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Happy hump day, y’all! I am ever so slightly under the weather with a bit of a head cold, but otherwise life is just lovely. The sun came out again today and despite the fact that I can scarcely breathe, I decided it was midweek and FFAF needed some action. I’ve been living in this outfit, as it’s not too cold here lately, but it’s not warm by any means, either. This is a nice balance because it’s super comfortable, and a great excuse to rock some color, too. I’ll admit I’d hardly given Spring a second thought until yesterday and all the Groundhog Day activity! The internets, they do not let you forget. My head is far too stuffed to continue on in any meaningful way, so let’s make a list of shows I’m obsessed with at present:

1. LOST, because it’s bananas:

2. The Tudors really needs to hurry up and get back on the air already. Sex, violence, religion, politics, corsets. Need I say more?

3. The Pacific, which is a new miniseries coming to HBO this March, a sort of complement to Band Of Brothers, which I really, really loved and always watch whenever it’s on. I need to own it. Maybe they’ll create an amazing box set with both series after The Pacific premieres.

4. Big Love is the show I want to be addicted to, but I’m not quite there yet. It’s in the queue! M & I watched an episode or two awhile back and were pretty ambivalent about it, but have since been convinced by friends that we need to start from the beginning and give it some time. (This better not be like True Blood, y’all!)

5. Last but not least, Grey’s Anatomy. This one is all my BFF’s fault. I’ve mocked her incessantly for years about this show. I’ve spent countless Friday mornings rolling my eyes over coffee while she went on and on about Izzy this, McDreamy that and last season, we somehow got sucked in. Unbelievable. Now we have the video game. Yang, of course, is our favorite, and now I know exactly what the BFF means when she says, “You’re my person.”

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!

CONFESSION: Today marked a very important day in our new San Francisco life. (We just realized that we recently breezed past our six-month anniversary living here! Good heavens, that went by ultra-fast.) After a cursory search on yelp.com, we selected a barber shop for M. It’s been that long since she’s had a haircut! She adored her lady in Oakland’s Rockridge ‘hood, and was skeptical about whether or not she could be replaced without paying dues in the way of a bad cut, obnoxious stylists or an overpriced hipster salon. She’d been growing it out per my request, but it wasn’t cut in a way that was meant to be grown out, per se, so she’s starting from scratch. What sold us on this particular barber were the following reviews:

• No gabbing! No chit-chat! No small talk! If you want a hug and some hippie tea, one reviewer hissed, go somewhere else. It’s straight to business here, and that is rad.
• Plenty of gay porn to peruse while you’re waiting! Well, Christ. Do I even need to keep listing reasons?
• Not only have they been in the Castro for 20+ years, they have a 4+ star rating. Word.

So at 1PM today, M got a crazy fast, efficient, and very serious and handsome haircut in a barbershop where the classic barber pole’s stripes are made of bandannas and rainbow flags adorn the walls, and yes, I admired some gay porn while she was in the chair. It was superior to any of ours and I suppose I should have snagged one. Drats! (I’m kidding. Stealing is bad.) You’re going to have to wait to see her new ‘do, but to amuse you in the interim, here was her inspiration (ignore Jake G.’s dopey mug, please):

PS. If any tomboys have tips on how to train a part into hair, please let us know in the comments! M is also on the hunt for a new product or two for this type of style – she doesn’t think her American Crew pomade is going to cut it anymore, and I’m trying to get her to try my Jonathan Dirt Texturizing Paste, but the more options, the better. Thanks, yo.

CONFESSION: We spent our Sunday yesterday at the first ever Eat Real Festival in Oakland’s Jack London Square, just a few blocks from where we lived a few months ago! It had me all wistful about the years I’ve spent living there, with and without my tomboy – so much happens over the course of an entire decade, and Oakland (as well as the many incredible folks who have lived or live there still) helped shape who I am today. Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post with my brand new Oaklandish t-shirt! You can read more about why the event was so totally fucking amazing here, where I blog for Drink Me Magazine.

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CONFESSION: Y’all, this weekend was one big, dreamy, fantastical doozy! The hilarious thing is that M & I were hemming and hawing and grumbling about how we had all these plans, one after the other, back-to-back and nonstop when all we really wanted to do was stay home in our p/manties, eat prosciutto out of the box with fancy cheese and watch Grey’s Anatomy. But we sucked it up and ended up having a ton of fun.

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CONFESSION: Despite the return of the fog (which also hosed my beachy wave plans for yesterday) and the fact that I cannot take BART like I want to into Oakland because our SF parking permits still haven’t arrived, today was excellent! The morning coffee was delicious, I was productive before leaving for an appointment in the East Bay, my amazing threader at The Brow Lounge saw me even though I was 15 minutes late (I went to the wrong location, and yes, I will continue to see her as she has been the boss of my eyebrows for, like, four whole years – the second longest long-term commitment of my life after M, if you must know).

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CONFESSION: Well, kittens, the weekend is winding to a close. It was a doozy! We restocked the bar at home and hunted for antiques and thrift store finds on Friday night. Saturday morning we tidied up for a nice, mellow Welcome Back visit for a dear friend, who just returned from her two-month long visit back home in Turkmenistan. She brought me back a beautiful bag, repurposed from the gorgeous material of a traditional bridal headress – will feature in a new FFAF ASAP! Sadly, during the visit a nasty migraine came on quite suddenly, but I fought it back with insanely spicy Indian food (a total first and kind of amazing). Later in the evening, M & I headed to the DNA Lounge for New Wave City in these outfits! It was the Duran Duran tribute and so, so much fun. A little too fun, in fact, so M & I spent the entire delicious day in bed, giggling and watching HGTV and taking naps. WHY DID I NOT KNOW THAT HGTV IS SO FASCINATING AND AWESOME TO WATCH!? Speaking of hella gay…

This antique table? See how pretty and awesome it is? The top is all junked up, so we got it for $50. Totally freaking hot. We’re going to sand it down and give it a nice, light wash and perhaps get in touch with the amazing artist that painted the Victorian Alice In Wonderland chairs to see if she’ll paint the tabletop with a tea party scene, because that would be, of course, perfect. I also got the really cool idea to take these three smaller photo frame collages and hang them in a grouping, inside of the antique frame that we picked up a year ago at the Laney flea. Since we took all of those silly, romantical photos carrying the frame together the day we were married last year, I thought it would be very dreamy to mix those photos with some others from our wedding. There you have it! The “nook of love”. Who wants to come over for a cup of tea?