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San Francisco’s abundance of wildly entertaining and often bizarre or caustic street art is something I dare other cities to match. After a fantastic afternoon of shopping for lingerie (cheeky sets by Lou and Huit 8 specifically) and eating in the Fillmore, Pacific Heights and Russian Hill districts, we stopped at the very busy corner of Laguna and Haight to snap these photos with some incredible and relatively new murals. Here I am slipping from the grasp of the astronaut and quietly lamenting that I’ll never ever get to do a Kittenzilla FFAF.

These raccoons don’t look terribly menacing, in fact they seem a bit disoriented and freaked out. I suppose if I were a raccoon trapped in a mural of a tidy home with no visible foodstuffs left out to rummage I’d be feeling disoriented and freaked out, too. Alas, I am no raccoon (and thank God, they’re real bastards raccoons are), I am a girl who loves fancy Parisian lingerie, riding horses and listening to the blues.

I’m wearing a frothy silk dress by Julie Brown. I like that it’s short, a little bit hippie, but polished. I added my gold and paisley necklace from Banana Republic, my rose gold Ray Bans to give it a little sparkle, and the Dolce Vita clogs and Freebird satchel were no-brainers! The nice boy in Marc by Marc Jacobs told me that the paisley design has an interesting origin: bags of rice would be hand-stamped with the pinky side of a curled-up fist, and then ornate designs would be colored in. I can’t find anything that confirms this, but he was so excited about it and it was a nice little story.

I wanted this but I bought Rufus Wainwright’s One Day In The Life Of… book, it is beautiful and helps benefit The Kate McGarrigle Fund.

Last but by no means least, I give you pepto pink psychobunny and the skull. M had to give me a boost to sit up beside it. It’s super creepy and cute and that, of course, is what makes it so damn lovable. My stats are always telling me that devoted FFAF readers come from the most interesting parts of the country and in many cases, all over the world. What’s one of your favorite things about where you live?

Confession: Tracy at Sole Salon on Bay Street, I love you. Thank you for making sure that my hair is absolutely perfect. You totally made my Summer / Spring 2009. Do y’all know what I did this morning? I showered, twisted a fistful of hair on each side of my part back and clipped it, and pinned the rest up into a messy chignon and set off for a meeting in SF. I put nothing into it except a dollop of shine serum. Several hours later, when I unpinned it, I had the loose, soft-as-hell, shiny waves of a fucking goddess. They were almost spiral waves, in some places. This is totally, totally, totally not even reality in my hair world, except now it IS, thanks to her. I have no idea what she did, but I’m never leaving. HEAR THAT, TRACY!? You’re stuck with me. You’re the one. Incredible. It’s effortless. Effortless! I would do the exact same thing with my hair pre-Tracy and not achieve anything near what I can now.

And that was before she really perfected it a few hours ago this evening. Now my hair is the ultimate force to be reckoned with. Well, it will be after I Lush it to death. That is neither here nor there.

Confession: I finally, finally, FINALLY took three bags of my closet’s ex-contents to Crossroads this afternoon, a buy-sell-trade with stores all over the country and several in the Bay Area. M was threatening to throw them out and she meant business, but so did I! In addition to walking out of there with a fistful of cash, I traded my castaways for these like-new Marc by Marc Jacobs flats, new dark blue denim shorts with white pinstripes, a cheery new yellow summer top, a new BCBG Max Azria wrap dress in a gorgeous blue print and a pair of very cheeky red canvas peep-toe heels – so Varga girl! I had forgotten all about the satisfying rush one gets when acquiring awesome new clothes “for free!” I still have some great stuff that they turned down (Uniqlo, a pristine Ann Taylor suit, misc. vintage) that I might put up on ebay or just donate. Do y’all ever do the buy-sell-trade, or is it too harrowing / inconvenient / obnoxious?

PS. You’re not nuts – I changed my shoes. The Charles David boots are what I’m kicking high in the B&W! I loved the neon yellow in the belt with the hot pink of the flats too much!

Scent: Christian Dior Diorling power walks out of the decant with a toss of big 80s hair, shoulder pads and a mad, red mouth. It smells like something from my childhood, and being a child of the 80s I suppose this makes sense. In a way it’s very much your staple “perfume” smell. A hint of floral over a stern chypre, just a tinge of something powdery. The leather is elusive at first, but starts to show itself in the dry down. In reality, Diorling was born in 1963, and I’m not 100% sure that this is the original, but I suspect it’s the watered down, pansy reissue. M was taken aback by the top notes, saying it reminded her of the smell of whatever it is that Pine Sol tries to cover up with the scent of pine – not the pine itself. I’m unimpressed, overall and looking forward to a write-up over the weekend of something divine!

When: Saturday, August 2nd, 2008.

What: Gorgeous maxi handkerchief dress from a folksy boutique in Old San Juan, with Sheeba belt, vintage. California Girl flip-flops. My new Marc sunglasses.

Blue two-piece by Becca. Peacock earrings from McCalou’s.

Strapless black minidress by Maria Bianca Nero. Linea Paolo peep-toe pumps with sangria patent trim and ponyhair leopard print. Sheeba the belt. Earrings from my mother and little clutch from M’s sister.

Confession: I bought two of those dresses, and the other one is the prettiest sangria print, which M insisted upon. I was so scared that the shop would be closed when we went back to the shop, but it was open and I found a gorgeous lacquered wood bangle as well as a beautiful, stretchy cerulean blue scarf, with silver glinting throughout. I bought three scarves total whilst in Puerto Rico! In all that insane tropical heat!

I only wore this ridiculously short dress because it was our night to explore all the lesbian or gay bars we’d researched so thoroughly. One delicious and extremely fancy dinner in Hato Rey at La Casona and two cab rides later (the slightly racist waiter advised us not to walk through the Dominican ‘hood to get to Roosevelt Avenue, whatever), there we were.

There were no gay bars. OK, there was one, but it was so packed there was zero chance of us getting inside. We decided to walk to the next one – it was only two blocks away, after all! TWO LONG ASS BLOCKS. It was very dark, the streets mostly abandoned, and I started to freak out a little. “Jonesey, you run all around much meaner streets in SF without a care in the world, what’s gotten into you,” M asked. I don’t know, to be honest. I just felt…not safe.

We passed a huge meat market and kept walking through the middle of nowhere. I told M that if I got yanked into an alley and murdered or worse, it would be her fault for not protecting me, so she quickly hailed us a cab and we went back to Old San Juan, where I mumbled sheepish apologies for being such a big fat wuss.

Anyway, my point is that I only dressed this way because I thought we’d be nuzzled safely in the bosom of Le Gay! Not that I believe a short skirt invites sexual assault, because that’s bullshit, but there are certain things I’m only comfortable doing around queers, such as this outfit or naughty pillow fights or lip-syncing to George Michael.

Best part? Walking around in Old San Juan, I was somehow NOT the one traipsing about with the highest hemline! ZOMG, PR girls are fierce, y’all. Seriously.

When (Day): Friday, August 1st, 2008.

What: Elie Tahari buttery yellow cotton sundress with matching slip, vintage belt and Kensie sandals. The random polka bag was a freebie from Eve (very strange Australian magazine) that I planned to only wear to the beach, but discovered it would make a STELLAR shopping bag for all the goodies we planned to score in Old San Juan.

Confession: God, we woke up so bloody late from Thursday night’s awesomeness, not to mention the aforementioned 47 hours without sleep, etc. At one point around 9:30am M roused me, mumbling something about how we had to get up, a rainforest, blah-blah, and I told her please to STFU or I’d have to pitch her off the GD balcony, that I loved her dearly and really, it was perfectly OK-corral to sleep in, cowboy. So, yeah. We showered around 1pm and decided to head into Old San Juan for a very late breakfast at the wonderful La Bombonera, go shopping and to sightsee at the cemetery and forts and whatnot. Fun! We also ate about five meals that day. Mm.

When (Night): Friday, August 1st, 2008.

What: BCBG Max Azria printed dress with flutter sleeves. Patent tricolor sandals by Enzo Angiolini. Clutch by the fabulous Jenna, of course, and pretty abalone earrings from a boutique in Old San Juan.

Confession: I adore these shoes. Back in the beginning of Spring, when I was hunting for bright, fun kicks to bring me out of a drab winter and saw these in a bouquet of pretty colors, I was tempted but passed them up in favor of blues, greens and pink snakeskin. I was totally stoked to find them on the cheap in Old San Juan, of all places! The bargains, I can haz them. Plus, they’re bloody purple! I love purple, and just bought a pretty rhinestone barrette to go with them today.

Just for fun, here I am being a lazyface kitten in bed the next morning with my new Marc by Marc Jacobs shades:

They make me feel like a SUPERSTAR. You can get your own at 80s Purple. OK. Now I have to pull myself away from the very fantastical opening ceremonies to get into the shower. We’re going dancing!