Tapia's Birthday + Breaking Zowie's Castro Virginity

Even though last Friday was the longtime scheduled reunion for me, Zowie, Joel, and Chris, the weather remained torrentially wet and annoyingly windy. Well, in Berkeley at least. So much so that poor Zowie, who had to borrow my gigantic Cal umbrella, found herself chasing wildly after it (while trying to extract cash from an ATM) when a huge gust of wind carried it conveniently to a homeless man but not before it got completely destroyed in the process. Nature is powerful, yeah?

While on BART, we run into Ben (White House housemate) and at the Montgomery Station, Laura purchases a new umbrella (ella.. ella…) before we brave the wind and rain on our trek to North Beach. Actually, I overexaggerate. It wasn’t that windy (because that would be uncomfortably terrible) but I did have one of those car-drives-by-you-and-you-get-doused-in-street-water-moments which was not cool. Nevertheless, we were happy and in great spirits until we saw Chris’s face. Just kidding.
After some internet searching, I chose a place called Bocce Café, which as it turned out was a lovely little place with live jazz on the weekends and Fridays. Spacious, with a fairly pleasant waitstaff and rustic ambiance, it was just the cozy escape we needed from the incessant rainfall. Joel and I opted for the salad, which was surprisingly good and Zowie ordered a rigatoni with eggplant. Chris, being Chris ordered the filet mignon and because he is a fatty begged Joel to split a pizza with him. Hmm... I wonder if I'm really this mean to Chris in person too...

Obviously, no trip to Little Italy is complete with dessert at Steps of Rome so we did just that. I can still remember our gorgeous Italian waiter saying "And for you, beautiful beautiful beautfiul ladies ." Zowie and I nearly ovulated on the spot.

After Steps of Rome, Alex (aka "way too hot for Chris") swooped us up out of Little Italy in his fancy Exterra (complete with a GPS system that speaks in a British accent). Here, we begin my virgin experience in the Castro:

Stepping out of the car, I was greeted by a window display of gay porn - which inevitably provoked a conversation as to whether or not the man on the fireman poster had received ass implants.

Our first stop was "The Bar." Walking into the narrow hallway everything was Red, Red, Red. First round of drinks ordered, and it was off to the smoking room for a photo shoot inspired by the camara Alex received from Chris for Christmas:

The Derek

The Profile

The Candid

After our stronger than your average straight bar drinks, we were feeling a little anxious and relocated to "The Cafe" for dancing.

As a Castro virgin, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from a dance club -- and I think Puma speaks for both of us when she said "I wish I were a gay man!" The scene breaks down as follows: Walk up a flight of stairs -- bar on the right pool table on the left -- the pool table was not for playing pool, rather, it served as a dance floor for naked boys (their ass-less underwear hardly qualified as clothing) shaking and shimmying to a level of sexiness that I could only dream of -- The bar on the right had two more boys kicking the Coyote Ugly out of Tyra Banks -- Behind the staircase was the dance floor packed with people and movie screens with more naked boys -- up the stairs to the left we found yet another pool table used as a dance floor and another bar (which gladly gave me my fatal shot Patron)

Puma, Chris, Joel and I danced well into the morning while taking several breaks to tip our pool table dancing friends:
Towards the end of the night we randomly run into White House Ben at The Cafe! In need of a ride home, he joined us in our post-Cafe mayhem. This part is a bit of blur to me, but if my memory serves me correctly, Puma, Ben, and I went to two different pizza places while Joel and Alex herded Chris around the Castro streets -- Chris felt the need to run up and down the streets yelling "White People!" while running into trash cans and street signs.

But alas, with me passing out at the car, we arrived safely at the White House in the wee hours of the morning feeling exhausted and content.