearly the price of a plane ticket just to get it switched. Honestly though I was happy to work the extra week because projects were coming together and I got a lot of work done that week. My boss Dr. Dave Blunt was on vacation in New Zealand, so on Friday I trained a temp guy to pick up some of the slack while another co-worker, Thomas Stocking, was going to be handling the bulk of the IT duties. A few of my co-workers invited me into Thomas’s office for a glass of fine scotch to finish the work day off.

After work I got in my car and headed to REI to pick up a hat and a light colored, long sleeved shirt, two things that are priceless in SE Asia.  I didn’t immediately notice that the hat, like my backpack I’d bought for my first trip, was made in Vietnam.

For dinner I grabbed sushi with Blake and Lily on Castro St, and after that I drove down to Lila’s house to stay with her family for a while. I spent a lot of time there playing on the iPad with Maks and trying to find the best way to pack some gifts for my trip. The best way ended up being to keep my expensive and fragile things in my backpack while putting heavy and liquid things into a cardboard box for check-in at the airport.

The How Weird Street Faire was on Mother’s day, which was Sunday, and I had planned to go but ended up not being able to make it. That’s my favorite SF electronica festival, but it just wasn’t going to fit into my schedule and it wasn’t high enough priority for me to really make it happen. Getting packed for my trip and making sure I had everything I needed was my main focus the last few days. Late Sunday night Lila and Maks dropped me off at SFO. Check in was easy, but the last bar closed at 11pm and I was just a few minutes too late to get any service, so I ended up waiting at the gate, tired but trying to stay awake for the last few hours.

Just after 1am on May 10th, China Airlines flight 3 from SFO to Taipei boarded, and it would be the most uncomfortable international flight I’d ever taken. The plane was shoddy, the seat was uncomfortable, the food was bad, there were crying babies, there was what seemed like a VHS tape hooked to a 1990′s projection style TV for us to watch a movie on, and no personal entertainment systems on each chair (which was fine by me anyway, those things all suck.) On top of that, I had an aisle seat so people kept running by and brushing my arm or leaning against me to let other people pass.

I slept for most of the flight. I thought about watching a movie on my iPad, or listening in on the in-flight movie, but remembered that it is disconnecting and weird to lose myself in a fictitious plot when I’ve got my own new story going.

I remembered that I’d forgotten to pick up a travel bug to take to Asia. Oh well. Next time.

One good thing I’ll say is that the coffee was good. I think I like Asian coffee more than what we usually get in America. I’d have traded the better than average coffee for a comfortable seat though.

The in-flight GPS display came up on the big screen and showed that we had just flown over almost all of Japan. It then switched to a display of “breathing exercises for relaxation” where a girl was sitting calmly on a chair at the end of a dock on a mirror lake with what looked like Mt. Fuji in the background, though I suspect it was some Chinese mountain. The video had just begun to explain to us how to relax when the girl was torn from her serene location by static and color glitches commonly seen when you pause a VHS tape. The captain had an announcement.

We landed in an overcast Taipei that was mostly unremarkable. What I could see of the airport outside was foreign and neat, but beyond it was just familiar green vegetation and grey skies. I spent no more than 45 minutes there before being seated on flight CI0781 to Saigon. Maybe I’ll go back for a longer visit some day…

Right now I’m on the L-Taraval on my way to the sunset. Rob is in new York looking for a place to live and I’m crashing at his place while he’s gone.

I just finished a crazy, long day at work with network config, server upgrades, Linux active directory authentication problems relating to a windows server meltdown that also caused DNS and VPN meltowns. This infrastructure is not exactly high availability.  It started at 6am and here at 10pm it’s almost over… On top of that I managed to work out the details of a landing visa for my trip to saigon next week and line up a small crew for how weird this Sunday.

It’s such a foreign world here in SF compared to the remote Mekong farm village where Tien grew up and is staying these days. I love technology, and I need to make money, but I have to find a balance.

I need immigration to approve Tiens visa.  It’s been over five months since I last saw Tien, which is a long time to go without seeing anybody, let alone your fiancé. Too long.

Last weekend I went to San Jose for Sadeks birthday and caught up with a ton of folks I hadn’t seen in a long time. I’ve managed to fit in quite a few good visits in my last few weeks here, though unfortunately a few have not come through.

It’s strange to consider the levels of anticipation between my trips. The first time I left I was burned out on work, going into the unknown ready for whatever. The second time I was lovestruck and impatient for things to move on freely. This time I seem exhausted and underwhelmed. I’ve been so focused on projects at work and dealing with the details that I feel like I’ve lost touch with the joys that I’m pursuing.  When I stop to think about the situation I am either emotionally swelled with missing Tien or incredibly frustrated and nearly broken over this ridiculous US immigration saga.

I need a vacation, that’s for sure. Maybe I’ll go back to Nha Trang…

It’s weird to think back to a time when I cared where I slept at night.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything, mainly because I haven’t been traveling. I left Colorado and drove back to San Francisco in mid August, over two months ago. In that time I’ve mainly been focusing on two things: finishing an I-129f petition for Tien and studying and practicing flash photography. Most of that time has been spent sleeping on the floor or couch in Brianna, Lily and Terresina’s living room. I did get a sublet for a few weeks right up on top of twin peaks, and I did stay with some other friend in that time. Some people had suggested that I get a job and an apartment and prepare for Tien’s arrival in the US, but I just didn’t want to do things that way. Instead, once I finished Tien’s petition I decided to go back to Vietnam. So, here I am on Northwest Airlines flight 27 from San Francisco to Tokyo where I have a quick layover before flying to Saigon.

Honestly, the last few months have been difficult personally because my future has been up in the air and it’s been up to me to steer the direction of my life through wide open uncertain circumstances. My fiance is still in Vietnam and probably can’t enter the US for 7 more months. I’ve been wading through the US immigration system pretty much on my own. I have no job and no home of my own. There was the option of starting up a photography business of my own. For a while I didn’t even have a phone, then I realized that was ridiculous and forked over $70 a month for an iPhone plan which was extra great because of tethering. I still don’t have health insurance which led to me skipping an optional vaccination and needing to find malaria meds in VN because I didn’t find the SF Travel Clinic until last night, and I just started planning this trip 3 days ago.

Two nights ago I took the girls out for dinner as a thank you for being so hospitable and to have one last great time with them before heading out. Yesterday I took care of last minute preparations. One of the things I did was buy a pocket camera to replace the LX3 I had purchased in Saigon last time. I lost the LX3 at Lovefest after drinking a bit too much. I honestly have no idea where I lost it, but I was happy I didn’t lose my D300 instead. The camera I picked up was a $150 Samsung NV24HD. The look is what first caught my eye, then its remarkable interface, then its ability to do 60fps video and lastly its 24mm equivalent lens. A few quick googles showed happy owners so I followed the impulse and bought it. Following impulses is working out pretty good for me.

That night I headed down to Lila’s house to crash there for the night. Will had wrecked one of their cars so like last time I let her them borrow mine. This works out great because they get a car and i don’t have to pay storage costs. Lila and I took Maks to his new school in Palo Alto and then she dropped me off at SFO. My friend Blake is living out in SF now and was flying back to CO for a week, so I met up with him at the airport after checking in for my flight. We caught up on recent life details and future life strategy while he waited in an incredibly long line at the Southwest Airlines ticket counter. I left him still in it when I had to go to the international area.

At the security checkpoint I was happy to see that they had gotten rid of that lame requirement to remove your laptop. The posted signs only said to remove oxygen mask systems, full size DVD players and game systems, but no mention of laptops anywhere. My happiness at not having to unpack my bag was ended with a snide comment from a TSA agent about how I was supposed to remove my laptop for the x-Ray machine. I wished her luck when she said she was going to take it out for me, but thought again about how I needed that luck since I’d be the one repacking my bag. Stupid TSA security theater.

I bought an $8 ham sandwich and a single serving bottle of wine because I’d need to sleep on the plane. International flights may be one of the only legitimate excuses for drinking in the morning. I ate, emailed Tien, canceled my per-month iPhone plan and boarded the plane. We took off ahead of schedule and are looking at a shorter than expected travel time. Maybe I’ll catch sunset in Tokyo. Hopefully it’s not foggy like last time.

My trip was taking the same route I took last time, SF to Tokyo to Saigon. Last time I flew on All Nippon Airways and it was absolutely the best airline experience I’ve ever had. I had tried to get another flight with them, but after searching I found that United and NWA (Delta) were roughly half the cost at $680 round trip. I thought this was a fantastic deal considering I was buying two days in advance, but then I remembered the recent flood that ravaged Hoi An and other coastal towns in that region and it made sense.

Transcontinental flights are already pretty awesome with their in-flight entertainment systems in each seat, typically more room than domestic flights and meals and drinks are included in the ticket price. I wasn’t so sure how delta would stack up against Ana and was a little interested in finding out. 3 hours into my flight I have some results…

The entertainment system for the whole plane crashed shortly after I started using it. The flight attendant on the intercom said it would take 15 minutes to reboot, and it did. A sight that was familiar to me came on the screen: tux the penguin and a bunch of black and white textual technological jargon.

After a few iterations the system eventually stabilized and I was allowed the displeasure of finding innumerable bugs and limitations. The media wasn’t sortable and was not listed alphabetically. When browsing reviews, the “next” function was 4 clicks away while the default was “watch trailer”, which clearly assumes that people intend to watch trailers more than skip to the next review. The media was Aldo incorrectly linked so that clicking Forrest Gump let you watch a Honduran movie called Sin Nombre. There were 4 unhelpful listings for Delta TV that ended up being popular american television shows. The most disheartening thing was their lack of selection, there are only a handful of movies available, nothing for me to watch. The in-flight map showed that we had flown 8500 or so miles shortly after takeoff. This was accompanied by a flat map, not a globe. The “comments” link only let you take a survey and not actually leave comments, which stiles one my personal pet peeves of interface elements that say they do one thing and do something completely different. “Download now” is the worst offense of this kind on the Internet. So, yeah, big fail on the delta entertainment system unless the label it as alpha or maybe beta.

The next test was the meal. It was actually very good, but plastic silverware is wasteful and cheap. They did provide hand towels, coffee, beer and wine though, so that was also nice. All in all, not too bad.

One of the highlights o this trip is meeting up with an old room mate and coworker, David Tran. He’s a Vietnamese Parisian who is on a trip to Saigon to see his family. he’s actually in Singapore right now but will be returning on Monday which gives Tien and I some time to spend in Saigon with each other and her friend Trinh and gives me time to adjust to the time difference, find malarone and get started on that two day lead in before entering malaria infested areas.

By the time Monday morning rolled around I had slept away over half of my weekend while doped up on NyQuil and Imodium. I was finally starting to feel better on Monday, so much so that I decided I was well enough to drive to CO. I think I may have said goodbye to Brianna and Lily while I was still asleep, but Terresina was still there. She was sick too, from a night of drinking. I gave her my sympathies and a farewell and headed out to have lunch with Rob. It was a glorious San Francisco day that made me not want to leave, but I did.

At 3:30pm I headed off across the Bay Bridge. It had been so long since I’d seen it and they had done a significant amount of work on the eastern span in the time I was gone. I’d really love to photograph it during construction. You can’t even see it when you’re driving because the barriers on the side of the bridge are so big. I was soon off into the hills with the windows down and the music up and began enjoying my drive quite a bit. I remembered other times I’d taken that drive, particularly July 2nd a few years ago when I left at the same time of day to drive all night by myself as I was doing again.

I had been traveling to new places for so long and experiencing new things that I hadn’t had much time to let things settle in properly, but as I drove over Donner Pass this began to happen. The familiar feelings of the mountains and the open road were great and helped me sort through some unsettled thoughts in my mind.

I caught a scent in the air that reminded me of Double Dragon.

The sun set as I passed through Reno without stopping; the light was beautiful. I continued thinking about the past. I began thinking about all of the other drives I’d done between San Francisco and Colorado Springs. The trip when Andreas hit the rabbit in the middle of the night on the ice. The trip when Zach and I had to drive hundreds of miles through a snow storm and had to sleep in my car at a rest stop in the middle of Wyoming. The night I drove it alone in my convertible with the top down. The time Fava and I drove out together and he drove back alone. The time when Shawn, Beth, Jeff and I picked up the hitch hiking pro mountain boarder in who had run out of gas in the middle of Utah in the middle of the night. The time I flew to Salt Lake and Vince picked me up and we drove back on the snow in his Legend. The time we got lost on our detour to Las Vegas. The time we all laid down at the side of the highway and gazed at stars. The time Olivia hit a dead deer with my car. The trip when Gabe and I stopped frequently to take photographs.

Yeah, I’ve done this drive a lot. I just wish it was shorter than 1300 miles.

At about 8:45 PST I was cruising along listening to Rancid and I noticed I was feeling really good health-wise, like I was going to be well very soon. I felt awake and on my game for the first time since leaving Japan. Just as I was realizing this I saw lightning strike way in the distance ahead of me, and just after that I saw a meteorite shoot across the sky towards the sunset. I wondered if the Perseid meteor shower was coming soon.

Tuesday morning at 1:30am PST I was greeted at the Utah border with a sign telling the death toll of I-80 for 2008 and so far in 2009. As beautiful as it is, Utah has never seemed all that welcoming, and it’s things like this that really highlight that fact.

At 2:40 I saw another meteorite as I was looking for a gas station. Salt Lake City has hidden its gas stations but I used my GPS to find one that was a mile off the highway, exactly where it shouldn’t be. It was closed. I found another one though, and then found my way back to the highway with my GPS telling me turn right, turn left, recalculating. As I got onto the highway it said told me to continue driving for 430 miles. So I did.

As the sun was peaking over the horizon I came upon a wind farm in Wyoming. I pulled over to photograph it and was delighted to find a dirt road that led me nearby the bases of the windmills, so I spent a long time photographing them. The sun was well above the horizon when I left to find breakfast in a nearby town. The coffee I got with breakfast was terrible though and I was nearly out of gas so I stopped again and got some snacks for the road and good coffee. This little convenience store that was tucked away outside of town was convenient indeed as it was the first place to offer truly free wifi. I caught up with some friends and told Nate that I’d be in his city within 3 hours, then headed back onto the highway.

The sun was high in the sky and was hot and I began to get sleepy. I thought about pulling over to take a nap since I hadn’t slept at all on the drive yet, but when I looked for a place to nap I realized that Wyoming around I-80 has no trees as far as you can see. There was no shade anywhere and I sure as hell wasn’t going to nap in a hot car so I just kept driving.

I made it to Colorado, followed my GPS through the somewhat familiar streets of Fort Collins and out onto I-25. Then I noticed that I was in Colorado and the drivers here are not to be trusted and so I got on my guard. I looked at the highway though and thought that maybe if Colorado would build a highway wider than 2 lanes people wouldn’t seem to drive so terribly here. Maybe they would even get along on the road.

When I got to Nate’s house he wasn’t home. I couldn’t sign onto his wifi either, and I had no phone service, so I was in a predicament. I went to find free wifi and couldn’t find it for the life of me. Everything was protected. Even the coffee shop didnt’ have wifi and the surrounding nets were all protected, including the library. I eventually drove a long way to a coffee shop that I thought Nate would be at, but he wasn’t. In fact, nobody was because it was out of business. Like a gift from God though, I was blessed with an open wifi signal and I used it to check facebook where I got a message from Nate telling me he wouldn’t be home and I should go to his office on Pearl Street in downtown Boulder.

Boulder was different than I expected. It was more like a normal tourist Colorado mountain town than I had imagined. It was clean. Even the hippies were clean, which was weird. It was rich and expensive and had lots of nice things and people who owned nice things walking around talking and riding bikes and shopping. It’s definitely an active place. It seems like a place for people who love the activity of city life but don’t like the city.

I went into Nate’s office and met some co-workers of his. Then I went to their meditation room, or something like that where there were pillows and Tibetan prayer flags, and tried to take a nap but I couldn’t sleep even though I’d been awake for over 28 hours by then. Instead I did online things, made some plans, called Fava, played with cameras. Then we went out for dinner.

It was me, Nate and his buddy Chris who had just gotten back from traveling around Japan, Australia and New Zealand for 3 weeks. We had a good conversation about traveling and some of the interesting differences and awesome experiences that go with it. When the bill came I thought we were in Malaysia, but in fact the price was in dollars and really was that expensive. I remembered a life I used to live where I had a job and hence had money and had no cares about spending $30 on dinner every day. I need to not do that right now.

Nate and I cruised back to his apartment, which I’d never seen before, and chatted a little before I realized my clock was an hour earlier than it was and thought that we should go to bed. Nate went to bed but then I couldn’t sleep so I stayed up and wrote this. I am next going to write Tien, then I am going to shower, and then I am going to get a good night’s sleep that will be a proper finale to 39 consecutive waking hours.

Waiting for airplanes is always the same, they just can’t arrive soon enough, but then you know you’ll just be stuck on it for a long time anyway, so what difference does it make? It’s a waiting game… So you wander around, look at cute girls and wonder what music they’re listening to, hack on the wifi network, check your phone a million times, and blog about how waiting for airplanes is always the same.

(posted from my phone, which is why it’s so short. I’ll pay for wifi when I get to Tokyo.)

It’s the night of Memorial Day, the Memorial Night. I’m sitting in 4211 #1 having finished a bottle of Bogle 2006 Old Vine Zinfandel with Lauren. I was just developing photos from a day out with Donna and listening to jazz as Brianna got dressed for a date.

I love music.

I love jazz.

I love my friends.

I love photography.

Lauren and I were talking about her upcoming trip to Austrialia. She was melancholy about it, spending a month in Queensland a few miles outside of a small town in a remote location. I was telling her she should find it to be a vacation, a joy to have time off. She was free to ride bikes or motorcycles, paint, draw, take pictures, sleep, tan, read books, do whatever.

It then occurred to me that this is exactly what I will have time to do in Asia. It is exactly what I will have time to do after Friday when I have no job. It was an inspiring realization that the effort I’m going through to take this trip is actually for good reason. So much of this preparation has been going through the necessary motions, and I haven’t taken much time to anticipate the relaxing and awesome free time I will have. I think I’ve just removed myself from the reality and gone through the motions because it’s such a drastic life change, and the effect of that is that I’ve neglected much of the positive excitement that goes along with it.

Sure, after Friday I won’t have a job. Sure, after Friday I will be in a country where I don’t speak the primary language. Sure, after Friday I’ll be 5,000 miles away from the nearest familiar place. It’s still exciting, it’s still great, and it can still be very very very awesome. I sometimes just forget that aspect of this, as if it’s a chore.

Today is Memorial Day and it will be the most memorable for me because as of today my brother is now out of Iraq forever! He’s finishing his second tour and is now officially out of Iraq, waiting only one day in Kuwait before returning to Germany. So so so stoked about that.

Yesterday I didn’t get to go geocaching with Lisa, she forgot it was her last day at work and had to work until 7, so Donna and I went without her. We went to Golden Gate Park with the intent of finding travel bugs for me to take to Asia. We went to two lakes and a waterfall on an island before heading back to the car with a travel bug and a geocoin. Afterwards we went downtown and wandered around taking photos.

As we were walking down Mission near 5th, a photo in a gallery window caught my eye and we went in to see it. It actually didn’t look like a photo at all, more like a painting, but ended up being a photo printed on canvas which made it look more like a painting. We talked to a man working in the gallery and he told us that the photographer, Patrick Davis, teaches photography at San Jose State. When I told him we had to go he invited us to come back and drink wine or coffee and look around the gallery any time we wanted to.

We crossed Mission and went to visit Lisa at work. That was great, I hadn’t seen her in what seems like ages but is probably only a few weeks. Donna and I got coffee and chatted with Lisa a bit, but she was busy working so we let her be and went back outside. The weather was still really bleak and we were both tired from walking so much so we went and took a nap in Yerba Buena Garden. I nabbed another geocache real quick, but there were no trackables in it. A while later we got up, walked by the Zeum Carousel and ended up wandering around SOMA for a while trying to find where we’d parked the car, taking more pictures down random alleys where we found several hidden bars and restaurants next to smashed car windows and empty graffitied lots fenced off with chain link.

We eventually found the car. On the way home it was still overcast and we were still tired, but the day had been good. We listened to Claude Debussy. His music has a way of making melancholy wonderful, so it was a nice compliment to the wonderful day Donna and I made despite the melancholy weather. In the Sunset district of San Francisco it’s common for people to leave unwanted things on the street for other people to pick up, and Donna spotted a beautiful, dark wooden dresser carved and colored with birds and branches. Piano melodies poured out of the passenger door into the greyness as we tried to fit this piece of furniture among the belongings I was already been carrying with me. We fit it in the trunk and took it the one block back to 4211, our final treasure found that day.

Back at her home we geeked out and I nearly broke my head trying to figure out some some WordPress plugin stuff before realizing I was trying way too hard. WordPress is pretty awesome. I helped Lauren move some of her stuff across the street to her new apartment then drifted off sipping on wine listening to the music Donna had on while she played online scrabble with her friend in Chicago.

Today I headed out from work up to Lila’s house to drop off some photos and pick up some stuff I had left up there. On the way up to SF to meet Rob and Donna for dinner I stopped to take some photos of the clouds spilling over the mountain range into the valley. This is something I see frequently, but haven’t ever captured the way I’d like to.

I got to SF and Rob was out front of Eliza’s smoking a cigar. The driver of Donna’s bus kicked everybody off so he could go to the bus depot, so she was a little late. Rob and I went into a bar on the corner to kill time. It just so happened that this bar had Singapore Slings on the menu, so in gonzo style, and in honor of my trip to Asia, we ordered two of them. Neither of us had ever had one, and they were pretty tasty.

Donna showed up just in time for us to finish so we popped next door and had a ƒ amazing Chinese meal. Eliza’s has the best hot and sour soup ever. Seriously. It’s really really good.

One of the reasons we had picked Eliza’s is because it was near a venue we were going to catch a show at later. Some folks that Rob knows online from MN were performing at the Retox Lounge. One for the Team was the name of the band, and we got there in time to catch a few of their songs. Incidentally they are headed to Colorado Springs, so if you’re in the area keep an eye out for them.

There was also a girl there giving peanut butter cookies away. Rob had seen her at the Phenomonauts show where she was also giving cookies away. She said that she always brings baked goods for the band and fans of the shows she goes to. She also said that this was her second time at Retox. The first time she saw a band perform there they had a lead singer dressed in a suit made from dildos and band members who were all wearing diapers. Her cookies were delicious.

The band coming up after them was a psychobilly band that Rob had seen a few times, Bad Men. They were really awesome. Talented musicians, good vibe, and to top it off they lit their instruments on fire for the last song. How the hell can you top that? Accordingly, we left shortly after their set was over.

On the way back to 4211 I didn’t make a single wrong turn. For the first time ever. Just in time for me to leave town.

Ten days left until I’m on my way to the airport.

Yesterday my replacement at work started his job. He fell right into step, so that’s good as I don’t want to leave my co-workers in a tough spot with IT support issues.

On my lunch break I had my last dental appointment before my trip. Nothing special there, but medical things are important to handle before leaving because not only will I be in some questionable spots as far as medical support is concerned, I will also not have medical coverage since I am leaving my job and all of its benefits behind. Goodbye free dental care. Goodbye $5 immunization shots. Goodbye 401k.

After work I headed up to SF to hang out with Shannon, but she was gone by the time I got there. She was in from out of town and left early for some reason. Such is the nature of the traveler; we have to enjoy their company when they are present.

I ended up going to dinner with Donna, Lily and Allison at a great Italian place near Allison’s place up in North Beach, Sodini’s. I have to say, their lasagna was on par with that of The Stinking Rose. It was good to catch up with Allison since she’s leaving SF this Friday to move back to SoCal. When we were done the weather had turned from chilly to really really cold wind and fog, which is weird since it was 90º on Sunday. Donna and I headed back to 4211 where Brianna was nursing a boil burn on her leg and making some kind of Mexican dinner with Terresina. Somehow I drifted off to sleep on the couch, waking up several times during the night as people came and went, and woke to a foggy, wet Ocean Beach.

2 miles south in Daly City the fog was so thick you couldn’t see more than 100 feet ahead.

3 miles south in Colma the sun was out and it was warm.

50 miles south in Cupertino I arrived at the office under an overcast sky. 8 more days of work.

After getting back from Santa Cruz, Brianna was the only one home at 4211. Shannon and Lily were already well into their evening somewhere out in the city and I was pretty late meeting up with them. Brianna decided to go out, so we got in the car and headed to Mission.

The problems were these… I couldn’t get in touch with either Shannon or Lily, and Brianna just flat out didn’t want to go to this thing she was supposed to go to. At the venue, she decided to go my way instead and we ended up driving around Soma for a while trying to come up with something enjoyable to do on minimal energy and money. During our nearly fruitless brainstorming I finally got in touch with Shannon who told us where to go, and where to go was a pretty shady neighborhood…

After 30 minutes of looking for parking, Brianna and I made our way up to within a block of the bar before I asked her if she’d locked her door, then we went back to the car and thought this through… See, the neighborhood we were in was not exactly a great place. There were junkies and cops pretty much everywhere. On top of that, I think that on our walk we found the epicenter of transvestite culture in San Francisco. Post and Polk is home to Diva’s. I can’t tell you much about the bar since we didn’t go inside, but judging by the fake tits and adam’s apples in mini skirts and stiletto’s outside, I got a pretty accurate picture of what to expect. Brianna got a gracious compliment, “she doesn’t even look like a man”, though it could’ve been simply about her beauty, or that we were not recovering from addiction.

We decided to go back to the bar and at least have one drink. On the way we passed a junkie clinic where a man saw me walking with Brianna and said frankly “you’re a lucky man.” I can only imagine he had an unspoken “because she’s actually a girl” on the end of that statement.

The place we were going, Cafe Royale, was actually an awesome bar more towards the less deviant end of the street. We finally met up with Shannon, Lily and Scott and had a few good drinks, good laughs, and generally had a great time. A few hours later the girls piled into my car and headed back to 4211.

Tomorrow the girls are doing Bay to Breakers, as are about 100,000 other people. I’m not, though, since crowds that big really don’t do it for me. I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I plan to head down to Lila’s house in the afternoon and perhaps take her Ducati out for a spin…

I just realized I didn’t take any photos tonight. I really ought to pick up a pocket camera to keep this a photo blog and not just a blog.