Oh the places you’ll go

Too much’ too much’ can’t write a narrative, so instead bullets to put me out of my misery.

I’ve already alluded to a Night of Wacky Fun with Jen, Chauffi, and Mopie in the previous entry, but here’s more: We went to eat at the Stinking Rose, which is named for garlic and not some unwashed camel toe (good god, maybe not even the bullets will save me from brain death). There were many little garlics on the wall and many big garlics on our plates. My companions all had delicious garlic pastas and I, unable to shake my earthy Midwesternism, had meatloaf and mashed potatos. The meatloaf became the Weetloaf and much hilarity ensued. And then we found our Separated At Birth garlics. Chauffi’s was the Kool-Aid Garlic Man, Mo’s was getting in touch with their inner voyeur in the bushes (one hand was pointing but the other hand I suspect was involved in some serious self-mincing). JenFu’s was going to take over the earth, and mine was the Largest Garlic on The Wall. Go garlic girl, go.
Then we went to karaoke at the Best. Karaoke. Bar. Ever. Now with added spaceship unisex toilets. Urinals are unnerving.
I am so from Wisconsin.
During the Karaoke Of Love Fest, we danced, we drank, and we had furious halitosis breathed upon us. Despite my Throat Of Death, I manage to sing twice in possibly six hours because everyone in San Francisco is just dying to get a mike in their hands. Or something in their hands. Or something in their something. Orgies are a very complicated thing to plan. I’m thinking a Powerpoint flow chart with footnotes for next time. Note to self: find clip art showing a minnow frolicking in a stream.
My friends are absolutely infused with comedy, but we each have within us a peak, whereby we hit our absolute pinnacle and everything beyond that is downhill. An example of a peak: ‘Just wait until they start licking my nipples’. I denied ever peaking but then when Mopie told me that everything about me was cute and I said ‘Yes I am! You should see my poop!’ it was all over, people. Thank you very much and tip your waitstaff. Ms. Fu, talented little minx that she is, is the lovely exception to the rule and still has miles to go before she peaks.
Oh, and I got to see an actual hooker. Heeeee!!!!!
Have I mentioned that I am so from Wisconsin?
After drinking on Thursday night, Chauffi and I went to a Jack in the Box, but you couldn’t eat inside, so we were walking down the street eating cheeseburgers. Walking. Down the street. Eating a cheeseburger. If I had been wearing lime green stretchpants and clashing horizontal stripes, I could have been the living breathing punchline to every fat joke ever written. And it just wouldn’t have mattered that I asked them to hold the mayonnaise.
On Saturday, my wardrobe plan was thrown completely out of wack when I coordinated my outfit around my light blue v-neck t-shirt. The problem there was that I stupidly put on my black tinkerbell undies, which matched not a thing. Right there. That’s where the Greek Chorus should have started to sing about bad wardrobe karma. Don’t mess with the wardrobe karma. It will bite you in the ass every time.Because then I couldn’t find my blue jeans that I wanted to wear, so I put on my new ones (the ones that are down a size). And apparently I shrunk them. They are tight all the way down to the ankles, like 80’s acid washed leggings now. I started to do some deep knee bends in front of the mirror, but because they are low riders, they started to slide, so I grabbed a belt loop to pull them back up and Rrrrrrrip. Add sigh and mix well. I panicked and put on a black pair which matched the light blue t-shirt not at all, but Drewbear was on his way to pick me up for breakfast. So then I was fixing the pockets on those jeans and somehow ended up with a bright red lipstick print on the stomach of my light blue t-shirt. I grabbed a Shout Wipe and tried rubbing it off but succeeded in making a CD-sized wet spot with an iris of red lip print. Sigh again. Then I stuck the entire front of the shirt under the faucet and tried to rinse it off, leaving me with an inconspicuous wet spot the size of Anna Nicole Smith. At that point, I gave up and put on a black t-shirt. Which, incidentally, left me in a prime outfit to match my black tinkerbell panties. See, people? For God’s sake, practice safe fashion and no one will get hurt.
I went to a great bookstore off in somewhere someplace. It actually made me hurt a little bit to see the books that I love to read just there, waiting for me, read by people who read like me. The used bookstores around here are filled with romance novels and Tom Clancy. Lots of Harlequin and Danielle Steele. I scored so so many books, forcing myself to stop shopping when I couldn’t carry any more. And for just a moment, I had myself completely convinced to move to San Francisco, because you just have to love a place where there are more words than your arms can possibly carry.
Dinner at Bix was very fun. Petrouchka was dressed to the nines in all black ensemble and scarlet tie, offsetting his purple hair quite nicely. And he let me sample his balls, which were succulent and made my mouth water. Ahem. Ron and Phyllis were absolutely delightful, although with the acoustics, I’m not sure that anyone actually heard any of the dinner conversation. I had three cosmopolitans but did not shake my hootchie, even with the presence of the Rock Star jacket. And I have apparently forgotten how to walk on high heels.
My monkey bag insisted upon getting pictures with everyone.
Afterwards, I brought three men in my hotel room. The girls at the front desk were starting to give me high fives whenever I traipsed through with another man. But that night I kicked them all out after proving quite nicely why I can never write a short entry. Because I can’t tell a brief anecdote. They’re all Russian novels. Every one.
You see, in Wisconsin, we have very long winters, there is no reason for brevity. None.
We went to Fisherman’s wharf for some incredible lobster bisque, calamari, and sourdough bread. And then much to my chagrin, I learned that the Hard Rock no longer carries the Black Hats with White Writing that I have been collecting many these long years. I pouted and got a hat pin, refusing to accept a lesser beige and cranberry Hard Rock Original Logo hat or the fugly new Black Hat With White Writing And Urban Flava logo.
Chauffi’s Saab took a big bite out of my thigh. I have a contusion the size of my fist. It’s rather Technicolor, actually, like a sunset in a Robert Frost poem. Nothing gold can stay.
Except for my white gold earrings which are damn fine. I love them very much.
On Sunday morning, with my laundry back from the service, I tried for Round Two with the blue t-shirt, this time with properly matched undergarmets. And strangely enough, I had located the other pair of blue jeans, so life was good again. I was feeling good. I looked good. I was working it. I walked down the hill to Sbux at the gate of Chinatown and it was one of those rare moments when everything is exactly where it is supposed to be in the universe. The air was sweet and the sounds of the city were murmuring below my feet and the sun was speckling down the hill, basking selected blocks with sweet contrast while above me terraced gardens sent down the smell of spring. With Sbux in hand, I windowshopped at Avant Card, passing a girl who sat outside her hotel and smoked. On the first passing, I sensed that she had done an appreciative scope of the Curvy Round Sex Goddess before her, but on second passing, my suspicions were correct. She brazenly met my eye contact and then slid her eyes down to my feet and slowly back up again, her lips curling as she morphed between hookah smoking caterpillar and a Cheshire Cat. I walked off into Chinatown, ironically in search of, among other things, White Rabbit candy, feeling her eyes smiling behind me.
After packing extremely quickly, Chauffi and I embarked on a tour of San Jose, listening to incredible mix CDs and soaking up the sun at a very cool Sbux, while snarking about some uncoordinated people attempting Frisbee in the park, which is one of the things that makes our e-lationship so grand. Then we went to the airport, singing DJ Sammy’s ‘Heaven’ in ridiculous falsettos, and I prepared to go home.
This is the part where you would THINK I would get on the airplane and fly back home, but in a Surprise Twist Ending, my Northwest flight to Minneapolis has been unexplainably delayed two hours, making it impossible for me to catch the last connection of the evening to Green Bay. I called Chauffi to tell him ‘You’re never going to believe what is happening to me’ but he had a similar crisis. His car broke down not twenty minutes after dropping me off, so he was waiting for a tow truck and couldn’t even come back to fetch me if I was stuck. At that point, I decided that my baby blue t-shirt was cursed and needs to be cleansed by ancient shamans or something. Northwest made me wait in a Tourist Cattle Corral for two hours, where I made friends with the other stranded travelers, one of which was from Green Bay (but doesn’t live there now) and the other was from Milwaukee. We were singing songs by the Happy Schnaap’s Combo and had exchanged business cards by the time I finally got up to the ticket counter where they gave me three options: I could either stay overnight in San Francisco and be back in Green Bay by 4:50 pm, I could fly to Minneapolis, stay overnight there, and be back in Green Bay by 8:05 am, or take the 12:45 am redeye to Minneapolis and still get back to Green Bay by 8:05 am.
I chose the last option. It seemed the easiest. The gate agent allowed me to check my bags, leaving me with my carryon laptop. I had nine hours before my flight, so I flagged a cab. But I didn’t have anywhere to go. Then I thought of Drowning13, so I took a chance and called him and he gave me directions to his secret motel. Then I realized that I had only my driver’s license and my credit card, no actual cash. The cabby assured me that he could take a credit card, but when we got to the secret motel, his credit card machine wouldn’t do what it had to do. Harold met my cab, but then he got in with me as we drove around trying to find a spot where the machine could do its communication thing. Finally, we saw an ATM so I jumped out and got cash. I was completely frazzled by that point and on the verge of an asthma attack, so we walked back to the Secret Motel, where I drank juice and water called Rescue and Harold made tea and assured me that the day could only get better.
He was right. It did. It’s a wonder what sitting in a cozy little womb of a room and being still can do when you’re about to weep. We talked about literary things and diaries and writing and music. His bookshelf was filled with the long lost twins of half my reading collection and on his desk sat a neat little notebook and fancy pen. I suspect he’s a pen junky like me. After a weekend filled to the brim with going and buying and doing and seeing and getting, it was nice to just sit there and be. I like Harold. I stole some of his electricity for my laptop battery while I was there and maybe if I’m lucky I also got some of his creativity. After all of the whining I did about not getting to see my favorite authors in person, I somehow ended up doing just that anyway.
When I finally did get on the liquid bullet aiming toward the sunset in Minnesota, I went to sleep with DJ Sammy’s ‘Heaven’ stuck in my head but when I woke up, it had been replaced by ‘Lolly Lolly Lolly get your adverbs here’, it was negative twelve degrees and I had a seatbelt jamming my spleen. Forcefully. Angrily.
Coldly.
Sleepily.
Lovely.
(Insert your own ‘ly word here.)