Independence Day

Well that was great fun.

Today was one of those rare holidays when I had a vague plan and everything went far better than I expected.

Sometime around noon I eventually meandered into the City (for the uninformed, "the City" is what we in the Bay Area call San Francisco. I don't know why they get a capital 'C', but that's just how it is.).

I met up with Steve and his lovely girlfriend Lisa and we made our way to the Fillmore Jazz Festival where we ate, drank, listened to music, and generally enjoyed ourselves. I even bought a new hat. It looks rather hipster-ish but fits me and matches my attire. I was assured often throughout the day that the hat doesn't look bad.

But I digress.

So we met up with a couple of Lisa's friends later in the afternoon. I can't remember their names, but we hung out with them for a bit then went to grab some Thai food for dinner. Afterward, Steve, Lisa, and I considered our options:

- See fireworks at Crissy Field
- See fireworks at Pier 39
- Come up with a Plan C

That's when one of Lisa's friends invited us to a party in North Beach. So we went and did Plan C.

I'm not really much of a party person. I don't do small talk well in SF socialite crowds. I'm more into chatting up geeky stuff like "Firefly" or discussing the merits of applying Parkour to an urban area or talking about what I'd do with an invincible android army or crap like that.

In summary, I'm a big kid. I'm not really suited for "grown up" parties where folks are discussing opera, comparing wine vintages, raving about swing dancing studios, or whatever.

All the same, I enjoyed myself at this one. It was, as I've come to learn, a typical party for "my generation". Kind of glommed together at the last moment and an invite of any kind of urbanish professional within a decade of my age group for networking, matchmaking, etc.

The actual hostess was busy when we arrived, so the "co-hostess" settled us and the three of us wound up chatting most with her over the evening. That was fine with me. She was very attractive and quite an entertaining conversationalist. She and Lisa certainly got along well. Steve mingled better with others than I did, but that's not really news.

By the end of the evening, we were all added to some kind of email invite list for semi-monthly gatherings or whatever. Kind of nice. We'll see how this goes.

We all hoofed it up to Coit Tower and watched the fireworks finally. Nice show. At the end, the group was migrating on to another bar but I was tired, low on cash, and had enough booze. I wanted to face the hordes at BART and get home.

Oddly enough, there weren't hordes. Now I'll just have my sleep interrupted by fireworks all night long.