SI TÚ ME DICES VEN LO DEJO TODO...PERO DIME VEN

in the early hours of monday morning i dragged myself through the lobby of the hotel to the elevators; and with my face in my phone i missed the man who was sitting next to that other guest in the not so spanish revival armchairs to my left. he had caught wind of her being in the city from down the coast and had come to the hotel to tell her that if she said the word he would drop everything. upstairs, i dropped my phone on the nightstand and fell asleep; and when i woke up my head hurt.

the ladies had remembered to bring ibuprofen, but it was their offer of breakfast and their encouragement over my french toast that got me through the later hours of the morning. yes, i answered readily and sincerely and reminiscently. i'd had a good time. it was worth it, and the headache was enough without adding to it pangs of conscience. but it had all still given way to a morning adventure in depression soundtracked with groans by allie brosh. that sunday feeling. that san francisco feeling. and at noon, the ladies left me in a cab for the airport to spend the rest of my time and that feeling correctly alone.

i thought i should make the most of it, but cindy sherman at the moma was too much. i walked to the mission. i went to taqueria cancún. but i turned right from 19th street to go south down valencia and keep myself from being tempted by the ersatz nostalgia in the mugs at ritual. i wrote my postcards at a different café. a pile of flummery on a dozen pictures of the bay bridge, because i still hadn't seen the golden gate. and i handed it all to a postman walking on duboce between valencia and market. then i found my way around the confusion around the mint, across divisadero and over to haight. the postcards at the booksmith were nicer than the ones i'd bought downtown, but six times as expensive. so i bought just the one for myself, a drawing of a map of folsom and harrison streets between 5th and 8th -- the periphery of the fair and the site of the techie bear picnic.

then it all stopped, before all of it came on again all too quickly. i came out of the book store, looked up and had my breath caught. i'd come, again, and unexpectedly, back to the lighthouse, this time a mexican restaurant. and i took a picture of el faro de san francisco, but it wasn't enough just to send it to the trianera in prague. several weeks earlier, the woman who wouldn't be getting a stolen mug from ritual had sent me a picture of the lighthouse at cabo vilán along with the story of a story. in the story, a middle aged man had, as a child, known an old man who collected photographs of lighthouses. once upon a time, the old man had fixed them. and whenever he finished a fix he took a picture, and on each picture he wrote the adjective which he thought best described each structure. along with the picture and the story of that story (summarized for me from a certain book by albert espinosa), the woman included her explanation of the arrogance of the lighthouse at cabo vilán. so with everything else that i remembered about those other lighthouses that i'd seen, i took a moment and made a decision. exactly because it was crammed in amongst the other shops on haight and didn't have the striking advantage of standing alone, el faro de san francisco was lonely.

i walked, past buena vista park, past alamo square, back toward downtown. and i met him just past six at civic center plaza. we ate ramen, which he had suggested and i had told him i would love. because, i told him, as it had turned out, i wasn't going to get to eat it next month in japan. earlier, he had asked me if there was anything specific i wanted to do or see in san francisco before leaving that night and i'd said no. at the library bar, he asked me why i hadn't said the bridge if i hadn't seen it. and how could i not have seen it? it had, i told him, crossed my mind, but on foot or on public transportation with the three hours we had to spend together i'd thought it imprudent. on the way to his apartment, i told him the story of how i'd told the ladies about my san franciscan walk of shame. even having been its real life hero, he said, he found it hard to believe the retold story itself. and i told him that when i told the story of that night, he would, in fact, have found his zipcar membership card where he looked for it in his wallet in the mood the bar. in that final hour, which, on the twenty-fourth of september 2012, was the first full hour of darkness, we would have driven together to the golden gate.

i could always come back, he said. i could use his apartment as home base. but i would have to promise to pet the cat, and maybe sing to her. i couldn't think of a way to blithely explain the weird claustrophobic loneliness that i always felt when i came to san francisco. or, at the very least, that i always felt when i was leaving. so i promised to sing. "one night only" followed by soft, anguished fandangos, starting with the one that inspired the title for that espinosa book (although that part i didn't share). and back at civic center plaza i ended my open microrelationship with my weekend boyfriend.

on the train to the airport, where all the planes were taking droves of de-harnessed homos away back to all parts, it wasn't better or worse, but it was surely there. for better or for worse. and i would find the city the same again the next time, happily indifferent. and i would sing it to that cat. ay. paquito... si tú me dices ven lo dejo todo. pero dime ven.