The dick nicker

I came home from work today to find an empty box addressed to me sitting on the front porch. A lone piece of packaging tissue sat discarded to the side. Somebody stole my penis piñata, and I am not happy.

I mean, it's bad enough to open someone else's mail. But to bust it open, discover the contents are a worthless papier mache penis and *still* take off with it? Well that's just sick and cruel. I am hoping at her bachelorette party tomorrow night, the bride-to-be won't be too disappointed to learn she will be pummeling a second-hand penis piñata left over from a mutual friend's recent birthday party. With a little duct tape, a blindfold, a bite of her chocolate penis cake and a beer or two, maybe she won't notice the difference.

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Yesterday I was working in the South Bay and pulled up at a stop light behind a black Trans-Am decorated with a variety of pro-America, pro-Bush, pro-Republican bumper stickers (including one for KRTY 95.3 Country Radio). The one smack in the middle read, "How did our oil get under their soil?" Is it just me, or does that sound like an anti-war rally slogan created by someone with intelligence and a sense of irony? I can't even begin to imagine the thought process this particular driver went through when selecting this sticker at his local carwash.

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Last weekend, my friend Maureen and I went to the Brass Tax campout at Red, White and Blue Beach in Santa Cruz (the same kids who throw the annual Halloween Sunrise Renegade party). The weather was gorgeous. The beach was perfect. The moon was huge. The beats were booming. After the morning's pancakes and bacon, I even got to help my friend Tim deflate his giant inflatable gorilla by wrestling and climbing all over it. Good times!







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This weekend is Pride Weekend in San Francisco. For those unfamiiar, 'Pride' means Gay Pride, though some years back the word 'Gay' was deemed too narrow a descriptor for the thousands of diverse Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered folks in this town, so the 'Gay' dropped off and the word 'Pride' took on a meaning of its own. There will be a colorful parade and countless parties as the Bay Area's proud, strong, house-music-loving Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered community and their friends get a little crazy.

Me, well I'll be observing straightness at my friend Stacy's bachelorette party on Friday and another friend's engagement party on Saturday. 'Tis the season.

Happy summer everyone!

Steve McQueen, eat your heart out

Despite growing up in the city whose hills were made famous in a car chase scene of the 1968 flick Bullitt coupled with my somewhat reckless city driving, I had never actually caught real air before. By my old apartment in Noe Valley, there's a steep section of Diamond Street four blocks long with no stop signs. When I lived there, it was a pasttime of mine to blast a favorite tune, start from a full stop at the top of the hill and accelerate quickly, rising up slightly after the dip at each intersection. I'd turn the car around and go back for a few more cheap thrills before turning right and heading the few blocks back to my place.

Yesterday I took the afternoon to play tour guide. My former roommate Helen's cousin Nathan and his friend Greg both work for MTV (Australia and UK respectively) and were in LA shooting the MTV Video Music Awards. After LA, they had a day in SF and I volunteered myself as their personal chauffeur and guide. (I consider it my civic duty to give foreign visitors the best possible impression of my city.)

Aside from a look at Adidas shoes, Nathan requested a drive around some of the hills from Bullitt. This has been a common request of me on previous tours of San Francisco, but not only have I not seen the movie, but I'd never researched which streets were involved in the chase sequence. This time I decided to do it right. Google to the rescue and we were off.

We started at Bullitt's house, a large multi-level building at the corner of Clay and Taylor that currently has a 4-bedroom flat for rent. After a brief daydream about becoming detectives and moving into Bullitt's old digs followed by a photo session involving Nathan and Greg smoking cigarettes and generally looking like badasses on the front porch, we hopped in my Toyota and began the chase.

Nathan readied the camcorder and demanded "Action!" As fast as my 4-cylinder engine could carry us, we gunned it up the steep ascent of Taylor Street to the blind intersection with Vallejo. As I felt the car rising up from the ground, I hastily prayed that the strained revving of my whiney Japanese engine would alert all in the vicinity to stand clear. As Alcatraz Island rose up over the pavement horizon, we lifted up off the street a good few inches before slamming down on the other side. An elderly onlooker on the sidewalk stood with his mouth agape. The camcorder jostled violently and then regained composure as we continued the chase, over to Larkin Street, sharp left on a steep curve where Larkin becomes Francisco (where, in the movie, the pursuing Dodge Charger loses a hubcap).

We escaped unscathed. Damn that was fun. Anyone want to come for a visit?

Recent good times...

Buy your own damn tart. Love, LUNA.

On the AM of my birthday, mere moments before I was set to be jolted awake by Morning Edition, my roommates Amy and Paul busted into my room with an early-morning rendition of happy birthday, arms loaded with 30 freshly-baked candle-lit cinnamon buns, 30 lottery tickets, 30 pink baby roses and 30 presents (all sorts of earrings, stickers and glittery stuff in a big basket).

An hour later, Guillermo, an Argentine waiter I met a few weeks ago, picked me up for breakfast at the venue of my choice. I opted for coffee and a lemon tart at a sidewalk table in the sun at Tartine, my favorite bakery in the Mission. As we're in line drooling over the display case, I notice he's looking a bit shifty and uncomfortable, glancing around the room expectantly and keeping a safe distance from me, seemingly making it clear to his imaginary onlookers that we are not there together. "Are you ok?" I inquire.

"I leeve in thees neighborhood. People know me here; I am easy to recognize. I feel bad to say thees, but I theenk it would be better for me to wait for you een the car." And so there he leaves me, standing alone in line to purchase my own birthday breakfast while he hides from witnesses to what I come to gather is an illicit morning affair. Fortunately the bakery is a relatively short walk from my house. Fortunately, he understands plain English when he calls to see if I'm coming back to the car and I tell him I would prefer not to speak to him ever again.



After work, I had dinner with a few close friends at my favorite Thai restaurant out in the neighborhood I grew up in; farther than most SF transplants normally dare venture. The place has multiple rooms with gorgeous handcarved woodwork and low tables with sunken wells beneath to place your feet. When you enter, you are asked to remove your shoes, which the neatly-uniformed shoeman whisks away in exchange for a small plastic claim token. After a delicious meal and a chorus of happy birthday over a single candle inserted into fried bananas and ice cream, we headed to Dividend, a small party thrown at little club called Nickie's BBQ. There was no meat, but plenty of friends, beer, chocolate cake and nasty breakbeats for me and my crew to shake down to. A friend garnished me with a tired-looking feather boa that has supposedly been handed down from one woman to the next on her 30th birthday for several years. It now hangs in my closet waiting for the next to come of age.

The birthday revelry came to an end and I am back into my routine, working hard and late, but enjoying nearly every moment. I got a new iPod-- it came as part of payment for my old car, which I sold to a guy I dated briefly (if you can call six months of tireless game playing and bullshit 'dating'). He failed to mention the inscription on the back: "Happy Birthday Mike... You Rock My World! Love, LUNA." He claimed he intended to place a sticker over it but was too busy to get around to it. We haven't spoken since the transaction, but at least my 30 GB of music has kept me happily occupied on my daily commute.

Working full-time for the first time in over two years has been quite a smack to the head, but I'm getting used to the early mornings, sleep deprivation and sacred weekends. Oh, just an FYI for all my friends in cyberland, I am rarely on email these days. This is quite a switch after 12 years of near incessant email monitoring. It's also pretty amusing to see how e-communication occurs among people who are online most of the day. Ideas are proposed. Discussions are had. Decisions and plans are made. And I have absolutely nothing to do with it. How refreshing! One last FYI, my domain expired temporarily and both my email and blog were down on my birthday.

Off to dreamland...