Yes. I did go to San Francisco. Damnably, however, I didn't really come up with any stories.
After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, we had decided, regretfully, that Eilene would not be able to make the trip with me. (Going would have cost missing 4 sessions of the Becker review, and who knows how much studying.) I flew out of Greensboro at 6:45 a.m. on August 9 aiming for a connection in Cincinnati or St. Louis. I never was sure, and even after the trip, I still don't know which it was.
I've made the trip to the west coast 3 times before this, and every time it was on a BIG plane. This time, it was just your average, run of the mill 747. The trip was made memorable only by the 7 year old little German boy in the seat next to me, who had a bladder the size of an English Pea, and kept happily babbling at me( and everyone else in earshot) in German and English, sometimes in the same sentence. His perpetual incontinence of course necessitated me repeatedly unbuckling my seat belt, moving out of his way, sitting, buckling back up, then doing it all over again three minutes later.
Don't people realize that planes fall out of the sky if they don't sit still and pay attention.
I landed in San Francisco at 11:45 a.m., collected by luggage, at walked out of the airport for my first cigarette in 4 hours. No how many times I experience it, I never fail to be shocked at the eternal spring crispness of the air in the Bay area.
With typical Kenian luck, I had picked the door farthest from public transportation from which to make my escape from the airport. I must have walked a mile, carrying luggage heavy enough that the bruises from the shoulder strap on the suitcase were still there a week later, before I found public transport. None that went where I needed to go, but public transport nonetheless.
After 45 minutes of smoking and wishing that I was home, I surrendered, and asked the first uniformed person I found if there was a shuttle to the San Francisco Embarcadero Hyatt Regency.
"Yes". "Wait in this line". "That will be $10.00 please". And I was there.
I hate to travel.
I checked.
I landed in Cincinnati. All airports look the same. They just get bigger, meaner, and more bewildering.
As I think about Saturday, I remember more about it.
The hotel had actually heard of me, and had saved a room for me against the rumor that I might show up. Rather than carry my ridiculously heavy luggage any further I tipped a bell-man to carry it upstairs for me, and trudged up to my room.
The Bell-man is worthy of note only because he was the only lard-ass in San Francisco besides me. I cannot confirm or deny that I was the only lard-ass hetero smoker in San Francisco, but there couldn't have been many.
As I've mentioned in other stories, all hotel rooms look the same. The carpet gets thicker, and the "Starving Artist" paintings on the wall get a little more abstract or graphic, but all hotel rooms share a sameness that cheapens Geography and reminds me of nothing so much as McDonald's. All in all, the desolate and omnipresent oppression of hotel rooms can only be mitigated by two factors.
1) I can set the air conditioner as cold as I like and not pay the utility bill.
2) There is (usually) an unlimited supply of hot water in the shower, which I can run and not pay the utility bill.
This room had a view of the Bay Bridge, the San Francisco Port, myriad homeless sleeping in blanket rolls on every grassy knoll, and an Air Conditioner that sounded like an asthmatic Model T and blew lukewarm air.
After I complained, a decrepit old maintenance man of random Asian heredity showed up, repaired the air conditioner, babbled random Asian noises at me and left.
I attempted to eat lunch at the café in the lobby, and asked for a smoking table for one. The ubiquitous surly maitre d' advised me that state law forbade cigarette smoke in any establishment that served food. I panicked, turned on my heel, and retreated once again to my room.
I attempted to nap, but the hotel called to apologise for the air conditioner.
...In Canada when I bitched about my room it got fixed, and I got a free fruit basket every day for a week.
...In California when I bitched about my room I got wakened from my nap.
C'est la Vie.
Saturday afternoon if San Francisco, and a day and a half before any classes, and I was hungry.
Before I left, friends of ours in Greensboro who used to work in the wine industry in California, advised me to eat at Swann's Oyster Depot. "It's straight up Polk Street from the Hyatt."
As always in San Francisco, the operative word was UP. And, as always in San Francisco I got lost. I walked up and down the streets of San Francisco for about 4 hours before finding my hotel and retreating to my room to hide. I did not find Swanns.
At supper time I wondered down to the cafe in the lobby prepared to eat with out benefit of Nicotine, only to find it closed. Closed at 6:00 P.M. on a Saturday night. Only to wander out later to find a fast food franchise around the corner so that I could eat my first meal of the day at 8:30p.m. Pacific time.
I hate to travel.
I live on the East Coast. My circadian clock is set to Eastern Daylight Time. California is set to Pacific Daylight Time.
When I ate at 8:30, my body thought that it was 11:30. I had flown. I had carried the plane across the Rockies by sheer force of will. I was tired, but knowing how important it was that I adjust to west coast time, I forced myself to stay up 'till 11:00.
I didn't fool my body for a minute. At 5:30 EDT my normal wake up cycle started. Never mind that it was 2:30 PDT. It was time to get up.
I watched people sell things on TV 'til 6:00 and went downstairs for the only other thing I like about hotels.
The Breakfast Buffet.
I've probably spent over a 100 nights in hotel's, and faced the Breakfast buffet at least 80 times.
$18.00 for breakfast just isn't worth it any more.
I've been on a 25 or less grams of fat a day diet for over a year.
I couldn't do the buffet justice.
Since the cafe did not allow smoking, I dashed outside the hotel for a smoke before heading up to my room. As it happens, I had come down to breakfast with only three cigarettes in my pocket.
As I sat outside smoking, the Cable Car stopped right in front of me. No line. Only about 6 other people on the car. Without thinking I jumped on. After all, I had done this before. I had even been a standee. Before I knew it I was in China Town, and I knew that I had to change cars to get to Fisherman's Wharf. I jumped off the Cable Car and waited. And waited. And Waited.
And finally started walking.
I walked from Grant Street to Fisherman's Wharf. I got lost, but I walked from Grant Street to Fisherman's Wharf.
Once I got there I stopped by the Cannery to visit with Frank Melis. Or to see when his next shift was. When I asked about Frank I was greeted with stoney silence followed by Frank doesn't work here any more. Since it was obvious that anyone who wanted to talk to Frank was a criminal, I fled. The experience so disconcerted me that I went and got in line for the cable car.
From other stories you know that the wait for a Cable Car at Fisherman's Wharf is long. This was no exception.
After about an hour and a half in line I was headed for China Town. Where, again I got off, and walked up and up and up to my hotel.
As I walked into the hotel I ran into a member of the Credit Union's Supervisory committee. One of the men who had hired me.
I knew that he thought I was in SF looking for a job, so I felt guilty. I was there on Credit Union business but I felt guilty nonetheless.
C'est la Vie.
When I made it to my room I was so relieved I didn't come out again all day. Instead, I got to (read had to) listen to an immense Korean American Day shout-a-thon right outside my window. All I was able to gather from the shouting was that apparently someone had killed a Korean american, and every Korean Anmerican in the Pacific rim was pissed off about it.
After trying to sleep, watching interminable hours of mind numbing TV and hiding in my room all day, I was famished by Sunday evening.
I had convinced myself that the hotel restaurant being closed early on Saturday night was a fluke. Some bizarre acquiesence by the hotel to Saturday night in the city of the damnned. No one would eat at their hotel in one of the finest restaurant cities in the country. No one but me.
I wandered downstairs to find once again the cafe closed.
I bolted out of the hotel through the closest doors to find an Italian restaurant, joined at the hip as it were to the hotel. Light, airy, full of windows, I could see happy people enjoying their evening meal. All of them dining with a partner or a group.
The thought of eating alone among so many happy pricks depressed me so badly that I slunk away to Carl's Jr., where I grabbed a burger and went back to my room.
The conference started on Monday morning.
I attended all the sessions I had committed to, and learned little or nothing of use to me at the Credit Union.
After failing to eat anywhere but Carl's Jr., for two days, It had become a tradition, and I ate every evening meal there for the rest of my stay.
The is nothing else of any significance about the trip except for my return home.
The conference ended on Friday at 5:00, and I had carefully avoided flight connections that would have me either:
a) missing any of the conference
or
b) rushing to meet my plane.
I gathered my luggage from the bellperson station, and caught a shuttle for the airport.
I arrived at the airport at 6:15, for my 11:50 flight.
Yes. You read that right.
I sat in the San Francisco airport for over five hours with my thumb up my ass. I could not check my luggage before 10:00, so every time I wanted a cigarrette, I had to haul my luggage, and my lard ass outside, smoke, and then repeat the performance again on the way back in.
When we finally boarded, taxied, and took off, I came to realize why such flights are called red eyes.
The cabin was pitch black except for the movie, the sound from which you could only hear if you purchased ear pieces from the flight unattendants.
The flight unattendants served beverages before the plane was even level, and then disappeared, not to be seen or heard again until disembarking.
The backs of plane seats come up to about my shoulders.
When exhaustion finally overcame terror, and I would momentarily drop off to sleep, I would awaken with a start when my head would start lolling around on my neck like a vagrant.
I didn't enjoy the red eye.
I didn't enjoy the layover in Atlanta.
I didn't enjoy the flight from Atlanta to Greensboro.
and I hated driving home in the bright morning sunlight after zero sleep.
I made it home at about 10:30 Saturday morning.
I hate to travel.
That's it for the trip.