Got to love Green Beer and Beautiful People

Last night was the day for the Irish, when everyone loves to wear green and speak with horrible lisps while professing their heritage in hopes of receiving a congratulatory kiss, as if where your ancestors fled from is reason enough for an intimate moment. I decided to play this holiday down a bit and no go to the Irish section of town, rather to my community bar where I could relax with the bar karaoke singers and the regular gang. Now for those of you who are possibly new to this blog let me clarify something to help with this story. I am straight, I like women, I love breasts. Although I live a few scant blocks from the Castro, I live in the underrepresented and rarely mapped straight part of the Castro. I have determined that when going out on the town in the evening I very much need a wingman, preferably a straight one. I finally met the owner of my community bar, E, a native Chinese resident who studied in Hawaii and later moved to San Francisco. He is as gay as you can imagine in the city but equally a wonderfully generous kind soul who always has a smile and a hug and a free drink for all of his regulars. Well last night somehow I must have put on the wrong deodorant for I had more drinks purchased for me in one night than in all my years put together, and all by young men looking for the same. I asked my good friend the bounce T, ‘so these guys know I am straight right?’ She responds with a knowing smile with, ‘of course they do, they just like you’. Frankly I have no problem with this, but it was certainly an interesting experience, however the tide seemed to change around 1:30. A fairly attractive female was sitting by herself at the bar a few stools down as her friends had recently left. Somehow we got to chatting right before she went up to sing, fortified by a couple of shots of cactus juice (tequila, really hurts in the morning). She is actually a classically trained singer who is still petrified of singing pop songs in public. Maybe twenty minutes later she is joined by a friend, another female who I am introduced as her lover (figures). They start to talk amongst themselves as if I am not a scant 2 feet away where the originally young lady, J, actually asks her lover if she could bring me home with them. While images of me as the friendly neighborhood cat run through my head the other friend looks at me, foot to toe as if examining the better qualities of vegetables on the street corner and responds with, ‘maybe not tonight’. Then without further ado both stand-up and walk out, J with a small apologetic smile and wave over her shoulder. I laugh as E comes up gives me a big consolatory as I leave to trudge up the hill to my waiting bed. Never a dull moment in the city.

On a separate note, I have many times previously talked about the homeless in the city. Walking down a main street today in my own little world listening to my podcasts on my ipod, I was pushed aside quite strenuously by one as we were waiting for the light. As I turn to look and of course check my wallet, I see he actually has dropped his sleeping bag and black garbage bags and is sprinting into a busy intersection ignoring honking of speeding black SUVs. Thinking simply that he must be one of the many mentally ill on the streets I am jolted as there is an hunched over elderly man with a cane struggling to cross the street as he has now wandered into the busy intersection. The homeless man ignores all vehicles and helps this impeccably dressed elderly man to the corner and then returns back without a backwards glance for his belongs continuing on his way. Sometimes I think we all have something we can learn from the most unlikely of places. In this case a man with arguably no social standing going out to help another for no better reason than it is the decent thing to do. May this be a wake-up call for us all.

So a happy St. Patrick’s day to all, I hope it was filled with fun and excitement, possibly a kiss or a drink with a special friend. Tonight I think will be a recovery night curling up on the couch with some popcorn and a good movie. Surely not every night needs to be an adventure.