San Fran

I just got back from San Francisco and it was a pretty good trip. I have a lot to write about and I might have to go through my excursion in segments as to give the full breadth of my experience.

I stayed with an amazing girl when I was up in S.F. She and I had the same internship in New York and for a year we kept each other entertained while also learning a whole lot about our field and about each other. I never came out to her as a gay married man, but she and I were close enough that she had an idea of what was going on with me, so when I called her a couple of months ago to fill her in on what was going on she was really proud of me. She loves my wife as well, and I think that added to the excitement. I mean if you love someone and care about them and their spouse, why wouldn't you be overjoyed that they have decided to set each other free from trying to fit into an uncomfortable and pointless mold? Her support meant so much to me and being as though she is the most empathic person I have EVER met, it helped to be around her and to talk about all of the huge changes that are going on in my life.

Being as though this was my first time in San Francisco, I was game for anything and for better or for worse, she lived on Castro street and if any of you know about S.F. you might be familiar with the fact that the Castro District is where all the gay clubs, gay bars, gay shops, gay restaurants, gay karaoke bars, gay movie theaters, gay houses, gay dogs, gay subway entrances, gay flags (lots and lots of gay flags) and actual gay...people. The first night there was walked down her street to a gay bar and danced our freakin' heads off. It was so much fun. She and I were and still are obsessed with the Rihanna Umbrella song that is popular right now, and when they played that song on the dance floor the two of us went crazy. I started dancing with a guy there who asked me where I was from and I told him Utah and he pointed to his friend and told me that his friend was from Utah as well. So I start talking to his friend and come to find out of course he is Mormon, of course he served a mission and the two of us just laughed at the situation. Here we are dancing with our sweaty bodies moving together on the dance floor in a gay bar in San Francisco and one of the first two people that I talk to there is a gay Mormon like myself. They are everywhere!

The next couple of days I saw a whole bunch of stuff, Embarcadero Center, Lombard Street, Ghiradelli, Dolores Park, and that cool park that was featured in the opening credits of Full House. S.F. is amazingly beautiful. Oddly enough, I've never seen so many homeless people in my life. It was a little annoying. I mean I feel compassion when there is like one or two, but when there are like 45 transients standing around asking for money, I feel a little overwhelmed. But the city was cool and I was feeling it. Everyone there was so nice. It was a nice city. Actually, now that I think about it, the guys in the club were really nice to me, but it seemed like everytime I told them that I wasn't living in the city, they were kind of dissapointed and didn't want to really engage anymore, which I thought was a little odd considering that if they wanted to hook up wouldn't someone from out of town be a good option? But I probably attracted guys that weren't the one night stand guys, which sterotypically I thought would be the case. Not that I wanted to hook up, but I was interested in how the dynamics of the club/bar scene was. Does that make sense?

I just had a really good time and there's actually a lot more to tell, but I've got to go so I'm gonna wait and tell what happened on the rest of my trip hopefully tomorrow.