Tag: San Francisco

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Weird Street

Look at you, in your little green tutu with the pink trim. I see you’re co-ordinated with the tights. And with the pink and green foofura tufts around the shade structures, even. Who just keeps neon green fishnets lying around the house, nowadays? You do. Great getup… although it doesn’t really match the wig. That is a wig, I hope? The dark sunglasses bring everything together and remind me that, hey, you have facial hairyou have facial hair. Your girlfriend’s pretty hot too.

I went to the How Weird Street Fair along Howard street, here in San Francisco. A very San Francisco event. Midday not many people were there, but the later I stayed the more teeming and freaky and hot it became. When I say hot, I mean summertime-hot, unforeseen unseasonably early-May hot, hojeez I think my sunburn matches my red shirt hot. Lots of people-watching, loads of dancing, more loud music than you could shake the ground at. It’s like a preview of Burning Man without the water rationing. I didn’t dance—a reasonable fear of overheating. Perhaps also an unreasonable fear that dancing would annoy more than amuse.

Heard there was talk of shutting it down, before. I left earlier in the day, around three, and missed some action. There’s a lot of talk now about shutting it down, after. I sure hope not. Seems about ten or fewer people on the street don’t like the noise it causes one Sunday a year. Despite the signed petition of around 100 residents, the city and police wanna be rid of it. Damned if I’m the first to say it—but that’s pretty weird.

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Womb with a View

Home. Returning home. I want to return home.

That was me, four days ago. I’m back. I’ve returned from returning. I got stuff. New undies (manties), some chocolate, some booze, some womper speakers. I got a new book about San Francisco and writing. I got a mind to do a lot of things. One of ’em is to write.

So here I am, writing the wannabe sublime. I wonder how many of my friends and family realize that a blog is not really a window to the subconscious? Glot. Glot glot. Editing is for sissies.

My feeling about the hostel has undergone a shift. I understand why those who live here, live here shortly. It’s a great place. But it’s a place where space has to be constantly claimed and carved out, where one’s status is never in comfortable stasis. Even more so than the ever-arriving travellers, I understand this: one is judged by one’s actions—in the past week. It is exactly the same as when I came here more than three months ago. It should perhaps at this point be pointed out that the point of moving here was to find a job and settle somewhere. I applied to SFSU back awhile ago, but never finished the application… so I never went. Now here I am, living in the city of San Francisco but not quite of it, living in a limbo world where I greet the world’s visitor’s who take in the place in larger doses than I’ve had since too long ago.

Returning home brought me back into a place where my mere presence is appreciated. Being here again is like emerging from the womb again, cold and blinking and more than a little confused. It’s a different view. It’s something I need to think about more.

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Spelling Bee(r)

I went to a spelling bee tonight. It was a special spelling bee… one made just for San Francisco. With beer.

A spelling bee for drunk adults, where the words are often inappropriate, misspelled, or shouted out by the audience. It ended with a cage match. Still with me? They put the last two drunk, adult spellers in a big giant plastic (or was it cardboard?) cage and make them spell things like “cunnilingus.” I didn’t have the fortitude to actually try and win, so instead I wore one of several metal colander bowls circulating about, placing it on my head, and given the word “xylograph” I spelled l-e-t-s-d-a-n-c-e. Which, yes, is kind of dumb—but entertaining nonetheless. For the record I could’ve easily spelled xylograph.

And I met a girl. Some cute nerdy kind, no doubt, the kind that wants to pick up dudes at a drunk spelling bee by giving them their Flickr screenname. Oh, who am I kidding… that girl would be Meredith, who is the primary reason that this entry didn’t get posted until January 2008, more than a year later. I didn’t have the analytic skills and distance skills necessary to make a fun entertaining lighthearted post for awhile. And, like many things, I just never got around to it. But—this being the impartial and startlingly complete record that it is—I’ll attempt an account.

After she gave me the Flickr-name, I kinda teased her a bit. See, no girl had ever tried to give me her number with a screenname before. Suppose I should’ve starting getting used to it this being San Francisco and all. But I was new to town; what can I say. After being adequately teased, she gave me her AIM name. Even funnier. Of course, if you understand women, you’ll understand the obviousness of why she gave me her number after that. Women respond to teasing, says I. Cool girl, I found out. I saw her again later, we hit it off, things progressed for a little bit and then they didn’t, petered off… old story. Didn’t last that long, maybe two weeks all told. Gave me a lot of happiness, but a dangling feeling. Left me wanting more, which I eventually found. “Worth it” is what I’m trying to say. That’s it. That’s all there was. All because of a spelling bee.

This is gonna be an awesome town to live in, huh?

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Musing Moving

My methods, while distracting, are just another useful approach. Downloading new productivity software is fun. Admittedly, going on a search for new productivity fonts that look like old productivity typewriters is not. What I should be doing right now is quite clear to me. I need to find a job in San Francisco.

Along with a job comes an apartment. That’s naturally the first thing to gravitate toward. It’s the fantasy part. There are so many places to live, attractive and attractively-priced places. Places to imagine yourself doing things. What I’ve learned from past experience is not to trust that initial cloudland instinct. It’s better to set oneself up to do the things you want, by doing whatever they happen to be in the moment. One will naturally progress.

Hm. Craigslist has a two week position as a Summer camp RA @ SF State. That sounds pretty nice. Accomodation, 19 meals provided/week, which is 2/day plus 5 breakfasts. Now, to go through my damnable elimination method. I usually go through a job listing looking for an unmet requirement, something to keep me back. There it is: “experience working with youth.” Nope nuh uh. Also: “First Aid/CPR Training especially sought” …I haven’t had CPR training since 9th grade. Then again, my mother is correct in her evaluation that if they’re still looking for applicants on Thursday, when the job starts Sunday, they’re probably pretty desperate. Their website advertizes “24-hour supervision by trained, experienced teachers and counselors.” Well, that’s a little white lie. It certainly couldn’t hurt to email a resumé + cell number, though. So I guess I will.

Now the problem is that I don’t have a resumé—not a decent one anyways. I have the one I hastily cobbled together in Sydney those first hectic few days. An entirely different place in every sense. And now, cobbling the sequel, I realize that for the prettiness of the fonts I’m using, I should probably just crack down and be a 15 year-old girl. Who happens to have a refined sense of layout.

Man, this is way more of a LJ post than anything else.