fitforafemme.com

Welcome to Fort Funston!

It used to be a real live military fort until 1963, but now it’s mostly known for being THE place to take your dogs off-leash, and besides, it’s bloody gorgeous, isn’t it? Our New England friend was astounded by the dramatic terrain and sights of all the hang gliders preparing to take flight where we descended a bajillion stories of uneven, sandy, log-and-cable-made steps to the beach. Such a long way down, but definitely worth it.

Once again, I forgot my camera (it was a kind of unexpected detour after brunch, after all – hence the suede heels!) so these are sub par cell phone photos, courtesy of our HTC EVOs. M was determined to find dead stuff, which she did (a HUGE dead bird, piles and piles of dead crabs), so she moved on to looking for live crabs. No such luck!

Tomboy + femme footwear. Hers are Asos brogues, mine are suede Franco Sarto pumps in maybe the most perfect shade of red I’ve ever seen. M discovered that her RSQ skinny jeans are way too snug for being doused with salt water, then a hike, but they sure look cute with her plaid Alfani shirt and vintage cardigan. I paired a Calvin Klein skirt with an old camisole and denim vest, plus an antique gold rope chain necklace M got for me recently. I also love the wrap dress our friend wore – such a bright, beautiful print!

The next day we drove along the Pacific Coast HWY to get to Half Moon Bay, and we were all very intrigued when we passed this cove. It’s called Grey Whale Cove. It’s also more widely known as Devil’s Slide, and we decided to stop and explore it on the way home. It was another beach requiring quite a hike up and down many sets of wooden stairs (at least these ones are level).

Devil’s Slide is also more locally/commonly known as a particularly terrifying stretch of the 1, where people plummet to their deaths in M’s own personal worst nightmare, and terrible landslides that cause impossible road closures for days and days at a time. They’re building a tunnel, but nobody’s holding their breath because they’ve been at it for decades.

See that thing down there? It’s what remains of an old military observation station last used in WWII. You can even hike up there, and I plan to before the year ends. It’s goddamn awesome.

Lovely, no? We’re also all ignoring the creepy nudist strolling around 25 yards or so behind us. As far as I can tell from the beach’s official website, it’s not that kind of beach! No idea what this giant concrete thing is, probably some sort of unfortunate drainage malarkey, but it looked like a good place to hide a dead body so naturally I went to check it out. M made me climb down (I’d been on that top ledge at first) and having discovered zero corpses, I made my way gingerly over a rusted, broken down wire fence and ran around like a chicken with its head cut off!

Running ’round the barnyard
Fallin’ in and out of love

Poor thing’s blind as a bat
Getting up falling down getting up

My heart’s runnin’ round
Like a chicken with its head cut off

I’ve got on some Banana Republic plants (sounds better than jeggings), a fun deer print top from H&M, and a vintage sweater from IndieMart. The black canvas + brown leather boots are by Seychelles, so comfortable and I love them. 6pm has ‘em for cheap in all three color combos!

Pumpkin patch, rodeo, YES RODEO, pics coming soon! M is taking me TO THE GRAND NATIONAL RODEO tonight, surprise! They’ll be announcing Miss Grand National and it happens to be “Tough Enough to Wear Pink” night, plus cowboy mounted shooting. Can’t wait!

Love,

FFAF

Last night, M & I went to a party at an aviation museum and the dress code was “business casual”. I realize that one might not consider sequins or an aviator cap meeting-appropriate, per se, but we felt the leeway was acceptable given the occasion (a party). It was awesome!

Life-sized models of the very first man-powered aircraft (successful or not) were laid out in all their rudimentary glory, all the way up to Boeing cockpits from the passenger jets of today. Of course, our favorites were the helicopters and airplanes from the 1940s and 1950s, and they had these amazing, fancily clad mannequins of yesteryear for a more genuine effect. Adorable.

We crashed every last flight simulator we got into – including an old hovercraft prototype – and it was just a lot of silly fun. Of course, M wore her vintage wings and leather aviator cap. (Poor thing fully expected to get a ride in a plane and I wanted to, too, alas.) Yes, in that photo above we are “flying”.

It was amazing to see miniatures of futuristic models, too, like the vertical landing and takeoff joint heavy lift rotorcraft:

In other news , holy macaroni and cheese, kittens, I got bangs! Soft, whispery, no-biggie bangs. I haven’t had truly serious bangs since early 2007, and they were VERY serious:

In short, too hard. Too much work, a bitch to keep up, grow out, etc. I loved them, but they totally traumatized me. I am not a girl who blow dries her hair. Curlers, sure. Curling irons I have down to a perfect science, but bangs this serious require rigorous styling and training almost constantly, which I am not for at this time. (Maybe later, though. I’m seriously considering a bob in the future. OK, jaw-length. Like in 2004, but modified for 2010.)

Let’s hope these are a bit easier to manage. I am rather fond of them!

Saturday began innocently enough. We woke up, put a batch of cinnamon rolls into the oven for breakfast, watched a bit of BBC’s Pride & Prejudice and set out for the East Bay to find M some skater shoes. While I found an excellent new jacket and an adorable ski cap with hearts on it, M ran into one dead end after another with the shoes. To add insult to injury, Buffalo Exchange sent her into a homo panic and some persnickety baby dyke with no manners and a lot of attitude looked me up and down obscenely (and repeatedly) enough to solicit M’s wrath. It wasn’t pretty, but no blows were exchanged. Having had it with Oakland, we returned to SF and freshened up for our date.

Contigo Kitchen + Cava, a cozy tapas restaurant in Noe Valley with a strangely appealing lime green and firewood motif, didn’t open until 5:30PM, so we popped into a few shops and grabbed a warm-up round of pleasant enough cocktails at Bliss bar. DINNER WAS AMAZING. We had the pork belly, lamb shoulder and patatas bravas, and M & I both tried hazelnuts for the first time. They were delicious, as well as the cheese plate and prosciutto (the sheep’s milk was my favorite). It began to rain and as we wrapped up dinner, a few friends invited us out for drinks at a lesbian party at a gay club in the Castro. Much debauchery ensued, and I almost immediately stripped off the cardigan, leggings and coat when we walked in, it was that hot.

Strangely, we seemed to know everyone there. It was like one big, unending jovial reunion of sorts, and boozy texts to have even more friends join us were successful, making everything that much more epic. We woke up in relatively little pain this morning, but were USELESS in our attempt to gather coffee and other supplies, and yet managed to procure M some skater shoes. FINALLY. They are Vox (and from an awesome skate shop called Cruz on Mission) and she is pleased, so I am pleased. As promised, after lunch (desert fries, yum) she took me to see Nine at the Castro Theater. Neither of us had ever been there before, so it was extra-dreamy and romantical. (I wish I could say the same for the movie!)

The storms kept us from a spontaneous trip to the snow, but hopefully y’all have had equally exciting holiday weekends. One more day to go! Whee!

TOMBOY CONFESSION: M has said that her confession would only wax poetic about ham or sweet potato pie or my deliciously festive sparkling Cosmopolitan cocktails from Christmas, so I guess I’ll say a few words in her stead. We are both VERY excited about the gun rack my brother and his girlfriend so thoughtfully gave us for Christmas. She keeps fussing with her hair, y’all, saying it’s already gotten too long, despite the fact that it’s only been three weeks since she had it cut. Tomboys!

A bit about this blazer: M found it without much ado at our favorite neighborhood thrift store, for five gay bucks and in pristine condition. Turns out it’s from a little place in San Francisco that’s been in business for over 35 years, The Hound Shop. The embroidered label on the inside says “Tailored for the Montgomery Street Man” and has a great hound in the center – it’s really fantastic. She did a dapper job pairing it with this vintage striped, flat-bottom tie I got her two Christmases ago, I think.

FEMME CONFESSION: I really, really, really love this dress! Another epic thrift store find – it must have been somewhere between $3-$5, tops. From the fluttery little sleeves to the deep pinks and reds to the cut and wearability – it’s almost perfect. I have to try it in some va-va-voom heels and decide whether or not the hem needs to come up a couple of inches. I tossed the beret on as an afterthought on our way out of the door and it really made the buttoned-up look (though the weather was so agreeable, I didn’t need the coat at all).

Long story short, it was a very brilliant Christmas – cozy and raucous and abundant in the best ways – with a very full house, wonderful surprises, lots of incredible food and loved ones. My mother had several silly games with awesome prizes for us to play, including a 2-page, multiple choice Christmas trivia quiz in red and green ink that had us all in stitches (M had the lowest score of everyone, even the foreigners – it was hilarious). Nearly everyone teared up when I opened my mom’s gift to me – several sets of my beloved Grandma’s gorgeous vintage jewelry – I was astonished! Amazed and so, so touched.

Some festive Christmas pics below:

CONFESSION: Brews On The Bay was so much fun. Going on Sunday meant that it was much less crowded, and the threat of another thunderstorm was minimized ever so slightly. Instead, we got this bizarrely muggy weather, overcast with some blue patches of sky peeking out here and there, and a slightly damp warmth. It was pleasant! The ship rocked to and fro a bit, and a drizzle came and went from time to time, but we got to sample tons of tasty brews from SF breweries with my comrades and it was a good time. I rang the bell. I didn’t mean to! Well, I did. In fact, M suggested I should, and I only rang it once, but boy was it loud. Checking out the quarters for the captain and sailors and engineers and whatnot was exciting! The only thing I wasn’t fond of was the non-stop U2 cover band. Them, I could have done without.

Afterward, we trekked through the vintage arcade (which we have pledged to return to many times), through Fisherman’s Wharf and a horse-drawn carriage all the way into North Beach,  where we stopped at a Sicilian restaurant for an early dinner. Despite the fact that rain had begun in earnest, it was still warm out, so we took a table outdoors and enjoyed the passerby and sweet rain smells enjoying our bellinis and Sicilian Sangrias, respectively. It was a delicious, romantical meal. We caught a cab home in the rain and do you know something? That asinine Postal Service song about waiting since birth to find a love that would look and sound like a movie didn’t cross my mind, not even once.

I consider this triumph in both authenticity and the raw, undone edges of true love.

So, here’s some (boozy) ship action and M would like it very much if you knew that she took great pleasure in finding that half-broken watermelon resting atop a newsbox in the rain. If you’d like to read about the beer itself, you’ll just have to go here. Oh, and the morning of I let M cut off a whole bunch of my hair (a compromise from the night before, when I was struck by the urge to shear my locks off at 2AM, after we’d both had several cocktails). She offered to use the leveler to make sure it was perfectly exactly straight, and it was one of the most adorable things she’s ever said. Ha!

CONFESSION: It’s been too long! Two weeks and then some too long, to be specific. You know what happened? The fog rolled in, bringing with it a traditionally chilly SF summer, sending my preexisting  nesting state into a disoriented cocoon of warmth and quiet and respite. (Translation: I wore a lot of jeans and hoodies. I spent a lot of time searching for the perfect down comforter – Calvin Klein, for the record – to stop the chattering of my teeth in bed at night and so that we snuggle each other out of free will like we used to, instead of clinging together desperately just for warmth. I fussed with all of the bottles and things at my new vanity and begged the Gods for motivation to put my curlers in. When no motivation came, I watched Season 2 of Grey’s Anatomy.) I hope y’all forgive me and that we can all just MOVE ON from this terrible, awful stagnation.

So, the vanity! Isn’t it darling? I really am in love it. It brings me tremendous joy and pride to sit on my little padded bench, with everything so easy to get to, and with it so prettily displayed, it’s a highly effective way to stop wanting to buy every last shiny new cosmetic I see out and about. (This principle is the same reason I had the beast and have the new mini-beast for my shoes and bags.) Plus, it’s very fancy. This is a little sneak peek at my side of the bedroom, but M & I are still working on it, so you’ll see more very soon.

I’ll also be sharing the kitchen and dining next, followed by the living and sun rooms. We are so, so close to being done and able to just be in our space and enjoy it without that little nudge to tinker with things until they are just so. It’s so wonderful when life is just so, and I’m closer than ever.

Fill me in on your goings-on in the comments! What have I missed!?

FEMME CONFESSION: Y’all? We are still packing, still working a lot, still wishing it was already that blessed time when me and my girls and pups are all settled into our new place. This is going to be quick and dirty, but SF PRIDE was so, so amazing and so, so good to us. My sweet Grandma Jones’s delicious secret bourbon slush recipe was a big hit (someone even suggested that it should be the new house drink) and when I woke up in our new place with M on Sunday morning, the birds were singing and I half-thought when I opened my eyes that they’d be right there with ribbons at the ready and there might be bunnies braiding my hair. Heavenly. I cannot wait to be there 100%.

PS. M bought me this lovely lilac parasol at SF Pride. Isn’t it cute?

PPS. There will be no tomboy confession, as M is out of commission and has been since about 10 minutes after the photos below were taken, poor thing. She also adds that she has inexplicable bruises to share, if anyone is interested.

FEMME BONUS ROUND: Y’all get a bonus round. This fancy outfit is a wardrobe change post-Dyke March, to get ready for late night drinking and dancing! As we were boozy, they didn’t come out so hot, but they’ll do in a pinch, I guess.