Me: Walking home from a neighborhood hardware store with painting supplies to refurbish an antique dresser I just purchased.
Hobo Casanova: Hey.
Me: Hi.
Hobo Casanova: OoooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhWeeeeeeee.
Me: Um…. thanks?
Me: Standing at a trolley stop trying to get to a knob shop to outfit a dresser I just refinished.
Hobo Casanova: hey… hey you.
Me: yes?
Hobo Casanova: I’ve got something to tell you…. You’re beautiful! How’d you get that way?
Me: um…..
Hobo Casanova: what’s your name pretty lady?
Me: Lindsey
Hobo Casanova: WHAT!? No… Really??? That’s my niece’s name… You’re going to love her…
I just have to say that nothing makes you feel like you’re part of some top-level James Bond gear business like having two 140 liter airbags deployed via rip chord nitrogen engagement as you wear them.
Do I trust this foreign situation?
Ooooh… something’s happening!
TA DA!
Yeah, I achieved some kind of high-level hometown fame when those pics and a video of this popped up on my newspaper’s homepage. For a good two hours. And then Newt won South Carolina and stole my thunder. Total Newt move, am I right?
I digress. I was back home this week for the Outdoor Retailer show, and three days of deploying air bags, among myriad other things, was a lot of fun. But it got me thinking about some more ways SLC differs from SF.
One is glaring and personal… I no longer have a car. A once unimaginable thought when I lived in this beautiful, yet expansively blocked and spread out place, I got to San Francisco and did away with driving.
Mostly it was a matter of convenience and immaturity. On my first night in the city I rolled up to my apartment and began the search of my life: a search for street parking. One hour and about 10 blocks later I broke up with the Subaru. I said it was me, not her, and that she’d be much happier with someone who could drive her in the snow.
And then, I joined the best carpool in the world.
At first, joining a carpool can be scary. Will we get along for those 30 minutes prior to and following work? What if they don’t like me? What if I don’t like them? What if one of them smells really, really bad?
But I was in luck. I happened to hook up with two funny people, Brandon and Christen, and we laugh a lot whilst commuting. But we also get a little too funny. Case in point, and the real purpose of this blog: getting tricked by Brandon.
Brandon joined the carpool after breaking his foot while running for a shuttle in the industrial park we work in. And he knows the city like I know tortilla chip brands, which is to say, he knows it intimately. He gives us tips on where to eat, tells us about all the cool spots which we then have to swear to keep secret so that they don’t get to “scene-y” for him, and he gives the directions in the process of driving the convoluted streets of the city.
On one unfortunate day, Christen was not available to drive us, and Brandon’s gimp foot prohibited him from picking up that slack. But he made up for it by finding both of us a ride home with someone else at work.
When you’re riding home with someone who is doing you a favor by giving you a ride in rush-hour traffic, you can’t get too picky about where they drop you. So, in an effort to get Brandon, in his gimpy state, close enough to his house that he could crutch it home, I offered to get out near that neighborhood and said I would cab it the rest of the way. And then Brandon gave directions.
At his behest, the car rolled to a stop in what appeared to be a bright and lively area of San Francisco.
“Just walk over there and you’ll get a cab,” Brandon pointed. And I trusted him, so I went.
And I stood.
Music thumped from the club behind me and I stood, doing the “I need a cab” lean toward the street. But none would stop. And then I started to get uncomfortable because, it seemed, that every man who walked by was giving me a questionable look. With each one that passed I grew more and more certain that I had some pen on my face.
And I was getting annoyed. The doorman at the club behind me hadn’t even said hello, let alone offer to get me a cab.
A good 20 minutes had gone by, along with many more shady side eyes and I couldn’t understand it. Why could I not get a cab? And so I thought, maybe I should just ask the doorman for help. But as I turned and really investigated the place Brandon had recommended I stand to find a cab, I found out why I kept getting the side eye.
Brandon, in all his kindness, told me to get a cab in front of a strip club. A. Strip. Club.
I walked home. Through Chinatown. And vowed that was the last time I’ll ever blindly trust Brandon.
My grandmother is her own Emily Post.
I find it to be quirky and endearing in a way that always causes me to think to myself, “Oh, that’s just grandma,” with a smirk.
From the time I can remember first knowing her until now she has been regulatory in her insistences that I (and I am sure many others in my family) do or not do the following things.
Do stand up straight: nearly every time I see her she will physically correct my posture by forcing my shoulders behind my head as though I were a ballerina.
Do not do anything that could offend Jesus: For her this ranged from unintentional blasphemy (Jesus wouldn’t find it funny) to sibling arguments (Would Jesus treat his sibling like that?) to bodily gas (What would Jesus think?).
Do not drink all of our Coke: Seriously, I was secretly throwing back about five cans of Coke a day at the age of 10. I’d sneak into their cold garage where the soda was stockpiled, grab as many cans as my arms could cradle, and hide myself in some unknown region of their shag carpeted mansion to play with barbies, stare at flecks of dust in the rays of sun that poured in through their arched windows, imagine myself an astronaut and binge drink Coke. I was found out and Coke cans were inventoried afterward.
Do act like a lady: For this see everything in the do not offend Jesus category.
Do not engage in superfluous use of the word ‘like:’ You know, like, he was totally like watching like Valley Girl.
On the last point, the word ‘like,’ my grandmother and I have to disagree. You see, I say ‘like.’ Not a lot, but just enough to raise her brows to it.
Story time: There we sat Christmas day in the house where in all reality I should have become a diabetic for all the soda I secretly drank. We were all eating and I was telling a story to my cousin’s boyfriend when I could hear my grandma at the table.
“Mumble mumble.. Like… mumble… overuse.”
I turned, “Are you saying I use the word ‘like’ too much?”
And as she nodded, another cousin of mine said something to the effect of, “people who use it like that probably have a bad vocabulary.”
There is one thing I truly take pride in, and that is my wordsmithing abilities. I know a lot of words. I like a lot of words. I like to discover new words and throw them into my word rotation. I even like to know where words come from. And I live in this world of word-love not in the way of a Valley Girl character trying to better herself with vocabulary expansion, but instead as someone who just so happens to enjoy writing, and who is employed, among other reasons, because she has the ability to do so.
And yet, I use the word “like.” So which is it? Am I a dumb dumb, or are they wrong?
Pretty sure my response was something along the lines of, “Um… no… I definitely have an extended vocabulary, and I do use the word ‘like.’”
Solid argument, right?
Actually, it was. At least for my family, who knows that words fly off my tongue like ninja chops from Bruce Lee’s fists of fury.
So I won’t worry about the word like being thrown around in what I say. But, it is nearing New Year’s Eve and perhaps there are some things I should resolve to do.
To be continued…
San Francisco is very different from Utah in the sense that in Utah, more often than not, you can say no to something politely. For instance, a troubled youth knocks on your door and wants to sell you a magazine, and you can tilt your head, resonate apology through your eyes and kindly decline the offer. The same thing seems to work with the panhandlers. You politely decline, they politely move on from it.
Here, however, I have had to learn a few lessons in the good, old fashioned blunt sort of way.
BART is the subway system here. It just so happens that the one I live closest to is right in the middle of the mecca of San Francisco tourism: The Union Square shopping district.
So there I was one day, passing a slew of panhandlers, politely declining to give my cash to them as I walked into the BART station to buy my ticket.
I love the BART ticket machines. Why? You can put in a $10 bill, say you want an $8 ticket and it gives you your change back in quarters, which comes in handy for me as the laundry machine in my building is coin operated.
My change clinked delightfully into the return box of the ticket machine, and as I scooped it I felt a sudden presence lurking. I turned to find a scraggly bearded man staring intently at my hand, which was clutching $2 in quarters. But, as he spoke, he didn’t say what I am used to hearing those in need say, which is, “Could you spare some change?”
No, he towered over me and bellowed, “Gimmie 50 cents.”
I was taken aback. But when I regained my composure, a sense of purpose greater than his need for my quarters overcame me. It was my need for clean clothes in a world where I had access to so few quarters.
“Uhhhhh,” I furrowed my brows at him, “I need this for laundry.”
“Gimmie 50 cents,” he said more impatiently.
I was so shocked. He wasn’t asking now. He was actually just demanding my money, even when I had given him a perfectly good reason for my needing the change. I lost all my reserve and, like a child unwilling to share a coveted toy I yelled, “NO.” And walked away in a huff.
However, I was silly to think that this would be my final lesson of living in the city. Because it most certainly was not.
I had a slightly bad day last week, guys. You see, I was growing weary of the endless calls to my desk.
No, the endless calls are not related to my job. Instead, they stem from the fact that a company, whose product we sell in our stores, has my phone number listed as the contact info for EVERY SINGLE ONE of North Face’s 52 nationwide stores on its website.
“Hello, The North Face, this is Lindsey.” “Hi, do you sell said company’s very popular product?” “Um, I’m sorry you are calling North Face corporate headquarters.” “Oh… well your number is on this website as a North Face store.” “I know that. In fact, they have my number listed as every store on their site.” “Oh… well, do you have the number?”
It took me the first five calls like this to realize that it’s easier to just give people the number than to explain how they would need to search for it in Google.
“What’s the city and state of the store you are looking for?” Then I pull out a list I made of every North Face store’s contact info, and read the person off the actual store number.
Yes, I contacted the company. No, after a month nothing has changed yet.
So I get home from this long day and I do that classic girl thing. “I’m going to treat myself to _________” For everyone the blank is different. For me, it is nail polish. So, off I went to the mall.
You all know those carts at the mall that sell everything from nail buffers to cell phone covers, right?
I’m walking through the mall, minding my own business, looking for awesome nail polish when I hear Borat calling me. Ok, it wasn’t actually Borat, but a guy who sounded exxxxxxactly like him.
“Miss come try this ama….”
I cut him off with the nice smile I would have given any cart vendor back in Utah, as well as a “oh no thanks” in a nice voice.
“Where are you from?” he asked. “Here” I replied. “OK, here, come take this sample with you.”
Just like I cannot refuse the ugliest sweater in the world when it is given to me by my grandma, I also could not snub this guy who was going to send me on my way with a sample. At the time, it just seemed rude to refuse it.
And then it happened – the thing that would forever change the way I interact with cart vendors in San Francisco malls.
He held out a small container, but as I reached my hand out, he overturned a tablespoon of exfoliating sea salt into my palm. And smiled.
“Rub your hands together,” he tells me through his accent and then rubs his fingers over my palm. “Oh your skin is so dry… what is your name? Your skin is so dry Lindsey do you work in a kitchen? Are you a maid? A garbage man? This makes a great present. Helps with excema, polishes your skin. Your skin is so dry. What is Lindsey this is a great present. It comes from the dead sea and will get rid of your dry, dry skin. You should rub it over your whole body.”
He went on and on and on like this. And so I tried again to be kind. Because the thing is, I am not a sea salt person. So I said so.
“I’m really sorry but I don’t think I am going to take any.”
And then, he gave me the up and down, which I thought was a type of visual evaluation reserved for bitchy high school girls, and said, “You are a lesbian? You like the ladies.”
I was so shocked, I was struck speechless.
And, honestly, the thing that pissed me off wasn’t being called a lesbian. People are gay. I’m not. No big deal. Instead, it was that he would evaluate my clothing (which consisted of a hoody and jeans, so I must be a manly lesbian, right?) and then, based on that one outfit I was wearing, assess that I must be a lesbian.
If the whole world really worked on stereotypes like that, I should have assessed by his accent that he was an oppressor of women and a cab driver. But I didn’t. Because I’m not a dick.
And, on a whole different level beyond the anger, I was baffled. Is this supposed to get me to buy your sea salt? Because right now the very last thing on earth I want to do is buy your sea salt. In fact, I NEVER want to buy your sea salt. If I were the most dry-skinned, in need of exfoliation woman in the world and yours was the last exfoliating scrub in existence, I still wouldn’t buy it.
I’d later find out from a lady at the makeup counter that cart vendors are notorious for insulting anyone who won’t buy their products. But none of that changed the fact that as I walked away, wiping the sticky remains of sea salt from my hands with my scarf, it stung to be judged.
In fact, it stung so bad that next thing you know, I had spent altogether too much on nail polishes and lip glosses in an emotional shopping binge.
San Francisco is by no means Salt Lake City. I didn’t expect it to be, but I also didn’t expect to have to be callused in order to keep my money and pride intact.
And so it was through newly glossed lips that I took a new approach to the vendors of the mall as I made my way toward the exit.
“No,” I’d hiss with vitriol at anyone approaching me. And I’d follow it with a turning up of the nose and a sneer. Because if they’re going to insult me for not buying what they are selling no matter what, I may as well get them to leave me alone while giving them a good enough reason to insult me.
So here’s the thing: I’m not that great at being “girly.” You know, like, heels and mascara “girly.” But every once in a while the urge will strike me, and I will attempt to up the feminine ante, so to speak.
Monday was one such night.
My eyebrows, in their natural state, are fine, ok? Really. In fact, my whole life I have plucked them little bits from month to month, and because I wasn’t genetically predisposed to unibrows, I got by with just that.
But here I find myself in a new city, excited about new things in life and ready to take it all in. And so, there I was walking by the Macy’s storefront in downtown San Francisco and I saw a large, shiny, pink, girly sign advertising brow shaping.
I thought to myself, “Sure! Why not? My brows could use the shaping assistance of a professional. Let’s get in there and give my brows a dignified shape. A shape that says, ‘I am perfection in the form of an arc, and therefore am also a manifestation of feminine class.’”
Bet you didn’t think a brow could say so much.
I sat atop a plush stool. Of course, it was pink. What other color would it be? And Janelle, a woman who herself had a lovely brow shape, began to wax, and strip, and brush and trim, and pluck and repeat. And it didn’t really even hurt.
In fact, I hardy noticed it as we chatted about the Occupy protests and our proximity to them. The delays on the BART that day. The various charms of various neighborhoods and so on.
I was doing it! I was being a real girl in a real city. And then she held the mirror up.
My breath caught.
“Oh that will go away. I can cover it if you like,” my new brow bestie said about the red swelling that now surrounded my immaculately trimmed, and very well shaped brows.
I walked home finding relief from the stinging in the cool San Francisco night air, not making eye contact with a soul for fear that my reddened brow lines were glowing.
And as my head hit my pillow for the night, I rest assured that eight hours later it would be gone. Just like Janelle had said.
“OH MY…” I stopped myself before I woke my roommate. I get up earlier than she does.
I stared in the mirror. Stunned. Annoyed. Was I being punished for vanity?
Something had gone very wrong. And the result was not perfect brows. No. The result was bumps. Big and small, these bumps outline my eyebrows, filling every area that Janelle’s wax had touched.
Turns out I am allergic to being a girl.
Ok, that’s dramatic. But my face does have a serious problem with its hair being ripped from its pores via hot, melted wax.
So what’s any gal to do? You bet I put makeup on. And, because they still remain and it is Wednesday, I say a little prayer to the gods of eyebrow grooming every night.
“Oh patron saint of kempt brows, be with me in my time of need. Grant me the serenity to endure this painful forehead rash, the courage to keep my brows shaped evermore, and the wisdom to know never to do it via hot wax again. Amen.”
Celeste & Heidi are lucky my mother needed a video of me explaining the meaning of friendship on the very same night I got my brows ripped off. The pic frame is fuzzy and dark, but even in it, you can see the red.
If you ever find yourself in the position of moving away from your hometown, where you’ve lived all 27 years of your life, know that you are going to get fat.
OK, maybe that is an exaggeration, but when you tell friends and family, “I’m moving!” you will be involved in many-a going away fetes and they will undoubtedly involve pizza, fried sushi, waffles and fried chicken, sodas drunk from large mason jars, more pizza and these caramel-ey puffed things your sister makes that are more addictive than heroin, and that you can not stop eating. No. Matter. How. Hard. You. Try.
And so, I eased my full-of-food self into my car and hit the open road last Sunday. Destination: San Francisco. Travel time: 11 hours.
As luck would have it, my friends were very good to me, sending me along to the Bay with some comforts from home. In fact, my friend Aria went so far as to pack a little something for various mile points along the way during my journey.
Oh how I love my tortilla chips.
And a bag full of Riesen!!!
The Cherry Coke lip gloss was delightful.
If there’s one thing I’d take with me to a desert island, it would be my beloved Mexican Coke.
This doesn’t look right… right?
This box was the best part.
Money to gamble with in Reno.
And finally, the city 
The first week here has been such a whirlwind I haven’t been able to recognize the fact I’m in this city, let alone explore it, but when I have a good story to tell you, you will be the first to know.
