I’m so behind, y’all. I don’t know what to talk about first. I could talk about David and Tyler’s amazing wedding, or the incredible experience of co-shooting the wedding with Shannon, a photographer who is amazing and I’m honored to be considered her peer. I’ll be uploading those photos to Flickr (and there’s a sneak peak on my Facebook, if you happen to know my Clark Kent). I could talk about flying to LA with Dennis Quaid (who really was Dennis Quaid and not “Hey that guy looks like an uglier version of Dennis Quaid” which is what I thought the first time he passed my seat, or about Bob Saget stopping at the airport two feet in front of me and the only thing I could think of was “Wow, I really like your work on ‘How I Met Your Mother’!” even though I would never ever actually interrupt someone in the middle of a conversation to say something inane like that. Bob Saget is extra speckly. You heard it here first.
The wedding weekend was amazing, as one could only expect from David and Tyler. Millions of authentically beautiful people drawing sharp contrast against the painfully starved, over drawn exaggerated caricatures of beauty epitomized by the denizens of LA. Standing under a glass patio lit by candles, celebrating the union of two amazing people who embody everything that a true relationship should be, despite what the voters for Prop 8 believe, that was an amazing moment that I will always remember. I’ll probably forget the other beautiful little vignettes, like eating cookies in Mo and Ian’s room with the morning-after crew. Driving through Beverly Hills in a limousine, commiserating with a similarly newly displaced worker, talking about how much it sucks and how you just keep wondering why me, why me? Standing outside of the gigantic Scientology center, watching a beautiful girl drive up in a Lexus and wave behind me, thinking how I envied whoever she was waving at, because she was just so fabulous, and then watching as Beth popped out of said Lexus and I realized that she had been waving at me and then I felt lucky as hell.
I was in Hollywood for all of 39 hours before it was time to skedaddle for San Francisco, which was a glorious and an unexpected treat. You see, I had snagged the tickets to LA before the layoff, but then a few weeks prior, Esteban and I were discussing our schedules and he pointed out that we’d miss each other, since I was flying back from LA on Monday and he would be flying on Sunday to SFO for about a week in Silicon Valley at an analysts conference. I did a quick calculation: free hotel room for four nights that is just a quick rental car away from my favorite city on the planet? It involved a quick call to my airline so that I was flying out of San Francisco on Thursday rather than out of LA on Monday, then I snagged a $49 one way between LA and SF on the rock star airline, Virgin, which I almost missed because I thought my flight left at 3 something, when in actuality, it landed at 3 something and left LA at 2 pm sharp. Whoops.
I lost my iPod in the seat pocket of seat 1F on Virgin America between LAX and SF. I sadly can’t blame Bob Saget, but maybe Dane Cook, which is who I watched on Virgin’s in-flight entertainment system rather than watching Dollhouse on my tiny-screened iPod. And because I was so super duper busy during the few days I was in SF, I didn’t check all of the pockets and compartments of my luggage until I was packing, so I didn’t know that it was well and truly gone. So far, I’ve heard nothing from Virgin’s baggage department, so I’m not holding my breath.
San Francisco was fantastic, as one would think. I went with no real plan, other than to have lunch with my friend Ozlem from Igigi (and THAT deserves a post of its own, because it ended up being a total fashion extravaganza). I basically tooled around the city, trying to find wifi (the wifi wasn’t working for me in Esteban’s hotel room, so I was limited to my iPhone for connectivity most of the time). I met Twitter friend Farwalker for coffee, had an amazing Parisian lunch with Fredlet, and hit Ichibana in Japantown and bought enough cool Japanese stuff that it occupied a full quarter of my luggage (mostly it was for a Bento gift bag for the Weetacon charity raffle, but yes, I couldn’t resist some cuteness for myself) and probably scared the crap out of MsYuppieScum by being Midwest friendly in an edgy city. If I had to lock down a favorite moment out of the millions, it was probably hanging out at Shannon’s house and eating Thai take out food while watching episodes of Big Love and Flight of the Conchords and then walking back to my rental car in the rain, but making Lily laugh and singing alternate lyrics to “Dirty Deeds” with Shannon, Matt and La Wade at Lucky 13 (which is one of the few SF bars that I have been to enough times where it has begun to feel familiar enough to consider “mine”) comes in at a very close second.
The entire trip was a bit of grace, since I hadn’t mentally prepared myself for it and thus, hadn’t given myself a million expectations of what I wanted to do. I spent a lot of time just driving around, revisiting the monuments and sacred places in my San Francisco history, from the second that I get off the plane, getting my luggage from the same carousel where I first met my bff Jake in person. Our little vacation flat in the Castro where we had breakfast on the deck every morning. The sidewalk in front of the Mint, where naughty and delicious things seem to happen, every damn time I’m there. Driving around, I pass Beach Chalet, the scene of my favorite San Francisco breakfasts, through the park, where the smell of eucalyptus makes my head all swimmy and makes me think about things that just might have been, past the corner where I’ve picked up Patsy Cline on more than one occasion, and feeling just a bit of disappointment that he’s not standing there right at that moment, wearing his antique old man sunglasses, disappearing into the woodwork as though he’s spent his entire life playing the part of an extra in every San Francisco movie that ever was. I cruise down the Embarcadero and think about sitting on the pier with my friends, with Aych and Shannon and Een and Matt, eating oysters and God’s own cheese paninis, meeting Steven for the first time while the spray of the Bay tints the air with salty magic. Every turn, it seems, is a geographical love letter tucked into forgotten coat pockets. The amazing Great American Music Hall where La Wade made me cry when she said her vows to Iggy. Trying to find Felisa’s house, I pass Haight and Asbury, the first place that Jake and I went when I landed in 2002 for my first Journalcon that introduced me to so many of the people I love with all my heart and put into motion the relationships that seem to be spreading out even to this day. Trying to find Heath Ceramics, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and Point Buena Vista, where one hazy mist-filled night I tried to talk about the future except that the diorama of lights and buildings had stolen all of my words and I struggled until I could only say “I can’t talk about this anymore.”
And I shouldn’t. Even now. It hurts a little less, but it’s still bittersweet. Every damned time.
