Today was such a beautiful day. I awoke continually between 10am and 1pm & was finally summoned out of my exquisitely cozy bed neaering 2 o’ clock by a telephone call by a lovely friend intending to douse herself into the Pacific, the ossifyingly frigid Pacific, and would I care to join her? Of course I assented, though withholding my oath to similarly sadistically self submerge.
We drove across the Bay bridge to Nob Hill, where friend Katie (sadly, I may be inadvertently changing her name to protect the innocent) was just bidding farewell to her friend and leaving her a luscious hot pink labial impression (that means “lips,” people. It was fuchsia lipstick. Do I have to spell everything out? Please attempt to curb your perversion.) implanted upon her cheek. We picked her up, and we rolled.
Now I’ll seize upon this cliff-hanger moment in the suspence of the story thus far in order to describe the weather today. It was lovely. Really quite. It was indeed a dark and yes stormy day. The last towers of the Bay bridge impressed against a roiling grey sky, clouds obscuring Bernal Hill so it looked like someplace out of Middle Earth. The scary side close to Sauron’s lair—you know. You do.
Come on, you do. So anyway we arrive at a peculiarly crowded Ocean Beach. Both my friends promptly strip down to swimwear that would have been perfectly appropriate if it were 60 degrees warmer. I was asked to document their excursion into the waves with their respective new cameras. We march out to the sand, they doff their robes of silk & terrycloth & bolt into the crashing waves.
I fall initially behind, they’re moving too fast, can’t, keep, up but then I do & I’m taking their pictures while they laugh & scream in the surf. A concerned old lady approaches, asking, “excuse me are those your girls?” to which I respond, “well kinda, they’re my friends.” (My girls? Does she mean my hoes or something?) “You know it’s really dangerous out there, the undertoe. Kids have died out there.” “I guess that’s part of why I’m here, in case they need something.” “You couldn’t get there fast enough.” Ok my friends are both in their 30s. I think if they wanna go swimming on New Year’s Day 2006 in water cold enough to make my footbones hurt, I’m not gonna say they shouldn’t. So I basically tell the lady they’ll be fine, don’t worry. I got a quite disapproving look as she left.
They return—frigid of course yet practically 100% alive—and we eventually (they were remarkably leisurely for two freshly emerged from an ice bath into a cold misty bog wearing little bikinis) clamber into the car, where I realize that the lady on the beach thought these two 30 year old women were my daughters, and what a terrible father i was for letting them swim unattended in the Pacific. My girls. That’s what she meant.
We had a good laugh about that one.
Hungry, we found an open bar on Clement St. named the bitter end with greasy greasy batter-fried fish & chips with cole slaw that didn’t even have no dressing on it but that’s ok ‘cos there’s plenty grease already to go around. And they did have malt vinegar, the true & proper coating for beerbatter whitefish (or as Your Black Muslim Bakery #2 calls it, “whiting fish;” Mommy what’s “whiting?”) so they were fully redeemed. The coffee however was not so fortunate. They did pull off a nice Black & Tan effect with a layer of thick (and creepily so) cream atop the timid grey coffee.
The coffee also had a mysterious layer of oil on top. I drank it & yeah ok it sucked. Fish was greasy. Coffee sucked. Ok yeah all I ever do around here is complain.
Scintillating company though. Kristina, turns out, used to play Dungeons & Dragons & elfQuest (doesn’t that seem the proper capitalization?). Bonding moment. She also, inspired by Darryl Hannah’s performance in Splash!, knew she too would be a mermaid one day. It’s good to know that even sexy bellydancers are dorks.
Kristina eventually dropped me off at George & Lise’s annual New Year’s Day party, where I flirted & danced & even had real conversations with folks in this community I’ve long been kinda peripheral in. I actually feel close to the Balkan scene now, for the first time. Then around 1:15am, I struck out, on foot, for home, where I arrived 80 minutes later after a lovely, peaceful walk across the sleepy rain-cleansed East Bay.