I Left My Pants in San Francisco

"What goes to Vegas stays in Vegas," or so the ad slogan almost goes.  Unfortunately, that misstatement currently applies to my pants -- as well as the rest of my luggage.

Yours truly has been in The City By the Bay, The City Built on Rock and Roll now for a grand total of 71 hours, and with the exception of the last 45 minutes, every single one of those hours was spent in the same pair of socks. 

Oh, no, wait, I don't sleep in my socks -- so I guess I've spent...aww, screw it, I'm not doing the math.  Suffice it to say that I've worn the same socks now for close to four days.

As of this moment, US Airways still has no idea where my luggage is.  (Update -- it's now 12 hours after I began this post, and still no sign of my luggage.)  The plane that I took from Pittsburgh to Phoenix was headed to Vegas, so it's my guess that my pants are currently somewhere in the vicinity of Wayne Newton. 

I did manage to have the presence of mind to buy some underwear the other day, and some toiletries -- unfortunately, I didn't think to get any socks.  Hence my current foot-stink.  But I have a question for you, and it's this -- why can I not buy underwear without being made to feel as though I'm buying gay porn?  Why must every bulging package of men's drawers have a close-up of some male model's bulging package?

I appreciate that the fine folks at the Calvin Klein corporation want me to get an idea of what the underwear will look at in action, but must they photograph them in a way that makes me feel so...I dunno...actually, I think this conversation should be abandoned immediately.

Other than the luggage thing, it's been a good trip so far.  I spent my Sunday afternoon in the Haight, where I fit in approximately, oh, not at all, and then Sunday night in the Castro where I fit in far, far less.  Big fun in both places, actually. 

I've been buying clothes as I need them, primarily at the nearby Old Navy since everything else in this city would burn through my $250 allowance from USAirways with one small purchase.  So the end result is that I'll go home with $250 worth of Old Navy rags, which in typical Old Navy fashion will be worthless after about three washings.  Old Navy stuff isn't really clothing so much as it is a series of random pieces of similarly-colored thread which happen to be occupying a shirt-shaped area for a few days.

Not much else to report yet.  A female co-worker and I found ourselves without dinner plans last night, so we took a walk to Chinatown -- fully aware of how "coupled" we looked.  That "coupled" look got even worse when the restaurant we selected chose to seat us at a cozy little romantic booth where we had no choice but to sit side-by-side.  We sat there and hoped against hope that none of our co-workers would see us, since it would've looked pretty darn scandalous if they had.  Especially after we ordered a bottle of wine. 

The meeting is going pretty well so far.  We actually recruited a couple of our grad-student members to blog the meeting, and the results have been pretty interesting.  Although I doubt that many of you will be interested, it's here if you want to take a look.  I did contribute one short entry -- it's the third from the bottom.

Comments

[Cathy]

I think the awkwardness of buying underwear while travelling is not so much the perception of being the lover of gay porn but the question of what the purchaser did to soil so badly the underwear that was packed for the trip.

[Julie]

Have you taken a close look at your Esquire magazines lately? If anything gives you that feeling of awkwardness it would be that magazine. Every single advertisement features men that look gay in one way or another.

[yellojkt]

Good cover stating on your blog that the dinner with your coworker was completely platonic. That will fool them.

I'm not buying underwear from a model that looks Homer Simpson.