Allein! Weh, ganz allein.
5 March
I didn't sleep very well. Kept waking on the hour, every hour, from about 3am onwards. And then I was fully awake from about 6:30am. I guess it will take a few days before my sleeping patterns slip into Pacific Coast time.
So I went downstairs, drank water, looked at maps and waited for Chris's alarm to go off and for him to wake up. We grabbed a couple of hours of talking that way before he headed off to work. This turned out to be a very good thing as I got to grips with the fact that from Saturday afternoon Chris would be heading off to Grenoble and then Milan for work so I won't see him again for the rest of the holiday. This is what doctors the world over call a complete pisser.
I remember when I was 17 waking up on my own in Oxford and just glowing with the excitement of a new city to explore. But I also remember being 33 on my own in Ibiza and nearly going stir crazy 'til I made contact with other folk. I'm worried at the outset that I won't like my own company.
But I didn't hang about too late. I bathed and shaved and then I wandered up 6th Street, which, as Chris had predicted, wasn't very pleasant. But it brought me out onto Market near to the San Francisco Visitor Information Centre on Hallidie Plaza where I remember Rod and Dale and I buying bus passes three years ago. I repeated the performance and also picked up a variety of leaflets so that I can work out what I am going to do with myself over the coming fortnight.
That done, I went clothes shopping. Ross's jeans and Robert's Nike trainers. I spent time in Macey's - they had a sale. I was tempted. But I resisted. I dunno. I felt that there may be better bargains elsewhere. I needed to consult. But I did do lunch downstairs in their basement brunch bar. The food was fine but the floor staff hovered and snatched my plates away the moment I had finished even though the place was not full and there was no queue waiting. So, I decided definitely not to make any purchases and went elsewhere.
In Virgin Records, I picked up Ian's 40th birthday present - Styx's Greatest Hits - don't ask me, this is someone else's musical tastes we are talking about. Apparently, the CD is unavailable in the UK and will be much appreciated back home.
Myself, I struck lucky and precipitated myself upon a copy of Il Trovatore. Now,
given that I already possess 5 or 6 copies of this particular opera, you may be asking
yourselves why I should be in need of another? Well, dearest reader, this particular
rendition uses the later French final scene. Now, I am sure that that means little to
most of the people who read this Journal but, rest assured, the squeaking sound that you
can hear out there in the twilight world of the opera queen is the sound of sphincters
tightening. 
In actual fact, the differences are not enormous but they fully justify the $10 that I lashed out to buy the disks. And to cap it all, it's a rather wonderfully full-blooded performance. So, I'm well satisfied all round.
My purchases complete, I took myself off on the F Line Streetcar to the Castro and wandered round there for a while trying for Colin's request of CDs of The Ballad of Baby Doe to no avail so I just generally shopped. It was good being back on home turf as it were. But I didn't feel the same sense of arrival as I did last time I was here. And I didn't enter every shop and encounter a purchasing opportunity screaming at me from every corner. And I didn't feel like a dog with two dicks given the amount of men around. Maybe I am older and wiser, maybe just older. And maybe I am here for different reasons this time.
Anyhow, I mooched happily for an hour or more and then went for some more food at a gay eatery. I declined the Sloppy Joe (don't ask me - it's either something to do with mince and a tomato sauce on rye bread or the waiter was having an off day) and went for the meatloaf instead which turned out to be a roast dinner with the mashed potato on top of the meat and lots of gravy poured all over it - I don't think that it was traditional.
And so the journey back to SoMa/Mission Bay. Well, I thought, I have this bus pass so I shall use it and I launched myself onto the first bus going in a reasonably correct direction and two buses later found myself back near Union Square and briefly in Border's (which is much better than the London variety) and then another bus brought me home (as I must temporarily call this abode). And a day by myself hasn't been that bad.
I've been using Chris's computer to type this up. It has a German keyboard. The Z and the Y have changed places. The apostrophe is keyed indifferently. And there are some other differences. It has been a challenge. There are 79 Ys and 33 apostrophes in this text. Good job I don't touch type. Oops. 80 and 34.