A Small Personal Excursion Following a Long Professional Stay: A Trip-lette

[spectralbovine]

I joined LiveJournal in 2005, but before that, I was on another site, which is where I met Amy (etherealclarity), one of my oldest online friends. One time I called her and sang songs about cheese to cheer her up. I think that was her. I meant every cheese I sang; I just forgot who I sang it to. In any case, she got sent over here for training for a new job, so we finally got to meet after nine years! I'm going to be ethereally clear about these gerunds.

• picking Amy up from Acqua in Mill Valley on Thursday and driving her across the Golden Gate Bridge
• going up and down the San Francisco hills
• singing along to "Barrel of a Gun" and discussing the masturbation interpretation
• gorging on inexpensive but tasty sushi at Tokyo Express
• grabbing gelato (cookies and cream for me and butter pecan for her) from Melt in Westfield
• running into Chris and his boyfriend on 5th as they were on their way to Equus
• brazenly standing in the lobby of the Off-Market Theater building even though the sign said ABSOLUTELY NO STANDING IN THE LOBBY
• hugging Megan and Melissa, whom I recognized, but not hugging Cat's friend Clare, whom I thought looked familiar but did not recognize even though, according to her, we had met like six times, including at some mythical rooftop party
• sitting in the front row with Clare as she and Amy played with their smartphones and bonded over the fact that they both met their boyfriends online
• laughing like mad at Ménage-À-Plot: A Surf-N-Turf Adventure, which featured Cat in a gorilla suit, Ashley in a tutu and chimp mask, Charles as a super-douche, Leigh as a ridiculous spy, and Jennifer as a pretentious food critic-names that mean nothing to you, I know, but I've acquired many theatre friends this year
• insisting that as the host, it was my job to entertain her, not the other way around
• playing a cutthroat game of Back to the Future: The Card Game in which I changed Amy's identity to screw her over but instead ended up giving her the advantage, although I still managed to eke out a win
• getting an early start Friday morning and heading into the city, where we grabbed breakfast at Boudin on Market-a bagel with Philadelphia cream cheese I had to put on myself for me and a Diet Coke for her
• taking the City Scapes and Public Places walking tour, which did not feature as many colorful stories as Gold Rush City but did show us cool rooftop gardens, Egyptian Hermes, an old phone booth, asparagus-adorned obelisks, ornate banks, and the awesome steampunk vault in the basement of Wells Fargo
• embarking on the Mission Tour, which today began at Pancho Villa, where Amy got an "amazing" vegetarian burrito with magically spiced rice
• discovering a new mural in Clarion Alley and posing with it
• seeing a mural-in-progress and watching the artist work
• hitting up Thrift Town to browse the used CDs and finding a bunch of Carmen Sandiego games for Windows 95 and grabbing the Angelfish CD for fifty cents
• pointing out the many murals in the Mission so that the shutterbug could do her thing
• actually going inside the Women's Building for the first time and discovering that it is indeed about women being awesome
• waiting in line at Tartine for a while before we noticed a sign that said they were sold out of bread so Amy could not have her precious sourdough
• waiting in line at Bi-Rite for a little while before I got pumpkin and cookies and cream and Amy got brown sugar with ginger-caramel swirl, which she seemed to kinda like
• creeping Amy out with the unicorn in Paxton Gate
• failing to get Amy mopped at the pirate store because I had to use the restroom and she had to call her boyfriend, whom I finally talked to for a few minutes after having had a few online interactions here and there over the years
• convincing Amy to buy Rosemary and Rue and World War Z (since they were sold out of Feed) in addition to the Coraline and YA fantasy book she was already getting at Borderlands, endangering the spatial limitations of her carry-on luggage
• running into Julia at the Borderlands Cafe and chatting for a while
• using our fifty-cent coupons from our Borderlands purchases to buy tea (her) and raspberry limeade (me) to drink on the way
• not telling Amy why I was taking her on the Westin St. Francis elevator until it started going up
• taking a few trips up and down in an attempt to get this picture
• stopping in a tourist-y shop to get a magnet but not finding one that truly encapsulated the un-tourist-y San Francisco experience I had given her, settling on one that featured the Golden Gate Bridge, which we did drive on
• going to Genova Deli for dinner since she had declared that she liked sandwiches
• sharing my excellent musical taste courtesy of Smellerbee on our way to Concord
• leaving Amy in the lobby with Ron at Under the Studios while I got set up in the light booth
• not screwing up my light and sound cues during Picasso at the Lapin Agile, giving Amy a double-dose of theatre after not having seen a play since Nunsense, which she had blocked out of her memory, preferring to believe that the last show she'd seen was Avenue Q
• introducing Amy to Fringe because when she asked what the show was about, I could only reply that it was about...being awesome
• getting an early start Saturday morning and having breakfast at Gaylord's on Mrs. Pac-Man, I with an almond croissant and cafe mocha and she with a bagel with non-Philadelphia cream cheese she had to put on herself and Diet Coke
• taking Amy to Dr. Comics so she could buy Back to the Future for herself and Stoner Fluxx for her boyfriend
• hugging Amy one final time at the airport after a couple days of very good hugs and sending her off back to Maryland