A Classic San Fransico Day
This happens in San Francisco all the time.
A Classic San Francisco Day begins in the morning, early morning to be exact. After chugging leftover coffee cooled in the fridge, you and Chris hit only green lights as you make your way to Golden Gate Park, where you’re headed to volunteer at the AIDS Memorial Grove. Volunteering is usually not your bag, but they have free breakfast and you should like pay respects to the people who paved your path before you to be who you are and stuff. There are two hundred or so people there each assigned to different groups. You’re in the Gaymer Group, because Chris is a gaymer and so are you, and you’re always assigned the most laborious tasks. But a Bluetooth speaker plays “Hit Me Baby One More Time” and “Believe” and “I Want it That Way” and “Padam Padam,” and you plant two maple trees, and you get a workout, and you give hugs – in lieu of talking sometimes.
A classic volunteer breakfast at the AIDS Memorial Grove.
A bell is rung in memoriam of those who are only with us in our hearts and stone etchings, pizza is served with Hidden Valley, and you give your last waves goodbye before heading to meet Ari at Kabuki Spa for men’s day. A Classic San Francisco Day can be made up of many things, but one of those things must involve public nudity; you trimmed, not shaved, in preparation. Ari steps out of the shower you’re about to enter, whose penis you’re seeing for the first time. You wash off all the dirt you accumulated planting and the residual pizza grease beneath your fingernails. You then grab an ice-cold towel and hot tea before settling into the hot tub, easing yourself down into the water with a sigh. You begin feeling good as you look out at the view. The people watching is always good here, but the environment is feeling more charged than usual. You rotate between the hot tub and the cold plunge and the steam room and the sauna, taking note of who’s looking at who, doing plenty of looking yourself. You’re here to completely and utterly unwind, to take a naked nap on a bamboo bench, to awake from such a deep state of meditation that you hallucinate as you go refill your teacup, mistaking a gay guy you don’t know for Ari, who’s also a gay guy with a beard. But not everyone is here for that. Alas.
You don’t realize how deeply relaxed you are when you change into your cute little outfit for the night, but you do when you step outside and the cold wind dances across your face. You enter the mall and do as much catch-up with Ari as possible while waiting for the fresh onigiri you ordered because he made other plans tonight, his day jam-packed as per usual. You and Chris drop him off and eat your onigiri in the car before heading to Max’s Opera Cafe near City Hall for a drink. Its called Max’s Opera Cafe because it also happens to be near the ballet/opera, and it caters to those about to attend either one. The average diner age here may be 65, and the food they serve is from an era long gone: Rueben sandwiches, thick chocolate cake, Fettuccine Alfredo, chicken pot pie as big as the dinner plate its served on; deli food may always be having a moment, but there is truly nothing like the real deal. Your blue cheese olive martini (only one olive) and glass of Lillec Blanc respectively both hit the spot, as does your espresso, and after you finally flag down the only server on the busy floor to pay you’re ready for whatever the night shall serve you.
The girlies are simply missing out.
That thing it shall serve you is Reparations, Nicki Jizz’ all-black drag show that Phoebe is tonight because Nikki’s recreating Sinners and needed someone to be the Asian woman. The creme of the Bay Area’s crop is all here, at least as far as drag is concerned: Lisa Frankenstein, Mary Vice, Mud the Two-Spirit, Heiress Throttle, Angel, and Phoebe Cakes of course. You were once too intimidated to be around these people, back when you used to pass for straight. Now you’re still intimidated, but at least you understand their references, and sometimes they compliment your jacket. Nikki comes out only 30 minutes late to hoots and hollers from Oasis’ jam-packed floor, a floor that isn’t going to be around for much longer. As always, her production value is on point. She and her performers relentlessly recreate movie moment after movie moment, throwing themselves at every second of the two-hour time frame they’re allotted because they really give a fuck about themselves and each other. What other way is there really, to have gotten here?
Finally, the night is over. You and Chris get into your bed in Oakland, a Classic San Francisco Day now complete.
Stupid iPhone quality. Reparations shall live on.
