Tails of a 17th Street Geisha

I fell in loved with this Italian shoe brand a long time ago, when I lived in Los Angeles.

For years after, I couldn’t remember where I found this pair I had and couldn’t find another place that had them. I stumbled into a Fornarina store in Rome (not quite I stumble, I made John search for hours for this store in the shopping district.) These pretentious bitches wouldn’t sell me one of their Fornarina shoes.

Once I got back, I googled the store and found dozens of pairs on Zappos.com but all in the amount of $180 - $200+. I also discovered that there are only 2 Fornarina stores in the US and one outlet. The stores are in LA and Vegas (of all places?!) and the outlet is in a small town called Milpitas. Did you know that Milpitas is in the San Fran bay area? I didn’t until I searched it out…

Well, I was scheduled to attend a conference in San Francisco! What luck! But how would I get there? Could I take a day off and find a way there? Public transport. But wait! My old dear friend Chris lives in ‘Frisc, and it would be fun to meet up with him and catch up. SCORE! Chris was kosher with a trip to Milpitas. This story is too long, so fast forward to today:

I got 3 pairs of Fornarina shoes and a wallet!

I could have gotten 5 pairs, but Chris helped me narrow it down. These shoes ROCK.

Oh and we also get pulled over by a cop on the way home.

I’m in San Fran for a conference that was from Thurs-Sunday. I took two days off to rest a bit before going home and some friends took me out to night festivities for San Fran Pride.  Here’s what I learned:

1) Summer in San Fran is as cold as a chihuahua’s balls in Maine in October

2) Lesbians and gays can co-exist. Even in NYC, the gay scene was over taken by homos and lesboes were in factions removed from the main scene (they had their "night" at a dance club but no real integration) In Frisco, the lesboes ruled and the genders mixed

3) Gay mardi gras exists. It’s called the Castro. I knew this all along, but the last time I was in frisco I was soooooo drunk I had not much of a memory of the events. it was a big ol’ blur.

4) DC’s gay scene sucks. Royally. There is absolutely no sense of individuality or style. We are sooo conservative and so poorly dressed as a whole. San Fran may be a little TOO conscientiously put together and "iindividualistic" but shit, that’s more interesting and fun than the aber-zombies, the sporty spices, the polo tops, the skinny emo-jeans, and psuedo-euro-trash wannabe looks from the scene in DC.