This trip was ah, quite the ride.

I flew out Tuesday night and crashed on my friend's couch for a few days leading up to the con. I took the opportunity to wander about downtown San Francisco with all the extra time I had. Downtown San Francisco was awesome, I had a lot of fun wandering amongst the skycrapers. I will say it became pretty obvious pretty fast that bathrooms are a commodity strictly controlled in that city >.>

In any case I eventually hopped the F-train (giggity) to the Castro (gay district) because come on, had to see that. Hopping off the train the first thing I saw was an older dude, probably in his late 40s wandering around with nothing more than a tiny sock covering his junk. I'll concede he wasn't in bad shape for his age, but still, didn't need to see that. After processing that I started walking down the hill toward a famous desert place called "Hot cookie" but while doing so a shirtless gentlemen in a wheelchair started rolling alongside me down the hill making pleasant small talk. I'm pretty reserved and not used to talking to randoms on the street, so when I went past an atm I politely excused myself and let him roll on by. I did feel a tinge of regret in letting go the opportunity for a friendly local to show me around, but oh well. I wandered down the big main drag and the side street which pretty much is the heart of the Castro area. Very charming, very gay. Definitely a place that would have been more fun to explore with a few adventurous friends along. Alas. Up to this point I'd been out for six hours and still hadn't found place with a decent bathroom so I stopped in a little health shake shop called Frapez (could see the bathroom door from the street). Ordered a large Mango shake out of guilt and man, was that thing gross. Room temperature with yogurt in it, absolutely not sweet or really enjoyable in any way. So I'm walking back up the street sipping on my nasty shake (was six bucks after all), when I run into my wheelchair friend from earlier. He didn't really have anything going on that day and was pretty much just cruising the block and talking to random people to talk to. Sooo I chatted with him a few more minutes (mostly polite small talk) before he asked me back to his place. In fairness he wasn't bad looking, but ah, not quite my style to go home with random dudes on the street. So, blushing a lot I made up whatever I could and continued on my way, ditching that nasty-ass shake and getting a root beer float from "Orphan Andy's" which was probably my favorite stop I made in the area.

Beating it back to downtown San Francisco I walked around Pier 39 (overall a stupid waste of time, although the sea lions were interesting to watch for a few minutes). After that I hopped a classic 30s style cable car and got to ride it from start to finish past Lombard Street and Chinatown, which are two places I think I would like to spend more time in next time I'm there. The sun went down at that point and I took the Caltrain back to my friend's town where we met some people at an unlimited sushi place (which was awesome btw).

Thursday was mostly packing up for the con and getting down there. Picked up a buddy from the airport and hit a few parties that evening. Friday was fun too, for the most part. I got to meet an online friend for the first time irl and the dance competition was an awesome show.

It got interesting *after* the competition however, when an older heavy-set guy passed me note whispering "read it later" before walking off into the crowd. I posted a picture of the note on twitter but it ended with 'before I die I have to have you" and everything else in the note before that was equally 1 part flattering and 9 parts creepy. So that was a little off-putting but I rolled with it.

So the next part of the night got a little weirder, I happened to be at a place where there were a few babyfurs. Not my thing, but whatever floats your boat. I was making small talk with one of them, when I noticed the other two on a bed, the one clearly about to give the other a "change". Now again, what you do behind closed doors is your business, but if you are in the presence of somebody you barely know, you might want to ask if they're cool with it. Saying "Just talk to me and try not to think about it" does not make it ok. So I chugged my drink and walked out of that. All I can say is I still have nothing against babyfurs, but like regular furries you need to be respectful of others and that not everyone is into that. Because what the actual fuck that was disturbing.

That whole night kinda threw me off for Saturday, which was just kind of a late day anyway due to hangover. Nothing really majorly bad or good went down until the evening when I was hanging around outside the main convention area waiting for a friend who was in the Masquerade to perform. While I was out there the creeper dude from the day before found me and started talking to me and reaaaaaaaaallly managed to enrage me, unsettle me and by the end just his voice made my skin crawl. Fucker wouldn't take no for an answer, and was offering money for a weekend "together" and just getting really gross so I finally had to leave before I freaked out on him. Asshole was married too. The rest of the night was a blur, but I was drunk and angry and I'm lucky I had some good friends keeping an eye on me.

By Sunday I was pretty burned out, just kinda made it through the day so I could go home Monday. 17 hours in airports/airplanes later I made it back.

Tuesday was a nice recovery day and I actually am looking forwardto having a return of normalcy.