The Windmill Posts

Got to my favorite hotel on the planet, checked in, got a great parking spot. A weekend in the summer in any large city means crowds and few parking spots. So I left the can in the hotel spot for the weekend. A bummer because I love driving in San Francisco.

Went to my room, freshened up, and pinged my friend Z to set up a meeting. I had connected with Z when she contacted me through one of my other blogs, and we’d been penpals for years – maybe a decade – until we finally met last year on the big trip. So I like to check in and say hi whenever I’m in town now.

She’s a great lady, and certainly not boring. She was dressed in cheetah pants, a bucket hat, purple, and a cool retro jacket. Not retro like you find in a shop, but retro like you keep wearing until it comes back. She shares her California experiences and I get jealous. And I share my mental issues and she’s very supportive. Last time she led me on a walk through the hills by her house – she talks of them often, and they’re beautiful.

I’m generally a failure at eating, so I let her decide and she took me to a Mediterranean place up by the Castro. This sounds so lame when I write it, but we took the city bus from Cow Hollow up to the Castro, and I’d never been on a San Francisco bus before. It was pretty normal except for one thing. The first ⅔ or more of the bus were handicap seats only, and the back was jam packed. Z offered the idea that they don’t check often, so I could snag the back row of protected seats. When I sat down I realized how long I had been standing, and how much it had taken out of me. So I said I was legally disabled, so I would defend my use of the seat. None of the other 12+ seats were taken. Although the fact that the crowd was showing that much respect to the zones made me think they do check often. Or maybe the bus driver does.

In any case it felt a bit like the scene in Johnny Dangerously (go see it) where they pull into a handicap parking spot and the lackey says “these are for the handicapped” to which Johnny replies “I am handicapped, I’m psychotic.”

By the time we got there, I was feeling better but on getting up I felt light headed and lousy on my feet, so I was again thankful for the break. After some more walking we ended up at the restaurant. I was really concerned that I wouldn’t know what I would find palatable.  Like I said, I’m a picky eater.  Got some kebabs that were out of this world and at least sampled the rest of the things on my plate.  The yellow rice was just dreamy!  Note to my close friends: Can of Coke, not fountain.

We wandered the Castro a bit, but it was a weekend night and the shops were closing at 6:30, so we missed most of them.  I’m guessing it gets rowdy and the shop owners don’t want the hassle of drunk shoppers.  I don’t blame them.  We saw a window with a bunch of great Ken dolls, and the location of Harvey Milk’s camera shop.

We walked the Castro people watching and chatting.  She shared her theory on why we sabotage ourselves, it was a good theory.  I have a similar one, but hers had some interesting perspectives I hadn’t thought of before.  It was nice just sitting and chatting, especially in one of my favorite places on the planet.

While we were just sitting there in the square at the top of the Castro, people-watching and chatting.  In front of us was one of those big metal giant street cars. They’re not really cars anymore, they’re more like street trucks. One of those went rolling by and then another one was behind it. And I said I would really like to ride one of those, since they’re just like ours back home in the 40s.  That was a kind of a bucket list item for me. She pointed out that it was headed for Pier 39, so let’s just do it. She was all excited because she wanted to go to the Musée Mécanique down there.  The train/tram/trolley ride was a bit underwhelming, but still fun.

Eventually we made it to Pier 39 and got off to find a sea of people.  Standard Saturday tourists, but a bit jarring.  Z wanted to get there before it closed, so we hurried through the crowd.  We made it with plenty of time.  I couldn’t remember if I’d been there before, but I can’t imagine how I would have missed it.

It’s more of an arcade than a museum.  But a bizarre, dream world arcade.  You can go from the video game Defender, to an old tin based mechanical airplane flying game. Next to that skeeball and then some giant modern video game.  There were throwback games like Pac Man, and antique games that were little more than an animated joke.

Z was giddy.  I think we both put on our smiley faces, and they’re convincing enough.  But she was smiling like a little kid in a candy shop.

For those of us who can’t make that happiness show, much less have it, it’s really cool to see someone so excited and happy.  Lit up like the pinball machines around us..  

She was playing Skee-Ball, and I said “Can I take your picture doing this? Because it’s insane. You’re just, you know, having so much fun.” And so she let me do that, and that was cool.

We go outside and it’s all classic muscle cars, like, street style. Some restored truly to their correct year, and others that have been  pimped up a bit. (Also, I saw the ocean!)

We wandered around looking at all the cars.  I’m pretty sure it was all the cars. She loved that. She did want to see every car— and she talked to so many people, and we met this guy who was clearly pretty drunk, but he was so chill. We were talking about clubs and you got to do your hobbies if you have a hobby — or are in a club — I compared it to my scooter group, which I’m sure, gained tons of respect from him. But I talked about going across states with the scooters, and about the group really being a hardcore riders.  I said, “Those are friends that I made till death.” And I’m sure that that’s kind of similar for you. We also talked about intergroup politics and hassles, but really I think we both appreciated different passions.

I did not fit in there. I was dressed about as white boy as you can get, but that’s okay. Everybody was, nobody made fun of me, everybody was nice.  For as much as I didn’t fit in, Z did.  She was popping around from car to car, talking with the owners, and from what I could tell she knew what she was talking about.  It made me realize that she may be a very close friend, but I didn’t really know that much about her, outside of our shared experiences.  So it shouldn’t have been a surprise she was so into the cars – because I had nothing to make me think she wouldn’t.  I thought it was great to see new perspectives.  

After the cars she said “It’s a mile and a half. Do you want to walk it or do you want to get an Uber?” I did not feel like I was going to get Uber shamed, but I also felt like there was a push for a walk, so we did. We walked from Pier 39 up to the motels. She was staying in a similar one up by mine.  It wasn’t really that bad of a walk, and I totally remember Ira and I doing it multiple times because we were staying at the Del Sol, it was CVS Market Watch, we had a lot of free time. So, we went to Fisherman’s Wharf—Wharf and Alcatraz. Old work friend, you don’t need to understand that.

We said goodbye and parted ways.  A long day of driving wore me out, but an afternoon of exploring the city revitalized me.  And wore me out.

I don’t know why San Francisco does this to me but it makes me want to go home. But it also wants me to stay forever. Pretty sure that’s what love feels like.

“Every man should be allowed to love two cities, his own and San Francisco.”

Gene Fowler