Erin’s out of town, and though I cook at least as much as she does when she’s here, I’m not terribly good at making sure I eat when there’s no one else to think about. So around 10:30, last night, I realised I hadn’t yet had dinner, and, when I got in touch with neighbour-bachelor-friend Nik, found that he was just then cooking himself some fettuccine. Thank God for boxes and jars. I crashed dinner, and then stayed for a little while, looking through the Frameline LGBT (one day they will say “queer”) film festival catalogue. (I am definitely going to see Tropical Malady — a sad renaming of สัตว์ประหลาด — Sat Pralat — “Strange Creatures”.)

By the time I left, it was 12:30, and at Haight and Fillmore I found, of course, Malibu. Hand shake, street hug. ‘You got a girl, right? Or a roommate.’ ‘A girl and four housemates.’ ‘So there ain’t no way I could crash on a chair or something?’ I shook my head. ‘Wouldn’t work out.’ ‘Listen. Can I get you to burn some more CD’s for me?’ I agreed, of course, and accepted seven discs. It takes me about eight minutes per disc, so we agreed to meet back in an hour. I returned home to burn some CD’s while chilling with housemates Dax and James.

At 1:40, when I met back with ‘Bu, he greeted me in a fake accent. ‘I am, how you say? Very thank that you help… to me.’ He went on for a little bit. His eyes were a little glazed, but he didn’t smell of either alcohol or marijuana. By his account, he’d had barely any sleep in the past forty-eight, and that was the cause of his oddness. I hope so.

We talked a little bit. I learned the history of his name (which, obviously, I can’t relate here, given that I’m using a blogonym), and about his “twin” brother, two years different in age. As I helped him stuff (ugly, badly PhotoShopped) covers into CD cases, he made crazy smalltalk with passersby. To two guys running to catch a cab: ‘Run! Faster! Faster! Oh, no, I’m sorry. I’m going to have to ask you to return to the sidewalk and start over again.’ ‘Bu: ‘I know that ain’t chewing tobacco in your back pocket.’ Girl: ‘It’s a compact.’ ‘Bu: ‘Whoa! Whoa! All you had to say was that it wasn’t tobacco! I didn’t need to know it was all personal.’ Me: ”Bu, it’s for make-up.’

He hit a stiff German named Jentz up for a cigarette, and introduced me as his associate. (I realised, a couple days ago, that ‘Bu doesn’t yet know my name, and may or may not know he doesn’t know…)

Unlike ‘Bu, I had a bed waiting for me, so after ten or fifteen minutes, I took my leave.

This entry was posted on Sunday, 19 June 2005 at 09:38 and is filed under San Francisco Streets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.