SF Travelogue 1

11am EST - An hour into the six hour flight from NY to SF and things aren’t too bad. My carry-on luggage actually fit into the overhead compartment even though the flight is pretty full. Bodes well for the rest of the trip.

Even though I bought two novels and one travel guide, I opt to buy some magazines at the airport incase I learn to speed-read and finish the novels en route. A little something for everyone, I buy Business Week because they’re profiling bio-tech companies and it makes me feel like I’m working, which is good since this is a work trip. Bought the new Radar magazine too because I’m a lemming and also the current New Yorker. I’ve never bought or eve read a new Yorker for that matter but you know, it’s about trying to be better.

By this time into the trip, I’ve only selectively picked through Radar. Score! A confusing but funny literature-based flow chart by Blog A-lister, Choire Sicha, with books I’ve actually read or heard of. I get the blush of blogger star-fucking as I once shared a cab with Choire across town one evening between blogger events. I’m pretty certain he thought I was the fucking dullest waste of spooge ever to have access to a blog. I still have the email he once sent me about the entry I wrote concerning anally dis-impacting Jeff’s grandfather at Passover some years back.

So far into the flight, only two patches of “chop” as described by the pilot. Uncharacteristically for me (and surprising since I forgot to get my standard four Xanax tablet prescription from my Doc), I don’t project horrific scenarios of the plane breaking up at 35,000-feet over Buffalo.

Strangely, I just remembered I brought my charged iPod with me and kicked myself for spending an hour listening to the engines and the guy snoring behind me.

11:30 EST - Another half hour later and we seem to be flying over some large shoreless body of water. I didn’t pay attention to the safety demonstration at the beginning of the flight (see Radar paragraph above). Don’t exactly know if the floatation device is under myseat or is my seat. Thinking the water below must be a Great Lake since in the Captain’s intro he mentioned Buffalo, Green Bay, Southern Idaho, the Rockies, and then San Francisco.

Absolutely no cute guys on the plane and all the stewardesses are menopausal women…on a non-stop flight between the gay Mecca of the East and the gay Mecca of the West. WTF?

1pm EST – We had to shut the window shades for the in-flight movie. Maybe it’s just me but being trapped on a steel-reinforced aluminum tube flying at 500-mph might call for some light-hearted, funny instead of watching Hillary Swank get the shit beat out of her in a boxing ring. I cracked the window shade to take peak and found we were flying over some very large, serpentine river. I immediately thought it was the Mississippi but that may be just my Midwest centrism and shitty sense of geography.

I was able to go the first three three hours of the flight through one large bottle of water and a Delta Snack-Pak before bothering the two passengers seated between me and the aisle to get up and pee. Very good omen.

12:45pm PST – We flew over what I assumed were the snow-capped Rockies and then boom, we’re in San Francisco. I’m already experiencing some loss of direction. It’s sunny but I can’t tell which way the sun is moving and have no good point of reference. The first impression of SF as I’m driving from the airport to the hotel is how expansive and spread out the city seems. I think that has more to do with being conditioned by sky-scrappers in New York. Kind of uncomfortable.

The cab driver takes me through some part of the city and I start seeing large rainbow flags lining the street. That’s kind of cool. We make it to the hotel on Fisherman’s Wharf and even after looking at several different maps, I don’t have a good sense of direction. The hills throw me off as does the irregular, diagonal grid-pattern of the streets.

2pm PST – On my way back down (up? over?) to meet up with Bill from Mermaniac. He invited me to a QueerArts festival opening that his boyfriend is producing. The hotel concierge tells me the F-Train will drop me four blocks from where I want to be and that I can take a cab from there. I kind of scoff at the suggestion of taking a cab four blocks and mention I’m from New York. He says San Francisco blocks are bigger. Size Queen. I skip the train this time and take a cab to the art exhibit just to get a feel for distances.

3:30 PST – The Latin QueerArts installation is excellent. A very good mix of works by the queer latino community and a really great turn out. Bill introduces me around and points out all the works.

4:00 PST – Walk down a few blocks to the Lone-Star. Beer-Blasts are apparently the thing to do in San Francisco on Sunday afternoons and this one is for bears. I’m literally the most hairless guy there but, wow, a whole bar full of friendly bears. I realize that I’ve seen porn that was filmed at this bar which kind of wigs me out. My Batman shirt ensemble fits in just fine.

5:30 PST – I’m starving so Bill offers to drive me around to see some of SF and find some food. We eat at a great authentic Spanish place in the Mission. Drive through the Castro, Pacific Heights, Union Station, and Downtown. The weather is friggin’ gorgeous if not a bit on the windy side.

8:00 PST – Realize I’m still on EST and am going to drop from exhaustion. Hate to admit it but am in bed and going to call it a night.