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So, yesterday. It was both a day of awesome and a day of pain. Catherine and I walked through lovely Mountain View, not stopping at the pet store this time, and made it to the Caltrain station right as an SF train was pulling up. Excellent. We spent the ride there discussing Evan Mintz, who appeared to be the paragon and epitomical realization of her taste in boys. So I texted him to say so, and a mighty text flurry ensued.
Our train deadended at a station somewhat more southerly than any of the things we knew we wanted to go see, so, with a few adventures (a very nice and very insistent black lady and a guy who sounds exactly like Ronnie gave us some bus help) we went to the Haight. I was skeptical at first. The Lower Haight is cool-looking, with uniquely San Franciscan townhouses and amazing paint jobs and Buena Vista park, which contains many a mind-blowing eucalyptus tree and a hidden playground with perfect swings and an anti-monkey-bar slidy thing and fascinating seed pods on the ground from the weird trees.
But the Upper Haight looked like... shopping. Which I deplore. Luckily, so does Catherine, so she steered me right into a place that I would find most interesting, called Love of Ganesh. The shopkeepers offered us tea and fruit and White Rabbit rice candies for free when we walked in past the sari cloth hanging in the doorway. The incense permeated everything, with amazing effect. Yes, there were clothes in there, but they were gorgeous Indian colorful and two-tone metallic embroidered clothes. There were Ganesh statues everywhere, and a whole wall of incense to buy, and various semiprecious gems and crystals (all ludicrously overpriced to my Gem&Jewelry Show-accustomed eye, but still beautiful), and metal bracelets and wooden incense holders and books about the Bhagavad-Gita and cloth, cloth, everywhere!
Little did I know, Catherine's intent in entering this place wasn't even this, the store. There is a prayer/meditation room in the back, which looks like all my middle-school dreams of a pagan altar, but high on Purple Haze. Pass through the clicking bead curtain masking the door, and everything is lit by candles or crystals on rainbow-rotation stands. Statues to Anubis, a Celtic cross or two, bowls of gigantic lemons and oranges in offering, piles of cheap semiprecious jeweled rings, Chinese metallic embroidered cloth, a Star of David here or there, Mexican hanging flaglines of typically extreme bright colors, woven God's-eyes hanging from the ceiling, a Tibetan singing bowl, random drawings that people made, a pile of books of many religions (I particularly liked the exclusive interviews with Harrison and Lennon on their experience with a guru), masses of cloth flowers with lights in them, but mostly tons and tons of statues and depictions of Ganesh. One sat on the embroidered pillows and cushioned mat and regarded the glorious shrine-pile and meditated, I suppose, but mostly I just boggled. It was surpassingly beautiful. We sat in there for awhile.
Eventually we came out and I succumbed to the hereditary bargain-packrat tendency and went through the five-dollar box of surplus Indian clothes, and got four amazing shirts. We got free incense with our purchases and went on our way, admiring the skillful murals and graffiti all along the storefronts, pausing here and there to go into a particuarly extreme headshop with gigantic glass bongs and Lalique-worthy blown pipes.
The other major triumph of the Upper Haight was the Mexican restaurant we went to. Not only was the 8-dollar beef quesadilla I got bigger than anything I've ever seen on a plate in a Mexican restaurant (and overflowing with cheese, rather than just gluing the meat to the tortilla), but the corners, arches, and balconies inside were covered with sheets of hammered copper reflecting the blinding sun. I am doing that in my castle when I have it, in the places with moderately mission-style architecture.
At the end of the Haight is Golden Gate Park, which is 3 miles long and 1/2 a mile wide. We stayed within the first half-mile after the Haight, but there was a beautiful dry-creek zen garden in the AIDS memorial grove (we made a rock pile), and lots of hippies and homeless guys playing music on a hill (with their dogs), flowers and trees of awesitude, and just general parkiness that was too big for our tiny minds (and feet). We sat on a bench for awhile to rest and then went on a quest for a bus.
The end of the day was a solid bus fiasco, and we were thoroughly exhausted by the time we gave up and got on a BART for Catherine's mom to pick us up at Millbrae. However, there were interesting spots among our tortuous exploration of the incomprehensible system of bus routes. We encountered moderately helpful company in an extremely flamboyant guy with possible KS lesions, a friendly manner (he offered us his Munchies and promised they weren't poison), and all the outward symptoms of being on speed. He asked if we were lesbians, and decided I was. I said it was the hair, and he said no it was because I was hardcore. I asked him if lesbians were hardcore and he said he knew one who could beat him up even worse than his ex-boyfriend (he's missing some teeth) and benchpress upwards of 200 pounds. I said I couldn't do that, but I guess I could do a bunch of push-ups, the real kind, and he said I had big pecs. It continued in that vein for awhile. He arranged a distraction so that our expired bus passes wouldn't be noticed when we got on the bus together, and he pointed out various cute guys, mumbling at lightspeed through his Munchies and turning my head with his hand to direct my attention till he saw a convenience store and got off.
That was the highlight of the bus fiasco; the rest of it was walking in circles, bussing in circles, and accidentally angering irritable bus drivers till we got to the Caltrain station where we missed the last train for an hour and a half and walked to the nearest BART station instead (which was coincidentally exactly the spot we started from). I crashed almost before we got home, but it was a good day in general, and now I have Indian shirts and a feel for the size of Golden Gate Park. And the knowledge that I don't want to take the bus unless I have to.
Now, there are small concrete plans. Alan got back yesterday (probably during our wander through the park), and invited me to dinner on Wednesday. Jorge will be in town on Wednesday too, which will be awesome because I don't know how to get to Brentwood effectively. At some point, I will take a bus to LA and see Stephan and the Dahlians. I am encouraged. I'm not sure what we're doing today, but I bet we can come up with something that doesn't involve walking and public-transitting in circles for three hours.
Our train deadended at a station somewhat more southerly than any of the things we knew we wanted to go see, so, with a few adventures (a very nice and very insistent black lady and a guy who sounds exactly like Ronnie gave us some bus help) we went to the Haight. I was skeptical at first. The Lower Haight is cool-looking, with uniquely San Franciscan townhouses and amazing paint jobs and Buena Vista park, which contains many a mind-blowing eucalyptus tree and a hidden playground with perfect swings and an anti-monkey-bar slidy thing and fascinating seed pods on the ground from the weird trees.
But the Upper Haight looked like... shopping. Which I deplore. Luckily, so does Catherine, so she steered me right into a place that I would find most interesting, called Love of Ganesh. The shopkeepers offered us tea and fruit and White Rabbit rice candies for free when we walked in past the sari cloth hanging in the doorway. The incense permeated everything, with amazing effect. Yes, there were clothes in there, but they were gorgeous Indian colorful and two-tone metallic embroidered clothes. There were Ganesh statues everywhere, and a whole wall of incense to buy, and various semiprecious gems and crystals (all ludicrously overpriced to my Gem&Jewelry Show-accustomed eye, but still beautiful), and metal bracelets and wooden incense holders and books about the Bhagavad-Gita and cloth, cloth, everywhere!
Little did I know, Catherine's intent in entering this place wasn't even this, the store. There is a prayer/meditation room in the back, which looks like all my middle-school dreams of a pagan altar, but high on Purple Haze. Pass through the clicking bead curtain masking the door, and everything is lit by candles or crystals on rainbow-rotation stands. Statues to Anubis, a Celtic cross or two, bowls of gigantic lemons and oranges in offering, piles of cheap semiprecious jeweled rings, Chinese metallic embroidered cloth, a Star of David here or there, Mexican hanging flaglines of typically extreme bright colors, woven God's-eyes hanging from the ceiling, a Tibetan singing bowl, random drawings that people made, a pile of books of many religions (I particularly liked the exclusive interviews with Harrison and Lennon on their experience with a guru), masses of cloth flowers with lights in them, but mostly tons and tons of statues and depictions of Ganesh. One sat on the embroidered pillows and cushioned mat and regarded the glorious shrine-pile and meditated, I suppose, but mostly I just boggled. It was surpassingly beautiful. We sat in there for awhile.
Eventually we came out and I succumbed to the hereditary bargain-packrat tendency and went through the five-dollar box of surplus Indian clothes, and got four amazing shirts. We got free incense with our purchases and went on our way, admiring the skillful murals and graffiti all along the storefronts, pausing here and there to go into a particuarly extreme headshop with gigantic glass bongs and Lalique-worthy blown pipes.
The other major triumph of the Upper Haight was the Mexican restaurant we went to. Not only was the 8-dollar beef quesadilla I got bigger than anything I've ever seen on a plate in a Mexican restaurant (and overflowing with cheese, rather than just gluing the meat to the tortilla), but the corners, arches, and balconies inside were covered with sheets of hammered copper reflecting the blinding sun. I am doing that in my castle when I have it, in the places with moderately mission-style architecture.
At the end of the Haight is Golden Gate Park, which is 3 miles long and 1/2 a mile wide. We stayed within the first half-mile after the Haight, but there was a beautiful dry-creek zen garden in the AIDS memorial grove (we made a rock pile), and lots of hippies and homeless guys playing music on a hill (with their dogs), flowers and trees of awesitude, and just general parkiness that was too big for our tiny minds (and feet). We sat on a bench for awhile to rest and then went on a quest for a bus.
The end of the day was a solid bus fiasco, and we were thoroughly exhausted by the time we gave up and got on a BART for Catherine's mom to pick us up at Millbrae. However, there were interesting spots among our tortuous exploration of the incomprehensible system of bus routes. We encountered moderately helpful company in an extremely flamboyant guy with possible KS lesions, a friendly manner (he offered us his Munchies and promised they weren't poison), and all the outward symptoms of being on speed. He asked if we were lesbians, and decided I was. I said it was the hair, and he said no it was because I was hardcore. I asked him if lesbians were hardcore and he said he knew one who could beat him up even worse than his ex-boyfriend (he's missing some teeth) and benchpress upwards of 200 pounds. I said I couldn't do that, but I guess I could do a bunch of push-ups, the real kind, and he said I had big pecs. It continued in that vein for awhile. He arranged a distraction so that our expired bus passes wouldn't be noticed when we got on the bus together, and he pointed out various cute guys, mumbling at lightspeed through his Munchies and turning my head with his hand to direct my attention till he saw a convenience store and got off.
That was the highlight of the bus fiasco; the rest of it was walking in circles, bussing in circles, and accidentally angering irritable bus drivers till we got to the Caltrain station where we missed the last train for an hour and a half and walked to the nearest BART station instead (which was coincidentally exactly the spot we started from). I crashed almost before we got home, but it was a good day in general, and now I have Indian shirts and a feel for the size of Golden Gate Park. And the knowledge that I don't want to take the bus unless I have to.
Now, there are small concrete plans. Alan got back yesterday (probably during our wander through the park), and invited me to dinner on Wednesday. Jorge will be in town on Wednesday too, which will be awesome because I don't know how to get to Brentwood effectively. At some point, I will take a bus to LA and see Stephan and the Dahlians. I am encouraged. I'm not sure what we're doing today, but I bet we can come up with something that doesn't involve walking and public-transitting in circles for three hours.