Where in the World was North Dallas Thirty?

One of the annoying things of a currently-long-distance-but-soon-to-be-living-together relationship is the fact that you don't see each other enough. On the other hand, one of the positives about it is exactly that -- when you do see each other, the joy is heightened. Such was North Dallas Thirty's recent weekend with his San Francisco "schweetie", to borrow a term from GayPatriotWest.

The weekend started with the Saturday-morning flight to Norman Mineta San Jose International Airport. Lest any of you think NDT's sense of proximity is less than optimal, you would be right, but the fact that I had a pending reduced-mileage award that had to be taken by July 1 made the decision for us. What's also nice about flying to SJC as opposed to SFO (San Francisco International) or OAK (Oakland International) is that, if you're flying American, the flights are usually emptier. This time was no exception -- the luxury of three empty seats for one of you is a beautiful thing.

Those of you who have flown into SJC on American know that, in general, the airport is a monument to ugly and cramped, especially strange given the prodigious amounts of money that were once being spent in Silicon Valley. However, on the windows of the glassed walkway that leads from American's gates to the terminal core and outside, Microsoft created a nifty chalk drawing ( linked to their their current advertising campaign) of a line of fans holding up signs, photographers, news outlets, etc., as if you were a major celebrity arriving and walking down the red carpet -- a nice touch indeed.

Of course, the "schweetie" was waiting -- and off we went back to San Francisco.

The remains of Saturday and most of Sunday were consumed with walking around and shopping -- in the Castro, at Costco, Nordstrom Rack, and at Trader Joe's -- a grocery-store concept that I WISH we had in Dallas! It's funny to watch us....in grocery stores, he runs off in six different directions and grabs what looks interesting, while I take a list and get nothing else -- and in any other type of store, the pattern reverses.

On Monday, we worked most of the morning, him on his stuff and me on mine (thank goodness for remote access); then, for the afternoon, we headed to the Haight district of San Francisco, from which Blog Ally Dunner of Dunner's Stunners currently hails. The entertainment value of this famous area of San Francisco is twofold -- one, the vast array of shops selling everything you can imagine, especially the "pre-owned" clothing shops, and two, the sheer people-watching value of seeing tourists of every nation and tongue mingle with people dressed like no nation and every tongue-piercing. We worked our way up and down the district and finally ended up at Amoeba Music -- which is now on NDT's Index of Forbidden Stores (don't ask how much I dropped there).

As a nice aside Monday night, we were invited to the reception for the Friends of the San Francisco Library to celebrate the opening of the Out at the Library exhibit -- which I highly, highly recommend. Yours truly had the pleasure of meeting there Luis Herrera, City Librarian of the San Francisco Public Library, California Assemblyman Mark Leno, and former Ambassador to Luxembourg James Hormel, all of whom made excellent speeches concerning the necessity of recognizing and preserving the history of gay rights and our unique culture as a community -- which NDT strongly and absolutely supports. Too often we don't recognize our contributions and the legacy of centuries of glbts before us -- and we should preserve both those links to the past and the communities we've made uniquely our own.

As always, Tuesday evening came too quickly, and after a wonderful dinner with "Schweetie"'s sister and goodbye, I was off again to Dallas, landing WELL after midnight and returning to my empty bed. Sigh.......

Thanks especially to Dunner and to Josh_Jasper for the restaurant recommendations; this time we stayed in, except for one quick foray to Blue on Saturday (trust me, we bought enough at Costco to feed an army of bears, much less the two of us), but the "schweetie" and I will definitely check them out next time.

Peace, out.