fitforafemme.com

This will have to be so, so fast! I’ve been terribly occupied with my new occupation as a bona fide travel editor, and to top it all off the tomboy and I have at last booked our trip for a much-needed Spring Break! In just three short days we’re off to very tiny little island in Mexico, where we intend to drive scooters all around, frolic with baby turtles and sharks and monkeys, lounge on pristine white beaches and eat and drink local deliciousness until we burst. We’re so excited and I cannot wait. The weather here in San Francisco has been lovely lately – balmy Spring days until tonight’s rain came from out of nowhere – but it’s no match for the Caribbean sun and sea!

What are your Spring Break plans?! If you haven’t got any, where do you wish you were going?

Note: The above photos are from nearly two whole weeks ago, when we lunched in North Beach on a pretty Sunday afternoon. Pizza calzone!

This is so much less about my outfit than it is San Francisco’s unfailing yet surprising and constant beauty. All these were taken over the range of a few hours at most, and the various backdrops are within mere minutes of each other. It is easy to forget how remarkable this city is; true passion and loyalty requires constant devotion, the ability to let certain angles fade and slide back into focus. It reminds me of set changes in an opera or musical. Or of love.

Wonder will come and go like the tide when you live here, is what I am getting at, and this day was full of it.

Ocean Beach was cold but clear as a bell, and it sure didn’t stop dozens of kite surfers from getting into the Pacific’s icy waters. M insisted on skipping rocks into the waves and we ran around like banshees in the spray and blowing sand. Those branches I’m clutching on? That’s in Golden Gate Park, in front of Rainbow Falls. Man made or not, it’s a tranquil little place to stop on John F. Kennedy Drive. Finally, there’s the delightful Tulip Garden (though these photos are suspiciously devoid of tulips), which lies in the shadow of the historic Dutch Windmill (and used to pump tens of thousands of gallons of water into the park!).

And there you are. For the record, I’m wearing Lamica boots with H&M jeans, a random flimsy tee with a little zippered pocket, an old striped scarf and my Blanc Noir wool coat. The cheeky hat is M’s, and she got it from a little gay boy boutique on Castro Street. The boys working there bickered lovingly in a very entertaining manner. Goorin Bros. hand warmers and Spy sunglasses.

But I know y’all are going to fuss over the scenery, so do!

XO,

FFAF

This was my St. Patrick’s Day outfit, and I haven’t got a lick of green on (or under, you filthy-minded beasts), but I reckon my background counts for something. Plus, I’m drinking Jameson out of a massive Guinness pint glass, hoh-hoh-hoh! I know that counts! M & I were up real early yesterday morning, and when I say morning I mean MORNING: by the time we watched the sun rise we’d been up so damn long we couldn’t be bothered to fuss over the blazing satsuma pink wave crawling over the dark, velvety eggplant of the South Bay hills. I was delirious pretty much all day long, but my hair looked damn good and my Merlot lips by Besame lasted for well over six hours without a single touch-up, so there is that.

However, by far the most relevant goings-on to report are as such:

My lips hate hate hate hate hate Chanel’s Coco Rouge lipstick. I mean, I’ll give it a another go this week (my shade was Cambon), but for a pretty pink pout that goes on smooth and leaves a nice, natural blush stain, I just might have to stick with Cargo’s Plant Love in Maria. (You’d never think shades that look so red in the tube come out so much lighter on me.) In happier news, my new love affair with Laura Mercier’s incredibly fucking magical powdered eyeliner is going to endure, I think, for all time. (Thanks for the tip, Bangs Are The New Black!) Good for sensitive, contact lens wearers like myself, just WOW. Last but not least, my No You Din’t nail polish by Jeffrey Campbell came today. It’s fantastic. A bold, no-nonsense red that just smirks my femme fatale is better than your femme fatale.

What? I can’t help it. Besides, I don’t want to.

Oh! I nearly forgot. I started a new job today! I’m moving into the world of travel as an editor and I’m thrilled to pieces! Who doesn’t love travel porn, and traveling!? It makes me all dizzy and giddy just thinking of it.

So, in the interests of celebration, let’s just go ahead and have a dance party RIGHT NOW with my girl Kylie Minogue:

Bonjour! It’s been awhile! We were very busy touring the tomboy’s niece around San Francisco over the weekend, and with exciting new goings-on, to be announced shortly.

Japantown in the rain!
Shopping at Bloomingdale’s downtown!
Introducing the young one to Thai food and soju cocktails for the very first time!
A gorgeous, light-filled break in the rain at one of the city’s prettiest, best kept secret vistas!
Hanging out with glamorous lesbians (and some much less glamorous) at a new girl party in SF’s Mission District!
Cocktails with chocolate pot de creme and an insanely good sheep’s milk cheese plate with fig cakes and walnut bread in Hayes Valley!

And that was only Friday! Phew!

Saturday was filled with shenanigans in the Castro and the obligatory drive up to Twin Peaks (since the skies had cleared but left a mean chill in the air), then onto Ocean Beach through Golden Gate Park’s incredible tulip gardens next to the old windmill, and a tour of the Presidio topped with an incredible Central-South American tapas dinner where the Mission meets Market Street.

Sunday brought a mellower pace, with walkabouts through North Beach on a gloriously sunny day for a late lunch, and through the Mission for the murals and, of course, Secret Breakfast ice cream.

Nouvelle Vague’s cover of Dancing With Myself came on while M snapped all these pictures, so I’ll play it here for you in case you haven’t seen it yet (for it is highly watchable and will make you feel like dancing or smoking or both!):

I love my city!

Guess what? Garage doors are a luxury afforded to few in SF’s most desirable neighborhoods. We are not among that few, but that certainly won’t stop us from using them to our advantage in other ways. See that green, mildew-y stuff to in the lower left hand corners? M calls it moss, and she likes the way it looks. I don’t trust it!

I didn’t really care that the studded blazer AND the bib necklace was a bit much; I just wanted to maximize my orange nail polish while it lasted (read: it’s Tuesday and I scrubbed that shit off HOURS ago). Also, why is my mussed next day hair always so much more come hither than when I actually try to come hither it the night before? Hm?! PLEASE TALK ME DOWN FROM THE LEDGE OF A $99 MADE FOR TV CURLING IRON / STRAIGHTENER / DRYER THING. Please, if ever I needed y’all, it’s now, before I’m a walking poster child for Regretsy, can’t you see?!

Tomboy. Sunday Chronicle. Floppy puppy. That hat she searched and searched for so tirelessly in Old San Juan’s wet, succulent heat (the shirt, too). Her nonchalance, that easy, honest grin, how her hands assume their rightful place around my bony little torso. The nuanced tones of her voice saying all the words she can’t / won’t / doesn’t know how to say. The sun on our parched winter skin, albeit briefly. You know, years ago she once wrote to me, “…except for when you make that trademark SBJ gasp noise, I don’t think you ever even blink off beat.” It hooked me. She hooked me, however slippery I was at the time.

That one up there was just too incredible to be mixed in with any of the others. And then, dips!

This song has the power to change your life. Listen to it, I beseech you:

The above just blew your mind, I know, so here’s a clockwise from top left explanation:

• M reading the menu at Sparky’s. I was so adamant about pancakes, but we ended up splitting a massive chicken parm.
• M pouting over agonizing eye wear choices at the chic and friendly Eye Dare office.
• M demonstrated her best DeNiro squint and a delicious graham cracker.
• Boots the kitten comes when we call her over. So does Scab. And Pimp Gandalf, but not Blanket.
• Pretty damn good chicken parm for a 24-hour diner. Plus, cute gay waiter boys and singing patrons.
• The creepy doll that greets you at Sparky’s.
• Some street art/porn to keep the Valencia sidewalk extension project construction workers* motivated.
• The mystery palm that showed up overnight in our little garden. Weird!

This is the day we walked over 3 miles! I really, really love our meandering walks through the Mission and surrounding ‘hoods like Bernal, Noe and Castro. We pop in and out of cute shops and boutiques, we giggle, we eat, we drink, we cross a few items off of our To Do list, we people watch, we peruse real estate, we mussy-sikk, we’re RIDICULOUS. It’s just completely spontaneous, unplanned bliss, and neither of us cares much that we said we’d be here or there or “should” be somewhere else. It’s what the best weekends are made of!

What are your best weekends made of in your neighborhood? (Otherwise, let’s face it, we’d all say something absurd like BORA BORA!)

*I am sure this is not the official name of the project.
**My ankles don’t even BELONG to me, they’re so shockingly white. No, seriously. Look at them. What the hell?!

Because it’s been that kind of afternoon, and no one was expecting hail. Certainly not a lot of it.

Ready for some video? Okeedokee, kids:

Get more at NPR’s Exclusive First Listen, Under Great Northern Lights.

Beg for mercy:

Imagery, for funsies:

You’re welcome!

XO,

Skinny