It’s 10 past 8pm on Tuesday night and I fly out at 7am in the morning to Chicago… via Las Vegas (though I won’t leave the airport).. which all means i’ll have to be up at about 4:30am to get the shuttle at 5am, to get to the airport at 5:30am and to go through the enormous rigmarole of American security – no doubt with a retina scan, finger printing and foot inspection. I f*cking HATE getting up early. Why I booked that stupid flight I have no idea.
Anyway, as you can see from the picture it has taken me approximately 1 week to start eating like the average American.. I am in a Crepe Restaurant, eating a “North Beach” which is swiss cheese, mushrooms, onion, spinach, chicken breast, cilantro and hollandaise sauce – served with roast potatoes… but I biked the bridge and back today in 2.5 hours – so get over it. Its a long way over, and I was hungover as hell, and it was so windy I thought I might die. And I’ve studiously avoided In and Out burgers whilst here in California (which would, in hindsight, have been a more nutritious meal than the one i’m currently consuming).
‘Misery’ has disappeared from the hostel today which is a good thing. I was working on my laptop the other night, peacefully in the lounge area, and she sat next to me and asked if we could chat – which is fine I suppose.. though to be completely honest I wanted to say no. Then she proceeded to have a conversation which didn’t make much sense, and which alluded to her having ‘lunch’ with someone who is going to ‘help her fix her problems’.. Either it was a crack dealer or Anthony Robbins. I offered her 30 cents.
I mumbled away for 20 mins or so then made my excuses, but before I went she said “i’ve got to show you something” – and with a flourish, but looking very serious, brought out a trashy mag to show me that Britney Spears had walked down the street in LA with no knickers on again – and her ass – hail damaged and shapeless – was showing quite clearly. I thought that was particularly weird… to show me the picture – I mean, it’s an ass, it’s an ugly ass and Britney Spears is a mental ho. Why the hell do I want to see that!? I announced loudly that I thought Brit-Brit should be chopped up into little pieces and stored in a metal drum at the back of someone’s house.. then ran upstairs, locking the dorm door after me. The Norweigans think ‘Misery’ is in love with me. I think that I shouldn’t ruminate on such things – especially when a chicken crepe is swirling around in my stomach acids as we speak… I have no intention of seeing that meal again.
Tonight I have a ticket, and a front row one no less, to see Kurt Elling at Yoshi’s over in the west end of town at 10pm. I was going to walk – but Larry told me last night that in no uncertain terms should I walk as I’d definitely get mugged if not killed in that part of town. Encouraging. San Francisco is no picnic… or the locals are all paranoid.
Larry is the kindly older gentleman who bought me a drink at the jazz gig last night, as I was sitting alone, and brought Raúl to entertain me. (though I think when he called Raul on the phone, Larry referred to me as a ’snack’… as in ‘I have a snack for you’. I find this disturbing – but when questioned both men told me I’d got the wrong end of the stick. It’s not the first time I have been given to someone as a gift – maybe this is a lucrative business opportunity… oh no – hangon – that’s prostitution.)
But snack or no, I indeed found him particularly entertaining so, thank you Larry. Anyway, prior to running out of the restaurant (to take a bag of presents to a girl who worked at the strip joint up the road) and leaving drunk little me with the handsome Spaniard – Larry advised that at the same venue there was a transsexual jazz singer performing tonight. Who was quite good and had a phenomenal range (probably because she used to be a man. Lets move on).
Apparently this singer loves to have ‘guests’ and I should come back and get up and sing. But i’m sitting happily eating shite in this crepery… I don’t think i can manage it. It’s far – i’m tired as hell and as visually appealing Raul is I don’t think I can face that again this evening.. and San Francisco has saturated me rather thoroughly with walking up enless mountains, being propositioned by swingers and lesbians, called a snack and spoken to by the server at Ben & Jerries like I had an intellectual disability because of my accent.
Oh and when you bike the bridge here’s my second fashion tip for this town. Do NOT wear a miniskirt. It is one step better than a miniskirt and heels, but not by much. I flashed my knickers to all and sundry and had to bike firstly with one hand in my lap for modesty, and secondly with a long sleeved t-shirt wrapped backwards around my waist (think – like a nappy). I suppose this was God getting me back for being mean about Britney…
