My breakfast date was sent straight from Central Casting—“Coco’s Dreamboat.” He lives in Southern California and came up to SF for a few days. We had met and chatted online only a few weeks prior to his trek northward. He stopped by my opening Thursday night and while smushing me between himself and Abearius in a Coco Sandwich, asked me to breakfast Saturday. He reminds me of the giant stuffed teddy bear that my kindergarten teacher let us all play on during recess—only he was all mine and I didn’t have to share him with all of those squealing tots. I fell in love. Really, I would have married him. Right then and there. We talked and talked, of ideas and music and art and infectious disease. I giggled like a girl, sappy music played in the background, the world was in soft focus, we embraced… and then off he drove to San Jose for his lunch date.
My lunch date was the terrorist that I told you guys about a few weeks ago—the one whom I thought had read Naguib Mahfooz and seemed to have a good head on his furry shoulders? Well, he not only adores Edina Monsoon, he aspires, unironically, to be her. He picked me up at lunch time to grab a bite before heading out to see my show. He had led me to believe that he was interested in buying my work. In the car, he asked me for a recommendation for his new car—a Maserati or a BMW? “I can spend up to a hundred.” I assumed that he didn’t mean $100, which is closer to what friends of mine have to spend on cars. He said that since his brother-in-law has a Hummer and his sister a BMW, and in his business he needs to drive something appropriate for his position, he needed to buy a gas-guzzling power symbol to display his status. I had thought he was just a bottom.
I was still trying tactfully to educate him on the great opportunity to educate his own circle about our responsibility to our environment and ending our dependence on foreign oil when he blurted out excitedly that he was about to set up production in China on a product that he was getting made for a fraction of the price that it would cost to be made here, “Dahling.” My mouth just dropped to the floor. Here I was with this person who represented everything that is wrong with the world. “Do you know what the real cost of production is in getting something made cheaply in China,” I asked? “I can just replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents, ride the streetcar downtown, and recycle, but you, you can make a real difference….” but I was cut off again. “Dahling, look at that gorgeous little converrrrtible over therrrrre.” I gave up.
At my show, he basically said that he didn’t understand it. He even pointed to the pretty paintings in the back room, “Now that’s art!” He actually said that. On the way back to the car, we walked by one of those dreadful 3-story antique emporiums on Grant Street. A few days ago, Big Chris had asked me, “Could you imagine anyone actually buying anything there?” Well, my little terrorist pulled me over to the window to show me a giant carved quartz eagle, wings spread over a cloisonne globe. “I bought a much larger verrrrsion of this a few years ago. Don’t you love it?” “Well, there is a place for it.”
Finally on the road back to my house, he said, “Dahling, I know something’s wrrrong, what is it? Arrre you okay?” I was thinking “How did I get to this place in my life, with this wretched person? How can humanity be saved?” Instead I smiled and said, “Oh, it’s just having my show up and having worked so hard on it, I’m just a bit exhausted…” blah blah blah. He touched my hand and squeezed it. “I really like spending time with you, Chrrrris.” My “goodbye” has never held such finality.
I had but a few hours to recuperate before dinner with my third date of the day, my Paris Hilton. Seeing his hybrid pull up to my house set my mind at ease, and we motored with a minimal impact on San Francisco’s fragile ecosystem to catch Dan in Real Life. Mick Lasalle, the Chronicle critic–whom he knows, of course–had raved about how inventive the film was, but at every inventive moment, the film steered right back into familiar territory and ended exactly as it was supposed to and the way we all figured it would. It was a fun film, sure, and well-acted, but inventive?
We held hands in the movie, had sushi afterward, and then made out back at the Coco Pad, but I was still too emotionally exhausted from my show opening and my lunch date with the eco-terrorist to let lips or hands stray too haphazardly into any belted or zippered erogenous zones from which there would be no return. We chatted and kissed, chatted and kissed, chatted and kissed. Famous locals kept slipping off his tongue. I’m usually so compelled towards completing a pass that I had to keep thinking up new ways to avoid going to second base. “I’m thirsty, would you like anything to drink?” “I have to pee.” “Is Steve Carell just really good at being depressed or is he a truly versatile actor?” “Are Anna Paquin and Alison Pill the same person?” “Have you packed for your trip yet?” …”Um, Chris, do you realized that you’re talking to me while my tongue is in your mouth?” Finally, he got it and left, his shirt untucked and covering any embarrassing displays of intention as he lumbered down the stairs, and I fell onto my bed… zzzzz.