MEAN HOS, part 2

in the morning, at breakfast, we talked about the night before, and the story circled back around to storytelling. "a mermaid," the flamenco guitarist from istanbul had said, "is just a woman with one leg, and we have lots of those in turkey." and that's what i told them. my life -- her words not mine -- had been so interesting. but the thing was, we told her, it's just putting yourself into the situations in which you find yourself talking about mermaids in certain company, and the interesting makes itself from there -- and especially in the telling, as had been the case with the story of the night before. if we hadn't been talking about the ironic nuance of the most successful walk of shame outfits (the better the night before, the worse -- which is to say better -- the next morning), my morning's outfit might not have been as poignant. he'd dressed me in the fruit of the dogpatch so that i would have something clean for the walk back to the hotel where my bags were staying. then he'd joked that i would look homeless walking with my clothes under my arm in his neighborhood. i couldn't, as they say, have cared less...it's just that i liked his alternative more. so i walked the northeast corner of the tenderloin over geary and down o'farrell, waited in front of the mirrors between the lobby elevators and then greeted the ladies dressed as a certain kind of san franciscan, carrying my clothes in a custom commemorative bag, both sides decorated so that i had always to be showing one to the street: written large in black sharpie, "slut" and "whore," "folsom 2012." and i wore that walk large.

walking north from union square, i couldn't shut up about how i'd apparently never seen san francisco in at least half of a half dozen visits. not much of a story, but i saw tippi hedren run across union square before forcing the ladies to pose in front of the zara store so that i would have something from san francisco to send to the woman who wouldn't be getting the second mug that i didn't steal from ritual. then, although the crowd on stockton street never broke we came out of it, and just in time to see one of the ladies' mothers performing one of her hits in disguise and a tulip skirt. but at where we turned onto columbus, we were already too far into north beach to see city lights. and we didn't stop moving until we saw the piles of crabs under the one big one at the wharf. tomorrow, all the mens from all the cities would get a chance to fuck them off of each other in the street, but for time being it was just fuck it and on to the quarter machines. and i saw alcatraz, but not the bridge. apparently, i'd never been to san francisco, but i didn't mind that we didn't have time for anything else before getting ready to go to san jose to see the photographer, because our next destination would have been valencia, which in all of the times that i'd apparently never seen san francisco was the place that i'd never left. diuretics for lunch.

back at the hotel, back in a taxi, and in line for the train to san jose with the wigs and the rest of wardrobe. sped to the photographer's studio from the station in san jose. makeup, corset tying, boot lacing, ab crunching; then another pose, another outfit, our signature playlist luckily still on her phone. mean hos. canes, umbrellas, garters, all fours. praise be to editing software.

it's legal to drink on caltrain, he'd told us, and he left us at the station with a bottle of asti after he'd sped us back in time to just make the last train. our car didn't have a luggage rack, so wardrobe was crammed in the floor space between the ladies' seats and the ones in front of them. what would be made to sound more interesting with each subsequent retelling was slouched, sweaty, sore and hungry, chatting about beach squats in sausalito with the man who came through for tickets. she hadn't had time to pull her mask before we'd needed to pack back up and get to the train. i hadn't had the benefit, and could only hope for benevolent editing. the other assistant hadn't been forced in front of the lens. this vampire makeup...she flicked her fingers open at her face, so i popped the asti and poured us a toast to alexander skarsgård. at twenty-three of twenty-four stations, we probably looked like a bunch of real silly girls, but at the one, as we cackled out toast, we were people who could have been in our story. lipstick on a too big red plastic cup. a mean ho is just a person who's willing to take a taxi to the station to lace up and get in front of the camera, and on the last train back to san francisco the night before the fair, those were the only kind of people that a mean ho wanted to know.