Show of hands: Have you, personally, missed the tomboy’s delightful little entries here at FFAF?

U H – H U H.

I knew it. Sweet readers, consider this an early Christmas present, because M is back to tell us all about this outstanding holiday party ensemble of hers now:

“First things first, company holidays parties are the worst. You can’t curse anyone out, you can only bring one guest (if you’re lucky!), you feel like you HAVE to attend and the food is always so-so. On the other hand, there’s an open bar, the venue might be really fantastic, you don’t hate everybody and it’s free!

After dragging the femme to several of my company holiday parties, it was time I attended one of hers. Of course, her affair is ultra- fancy and black tie ‘optional’ at a museum (not just any museum, y’all, the Asian Art Museum, which used to be the former main library for the city of San Francisco, with a Beaux-Arts exterior to die for. – Skinny), whereas mine are business casual (at best), and held at a “sports club” – which is really just a gym that still smelled kinda sweaty – made to look like a casino, or a small restaurant/bar (we software engineers like to keep it classy). I was worried it was going to be unbearable, but fortunately, we have finally mastered the art of showing up, enjoying ourselves, and leaving before any of the embarrassing dancing takes place. It’s a lot of fun because you know shit is already going to hell in hand basket, and someone will surely be fired before the night is out, and you see people lining up for more free drinks, and you quickly say your goodbyes before anyone gets too sloppy or (heaven forbid) forces you to dance. Then you head to a real bar, where you pay real money, but you get much better drinks and much better company! That’s the holiday spirit.”

M is leaving out that last year’s holiday party was held at an aviation museum, which I thought was pretty cool.

(Important note: These and subsequent photos were taken after free drinks AND purchased real drinks at a real lesbian bar. In our garage. Because I haven’t had the time to develop my “studio” and the show must go on in the interim, mustn’t it?)

Slacks: Express
Dress Shirt: Kenneth Cole
Black Velvet “Nerd Band Jacket Action” & Tartan Plaid Tie: H&M
Tie Clip: Vintage
Belt: Calvin Klein
Albino Zombie Stag Brooch: Etsy
Boots: Lounge by Mark Nason
Ridiculously Adorable Dogs: Conor “Bird” Bennett, Chipotle or “the fucking dingo” (crazy courtesy of rescue shelters)

S W O O N.

When she reads this it’ll be the first time she heard it, but when we were shopping for a dress shirt and tie for M to wear on Thanksgiving, she came over to me (I think I was tenderly stroking and sighing over a plethora of leather gloves at the time) with an armful of choices and combinations, and very sincerely asked me for my opinion. I put the gloves down, redirected my focus and firmly gave her my even, thoughtful opinion.

Two things I absolutely love about us: No sugarcoating. Not ever. No gingerly dancing around, no tiptoeing on eggshells or wincing through broken glass. We call it like we see it. It isn’t a carte blanche to be unkind, not at all, but it’s beautifully honest and good grief, does it ever save us some time. Less pussyfooting, more cuddling!

That’s one thing, ranging from simple things like sartorial choices to the most deafening life choices, but there it is. The other is that we’re both terribly independent, hard-headed and stubborn, and in that vein M has always been the sort of gentleman to dress herself, and well. She knew instinctively which choice was best; when I pointed to the superior shirt-and-tie pair she nodded vigorously in agreement.

Alas, she hadn’t been 100% sure and wanted to know what I thought. Her extremely rare uncertainty made the whole thing 84,000 times more sweet and endearing. Anyway, it all turned out well, didn’t it? This getup is smart and woodsy and casual all at once. Somebody hand her a pipe and a hunting dog already.

(You are welcome for the gratuitous crotch shot. That’s some belt buckle.)

Dancing around in my Grandma’s secret garden. It was bloody cold back there!

Denim: RSQ London
Shirt: Calvin Klein
Tie: Ralph Lauren
Wool Blazer + Tie Clip: Vintage
Belt Buckle: Express
Shoes: Zara

Chauncey the Terrible! Piano times! Mussy-sikking! This concludes both parts of our Thanksgiving Day extraordinaire. Back to regularly scheduled FFAF, with an exciting holiday dress challenge posed by a devout reader and darling friend. If I had to title it, it would be:

“I know my extensive tattoos are tremendously gorgeous works of body art, but I also like to accessorize and I’ve got this amazing green party dress for the holidays. Help me work it!”

The dress is really adorable and I can’t wait to dig into this little project!

It began innocently enough. We took a cab ride to a Peruvian restaurant in San Francisco’s Fillmore District to attend a dear friend’s bachelorette party. Our table was littered with carafes of delicious sangria, lots of glittery beads, cheeky bachelorette temporary tattoos, masquerade party masks and tiaras. (I got M to wear one Max-from-Where-the-Wild-Things-Are style, but she said she’d kill me dead if the photos ever saw the light of day, so keep dreaming.) Did you know that they made little hot pink party sashes that light up for brides-to-be? I did not.

Dinner was delicious and the blushing bride had no clue where the rest of the night was headed!

The wine bar we went to afterward greeted us with cheers, mostly from hapless men who quickly realized we were all lesbians. Many flutes were filled and filled again with a nice cava we’ve never tried before, and the delightful hostess of the party got us started on a series of sweet, touching and hilarious bachelorette-themed games, and even handed out fancy prizes to the winners. M & I both won a round, not that we’re ultra-competitive or anything.

Drunkity! Fast-forward a few hours and we’re up to our ears in gay and knee-deep in booze, having taxied over to the Castro at the bachelorette’s request. We danced a lot and drank a lot and partied like it was 2005 all over again. It was excellent.

I wore:

Red dress by Donna Ricco
Max Studio pumps
Emilie M. bag
Lipstick bullet pendants by Culp Baubles
Vintage earrings and swing coat

M wore:

Booth & Bruce glasses
Kenneth Cole dress shirt
Express slacks
Zara shoes

Signing off only a little bit creepily,

M & SBJ

Wondering why you’ve never seen this particular corner of the sunroom before? SO AM I! It’s silly! I like it, even if you can sort of see our fridge through the door with the glass panes to the left. The blazer (below) is less about making this outfit serious (not even sure if that’s possible) and more about goosebumps prevention. The sky was a deceptively deep shade of blue today, but the temps never quite pulled out of the high 50s today, probably due to a persistent wind scattering clouds about. Such a shame!

Blazer: Express
Dress: Silence + Noise
Flats: Scoop NYC
Earrings: Gift from the petite’s travels to Nicaragua!
Bowtie: Vintage
Heart + Coral Ring: Isla Mujeres boutique

I love this new lipstick. It was a $3 impulse buy at Walgreen’s on an unrelated errand. Rimmel’s Lasting Finish in Just So. I love it! It’s a bit fussy in terms of getting the application just right, but it does last quite awhile and I find that it’s a nice, soft, natural pink. The fuchsia nail polish is also Rimmel from ages ago. I was lazy after my shower today so I just did a very high bun and secured one of M’s bowties around it. Voila! It almost makes me wish I had a party to go to today.

I braved the drizzle to nail this FFAF post today, you guys! Drizzle and a steep, steep grade, not to mention this lingering head cold. Cloud cover mutes the otherwise dreamy view of the bay in the background, but maybe you can make it out just a little bit. When I took out my gloves to put them on this afternoon, I noticed a faint emerald green print on the inside. Upon closer inspection, the left glove shows the no. 7, and Lionel Le Grand beneath it. Inside of the right, Made In France Expressly for I. Magnin & Co.! I don’t know how I missed that before. I found them at an old Lutheran thrift shop in the East Bay, of all places. Years ago.

Anyway, this magical, high-waisted, uber-tight, red hot miniskirt. Unfortunately, it’s all sold out at modcloth.com, but I love it. They had another of its kind – the Da Vinci skirt – in a pretty purple shade, but that’s all gone, too! Next time I wear it, I’ll try more color, but I couldn’t help but femme fatale it up a bit for the first go-r0und.

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!

Please to meet the wonderfully brilliant and gorgeous Kate. She came to stay with us for a few days and we had some excellent SF adventures together. The photos above are from a nice little walkabout we had through the Mission, in search of carnitas by the pound, chili/salt/lemon-drenched mango slices and Humphrey’s Secret Breakfast ice cream. It was overcast and cold, but we bundled up and dragged our hungover asses through the Mission and were met with much success (and an angry drunk, but that is neither here nor there). We stopped to take a few photos by some of the many, many amazing murals that can be found in our ‘hood.

Below, you’ll find Kate & I all sassed up and ready to go dancing. The tomboy snapped these before an epic night of Osha Thai (Kate ordered this massive fried rice dish served in half a pineapple! We all drank lychee cocktails!), a George Michael singalong at the Lexington and shaking what our mama gave us at Cockblock. It was all very wonderful and we had enough fun for the entire mafia. And then some.

CONFESSION: On our 5th consecutive day of blissful holiday PTO, M took me to see A Single Man (remember when I mentioned it here back in November?). Despite the dreariness of the day, we bravely set out on BART to catch it playing down by the water at the Embarcadero theater. I really, really enjoyed it. It was delicious. There’s an old L-Word actress cameo, model cameos, a Mad Men cameo, and one other that I cannot quite recall. It was a touch slow in places, but it’s so visually saturated that it really doesn’t matter, and it made me cry. On our way home we took these silly photos, and then it began to rain, so we hustled inside, made a big spaghetti dinner, opened a bottle of tasty red from Spain, and then FINALLY got around to the Johnnie Walker Black Label blending session we’ve been postponing forever. Dreamy.

Y’all can have special insider pics of the super elaborate scotch whisky blending set-up, because I love you like that:

CONFESSION: Fall arrived in head-to-toe drag queen regalia in San Francisco in the wee hours of the morning yesterday, loud and brassy and thunderous and with all the sky’s gaudy sequins refracting through myriad bedroom windows. It was fan-fucking-tastic. Really splendid. Of course, M & I slept through most of it, or shall I say we experienced it from the comfort of our bed, but storms like that are really rare here, so I loved it. M said that it sounded a lot like an earthquake, and she kept waiting for the shaking to start! The rain that came was far less impressive, in fact, that part was more like walking around the Mission drenched in a vat of the appropriate CB I Hate Perfume scent. Lovely. Hope y’all had lovely weekends.

CONFESSION: These photos are approximately 8 days old. GASP. Really, they are just tomboy candy and for fun. An impromptu gay parody of sorts after American Gothic, of course, which makes ever so much more sense if you know my complete and total (and often hilarious and heartrendingly tragic) family history. After running around in my mother’s backyard, we found ourselves some serious gardening tools and had some silly fun.

In them I am, in fact, unshowered from the night before (dirty girl!), when M & I and our awesome posse were at a drag king show, and quite possibly ever so slightly buzzed seeing as how I had to show off my fancy craft by whipping up a few batches of champagne cocktails for the family with fresh ingredients like basil and muddled blackberries, using sweet tea and lemon to twist things up a bit.

Ach so.

We always have a wonderful time there, but I’d be a big fat liar if I said I wasn’t glad to come home to this rowdy old whore of a town, dear sweet San Francisco, each and every single time.