Hobo Casanova: The Musical

Me: Sitting, waiting for a friend

Hobo Casanova: Oh HEY pretty lady! You know what you need?

Me: …um?

Hobo Casanova: (Singing) I’ve got sunshine, on a cloudy day… When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May. I’d guess you’d say, what can make me feel this way? My girl, My girl, My girl, Talking bout my girl. My girl!

He sang the rest of the song My Girl for me. And guess what, you’re all super lucky because this “Hobo Casanova” was documented.

No, I couldn’t help smiling broadly at being sung to. You wouldn’t be able to help it either.

The naked truth. But really, really naked.

It’s been a minute since my last adventure in storytelling. But, listen, I was doing us all a favor in etiquette because I’m pretty sure Emily Post has a chapter on not writing about public nudity within a certain proximity of Easter. And, yes, that is even if said encounter with public nudity occurred on Easter… Probably even more so.

Growing up in Salt Lake City, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that in many-a-circle the thought of spaghetti string tank tops were utterly scandalous and grounds for a public shaming. And as such, as you can imagine, nudity was a topic left un-discussed and NEVER EVER SEEN. EVER. Until marriage.

And then I moved to San Francisco where, as I would find out on Easter Sunday, people are allowed, under the law, to roam the streets nude.

OK, maybe I am making this out to be bigger than it is (pun intended) because the guy I saw was merely pantless.

There I stood, a nice breeze floating through the air as I waited for my friend to arrive at our brunch date. I couldn’t help smiling at a dog wearing butterfly wings laying in the shade – just too cute for words. And then, as I glanced up to scan the street I discovered that my mimosa was officially stripped (just too easy) of its title as the only bottomless part of my day.

There, across the street checking a flyer on a lamp post, was a man with nothing but a tank top and his curiosity about him.

My reaction was as follows:

Gasp… scramble for my cell phone and snap a picture – because who wouldn’t to see naked tank top guy, right?…

And then just an outright fit of giggling as the man strutted away from the post.

I thought surely he was crazy or that some member of law enforcement would catch up with him at some point, right?

Wrong. I later came across this article recently published in the NY Times, “In accordance with state law, public nudity is only illegal when accompanied by “lewd thoughts or acts” or “where there are present other persons to be offended or annoyed.” But since state law prohibits police officers from being the offended party, it takes a citizen’s arrest.”

First things first, wow. I live in a city where nudity is legal. This would blow some people’s minds back home.

Second, REALLY? In what universe would a citizen who is offended by nudity ever approach a nude person and attempt to arrest them. Isn’t the issue at hand that they are so disgusted by nudity that they don’t want to see it? I sure as hell doubt, then, that they would want to risk the chance of touching it (pun also intended).

Back to the bottomless wonder… the mimosa, and easter brunch were great. But I should have known that the oddities weren’t all said and done in regards to my San Francisco nudist encounters. As I walked back to the cable car line, still under the impression that “The Tank Man” was nuts (pun not intended, but welcomed) and likely arrested, I came across him one more time – reclined, tank topped and spread eagle, seemingly looking to tan a part of homo erectus that was never intended to be tanned. Ever.

But as it were, nothing in the law enables me to arrest a man for risking exposure to skin cancer on his business. And so off I went, with a promise to myself that I would forever more only look people in the eye and never ever below the belt because sometimes there isn’t a belt… or pants. And that I will never be able to take my mother to certain parts of this colorful city.

Sine, the lone wolf.

I have been fighting the urge to write this post for a long time now. And if there’s one thing to know about me it isn’t that I’m a terrible hugger. It’s that when left unwritten, the thoughts I hold the most passion for eat at me.

So here it is, an honest fact about me at the moment:

I am, for all intents and purposes, homesick.

I didn’t want to say that because I felt that to say it would be to admit some sort of defeat or infer that I don’t want to be here. And that just isn’t the case. I do like it here, and as far as I can tell, confessing to miss one’s home does not a defeated person make. But I worried that those would be the takeaways someone could have. And I didn’t want to give the wrong impression.

But all the same, homesickness snuck up on me, much like I assume it does to most, and it’s roughed me up a bit.

So I thought maybe I should just air it all out – have a “the truth shall set you free” moment in the hopes that by acknowledging it I can get past it.

Or maybe I’ll still miss home next month. Who knows, but here goes.

1) The Mom

Of course I miss my mom is going to be at the top of my list. I feel like a giant sized baby saying it, but whatever. She’s funny, she’s fun to lounge around with and it’s hard not being a mile away to be able to see her whenever I want.

2) The Siblings

As the middle child I feel like an Oreo with no cookie shells, a jar of peanut butter absent two slices of bread, a pea with no protective pod and an abuser of analogies without the companionship of these two.

3) Let me tell you a story about by beeeeeest friends

The girlfriends. Real talk: making friends I see frequently here has been a slow process. It doesn’t help that I am an incredible nerd and back home my circle was willing to overlook that.

4) Ruffff

And who doesn’t miss dogs? They love you when no one else will. They love you even when you make them pose for stupid pictures.

So there it is. I miss those things. And I’ll close by including a speech that I feel sums up how I feel about all the aforementioned people/animals I miss:

“You guys may not know this, but I consider myself…a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one man wolf pack. But when my sister brought Doug home, I knew he was one of my own. And my wolf pack, it grew by one. So were two…so there was two of us in the pack. I…I was alone first in the pack, and then Doug joined in later. And 6 months ago, when Doug introduced me to you guys. I thought…wait a second, could it be. And now I know for sure, I just added 2 more guys to my wolf pack. 4 of us wolves running around the desert together, in Las Vegas looking for strippers. So tonight, we make a toast!”

Just replace Doug and the sister and the two guys with my family friends and dogs, and it works perfectly.

We might not be running around the desert together, in Vegas looking for strippers. Cause, you know, that would be odd. But to the ones I miss in my heart right now I make a toast:

Here’s to you. You’re all so unbelievably fantastic and I love you all so much that I wish I could have packed you all into my Uhaul and brought you here to stay with me.

But kidnapping is illegal.

*Yes. Lots of mustaches were used in these images. And everyone loved them.

Hobo Casanova: You know you make me wanna shout

Me: walking home from the BART in the rain.

Hobo Casanova: (shouting in the style of someone with voice modulation issues) ILOVEYOUYOUREBEAUTIFUL.

Me: Ummmm… yeah.

Yes man, yes man, yes man

When people ask how long I’ve lived in San Francisco, and I tell them I arrived on Halloween, I always get a variation on this response:

“Oh you’re so new!”

Yep. I am new. And I’m at the juncture in existing in a new place where things have hit a plateau.

Based on my experience thus far, the first couple months are all very “Christmas morning” like. Everything is sparkly and new to your San Francisco virgin eyes. And then you get into a routine. And the routine gives you a false sense of security.  But it feels good because you love security. It’s like that big, lovely comforter you bought at Ikea.

But then you realize it’s not a metaphorical blanket, but the actual comforter you bought from Ikea when you moved here months ago. It’s 8:30 p.m. on a Saturday, you’ve been sleeping all day, and not even the jaws of death could pull you out of your apartment, away from said comforter and sleeping the rest of the night away.

Somewhere, amidst the pillows and a Game of Thrones marathon I decided something had to change. I needed to get out and meet some people. And that is when a friend told me that I should just say yes to everything.

Yes, this is the plot to a Jim Carey movie, and I was going to go for it – first stop: A Young Republicans Super Tuesday meetup.

I adore my roommate. And she likes the YRs. So when she invited me to the event of the election season (so far) I put my left-of-center agenda on the back burner and headed to the Marina.

Since I moved here, I’ve heard some things about this place called “The Marina.” For starters, the good: I’ve heard there is an abundance of wickedly hot people there. And that is where the buck stops because aside from the hotness, I’ve also heard that The Marina is where all the “douchey” people live.

And these are just things I have hearrrrrrrd. OK? I’m not saying it is true. I’m just saying what I have heard.

So we walk into the bar. There’s a lot of really old people – like, my grandparents would have had a great time – and then, there were the people our age. They were the YRs, and they wanted to leave the bar we had just arrived at in order to go to what they told us was a “way better scene.” So we went with them, like lambs headed for the slaughter, and I discovered the type of scene I would look for if I were on the hunt for someone to pay back my student loan debt and let me loose with their platinum card once a month in the “salon” area of the Nordstrom shoe section.

Seriously. There were shirts tucked into jeans, and manscaping taken further than manscaping was ever possibly meant to be taken, all in this fancy and ornately decorated bar that had delicious and expensive hamburgers. It was… what I imagine the word yuppie to look like.

But, over-manscaping aside, I had to be honest: I had a decent time. No one talked politics (I know. SHOCKING!) and the people were friendly. Wins, wins and manscaping.

So, the yes thing worked and I was going to say yes to everything moving forward.

But then I said yes to salsa dancing…

Everyone. I have to tell you something personal about me. There are two things I am absolutely terrible at:

1: touching strangers.

This is a great thing to not be good at in most instances in order to be a law abiding citizen, but bad in other situations. Let’s take a step back to the dinner with the YRs. One of the female YRs was uber eager. She wanted to be BFFs with everyone, which is great. But then, when my group went to leave, she started hugging each of us. And as she moved closer to hugging me, I grew more awkward. We ended up in 1/2 a normal hug (her) and a giant one armed ass out hug (me).

2: Acting sexy.

I’m not sexy. I am especially not sexy with strangers. But I am a dork.

So there I walked, into the salsa club nestled into a block of defunct warehouses in the Dogpatch, a gentrifying neighborhood in San Francisco. And, fun fact, when a woman enters a salsa club she will, without a doubt, become like a flame attracting thousands of moths. For realsies.

I don’t know where else, other than a salsa club or a darkened alley way, where men think it’s ok to walk up to a lady, yank at her shirt and demand she go with them.  And nothing, not even avoiding eye contact, will keep this from happening.

I didn’t want to dance. I even said no to a couple guys. And then I realized I was breaking my rules to try everything once and to say yes. So, one of the shirt tuggers yanked me to the floor and began to teach me the ways of salsa.

I had the “123, 567” down. The spins = down. The rhythm = totally down. And then Rico Suave told me to put my hands over my head and do a sort of sexy shimmy. “Be sexy” he said.

And I snorted. “Um… we don’t know each other, but I am not sexy, ok?” He was relentless. “Come on! Shake your body.” I ignored him, and then he dipped me.

It was then, when the song we were 123, 567-ing to ended, that I made a mad dash for the bar. I had said yes, I tried the salsa. And, truth be told, I was good at it, but it also was not my cup of tea. Right there and right then, I was not in the mood to dance.

So there I stood at the bar when a short and stout man named Jesus approached me. “Dance,” he tugged at my sweater.

“No,” I said. “And it isn’t because I don’t know how. I danced already, I’m not in a dancing mood. If you want to stand here and talk, I’ll do that all night.”

45 minutes later I learned Jesus is 38, has a 10 year old in the Czech Republic and likes to communicate with the ladies via email.

“Mi hija,” he’d whine. “Why won’t you just give me your email?”

“Really?” I’d stare down at him with an eyebrow raised.

He knew what I meant, and he’d laugh.

And I, too, would laugh. I mean, it is funny and ridiculous to say yes to everything. But I think for now, I am going to keep doing it. And at the very least I can be guaranteed a great laugh out of it.

Hobo Casanova: hydrate, hydrate, hydrate

Me: walking downtown with headphones in to ignore heavy-handed requests for change.

Hobo Casanova: (loud enough so I could hear over the music) Uuuuhhhhhh look at all dat water. Mmmmm!

Me: laughing too hard to respond.

Hobo Casanova: A pickup line that transcends words

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?

Hobo Casanova: I’ve got something to tell you

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…

No, I’m not a stripper. I just need a cab.

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.

It’s like this and like that and like this and uh…

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…