I see a roach in my kitchen behind the sink. Surprisingly, I don’t scream. It’s the first I’ve seen here, and this is the Tenderloin. But now where did it go? I have been lazy about dishwashing lately, it’s true. It’s that library school, it’s very time consuming, but now I have more time for cleaning. Actually, I had done a thorough kitchen cleaning this morning, but now the sink is full of dirty dishes. Oh, there it is behind the cutting board. It has to go. I can’t just ignore. Maybe it’s just lost. I mean it’s the Tenderloin, maybe it thinks it’s welcome here. I set it straight. It happens so fast, it comes right towards me. I hate to do it.
I’m doing all the things that I haven’t been doing for the last four months. The gym. Reading novels. Art projects. Planning a zine. Applying for jobs. Meandering four-hour bike ride through Golden Gate Park with Lance including sex with man in “Environmental Service Installation” uniform by the windmills, two pit stops at the Beach Chalet, a detour up the hill past the Cliff House and into the woods for half-hard glamour shots interrupted by straight couple, to Safeway for a Chocolate run, sex with another stranger in another cruisy part of the Park that I wasn’t really aware of, and riding back my legs are killing me. I feel certain that Lance and I should not be friends at least ten times during the journey. I can’t take all this…oh, well, you’d just have to meet him. But then who else could I have this journey with, and I need this journey. Did I mention the ocean? We’re at the ocean. There it is, like that. We’re riding side by side talking sex and men and hooking-up and unsafe sex and cruising, and then there’s the ocean raging foamy white. And then we’re talking and talking and talking, and my legs hurt. This is what it’s like in summer.
Sanfrancisco-ish 