The First Few Days

So my first few days in Oakland/San Francisco have been an adventure. Yesterday, I spent the day at the house in Oakland, tearing up floors, ripping out a fire place, spackling, and painting my bedroom ceiling. Talk about racking up the butch points. One more heavy lifting project, and I advance directly to Lesbian Level One.




This morning, I told Josh that I was going to take the morning to run some errands: mail my Mom my old house keys, so she could move some boxes into storage for me and joining the gym. I was successful in both endeavours. On my journeys this morning I grabbed pictures of the two buildings above. One of the buildings is San Francisco City Hall, and the other is Oakland City Hall. I sent a copy of the picture of the San Francisco City Hall (which looks like a state capitol) to my friend Dawn. I wrote, "why the hell is the San Francisco City Hall larger than the Minnesota State Capitol." Dawn wrote back a succint explanation and said, "The gays."

That's where the fun basically ended. So I am trying to learn my way around Oakland. I have the downtown area pretty much covered, and I was pretty sure that I could get from the downtown area to the shopping district at the foot of the hills from my neighborhood. I called Josh and got him on the line. I told him that I was going to call him once I got to Lake Shore Drive, so I could get directions on how to actually get up to our house. He said sure. That was the last I heard from him. I successfully navigated to Lake Shore Drive and to the shopping area. I recognized that I needed to turn up one of the streets and begin going uphill...and it was at that point I started calling my dear roommate. Unfortunately, my dear roommate didn't answer his phone. I think it died. Bad luck for me.

So, I retraced my steps back into downtown Oakland and caught the train back to San Francisco to Josh's condo. I basically walked this morning from 9:30 to 3:00pm minus an hour for eating and train transit. I felt like an Incan messenger.

Tomorrow, perhaps, I will make it back to my house, that is, if I can find it.

But wait...there is more. Yesterday was pure hilarity. So my neighborhood is the stuff that reality show folks dream about. Across the street is the hip straight girl Lisa who comes by and tells us the best places to get our toes done. Next door to her is Mike, a homosexual. Next door to Mike is CeCe the black tranny drag queen that drives a shiny black BMW, and directly next door to us is crazy ass Suzanne from Iowa who is taking care of her sick Aunt.

So yesterday, I am standing outside talking to David on the phone, and the generator we have working at the house, starts to smoke a little bit. It smokes for perhaps five minutes and then stops. I see CeCe outside and say hello, and then I go back into the house. A few moments later I look up, and here are two fire tracks on our narrow drive, and the hottest firemen in the world come piling out. Turns out someone saw the smoke on the OTHER SIDE of the block and called the fire department. They were very good natured about it. Later that night, we saw the same firemen at the Subway on Lakeshore Drive.

I walk outside and CeCe is standing there again chuckling. And then she says, "I have been trying to reach Joshua all day. You just tell him I got an extra long extension cord that I can run across the street if he wants to use my power." And I thought to myself, "yes girl, I am sure you do have an extra long extension cord."

Other than the initial shell shock of realizing that I have, indeed, left Minneapolis, I am finding Oakland to be delightful. The reality of the move will set in more when I actually start working next week. I miss all my peeps back in Minneapolis. And ya'll got a place to stay out here.