Homobiles: Breaking My Cherry

I hustled into San Francisco last night to go to Dixie de la Tour's birthday party - it was a big freaking deal, all the Bawdy Storytellers long-time community folks telling Dixie stories, loving on her, roasting her a bit.  I was really nervous about telling my Dixie story because I thought I didn't have one, but as so often happens around her I discovered that I did indeed have something to say, most of which was Thank You.  Dixie has been such a big part of me finding homebase & community here in the Bay.  The fact that she can take my high-pitched enthusiasm about Bawdy & the magical things that happen there and absorb it and want to still be around me for more makes me smile.  We've been offering each other a lot in the way of mutual admiration and we work pretty darn well together.  Dixie & Bawdy have given me a way to find my voice and I can't thank her enough.

The party was a lot of fun and I ended up at a table of rowdy queer troublemakers, so you know I loved that.  But as soon as the party broke up I went to my car, unbuttoned my dress shirt right there on the street & changed into my Homobiles uniform for the night - nerd core T shirt & an Ani Difranco hoodie.  My first call ("a tag") came right away and I was consumed with nervousness about everything - the windows were all smudged, a bird had pooped on the car during the show, the drag queens would maul me for infractions, these sorts of thoughts.  But I quickly settled into an easy rhythm and the dispatcher was very gentle with me.  Thank you to Mitch for still liking me when my phone kept autofilling "min" into "mom."  Somehow this turned into a very unlikely joke between two masculine of center folks who have never met!

Some highlights: talking about the different film versions of Sense & Sensibility with a passenger, a customer telling me to turn the GPS off because "she was the only alpha in the car" and then doing a pitch perfect impression of a GPS from the back seat all the way home.  The drunk straight girl placed carefully in my car by her lesbian friend who proceeded to act as if she was in a more normal cab & complained multiple times to the guy she was on the phone with about how "all the lesbians at the party hit on her" without really clocking the fact that she was being driven around by a butch dyke.  I decided to fully explain what Homobiles was when she asked how much the ride was - that flustered her a bit cause she was expecting a quote & not a mission statement. And the guys who were talking about porn so I decided to chime in by telling them I had repped both Chi Chi LaRue & Colt Studios for years.  I think I have new friends.

The last fare of the night were 5 self described "skinny bitches" who crammed themselves into my car at 5:45 am and proceeded to direct me all over town looking for the after hours club they wanted to go to.  The guy riding up front hijacked my music system with hilarious results - all six of us ended up singing "Careless Whisper" together while flying down the hills.  They found the place after a false start - I had no idea there were parties that started at 6 am but I think I have a lot to learn in that department.

As the hour ended and no new fares popped up I wanted to see the water.  I was planning on watching the sunrise from somewhere devastatingly beautiful and instead ended up driving the one-car Pride parade during the early blush of dawn.  But I found my way down to a fishing pier so I could walk out and really hear & feel the tug of the Bay.  I was underneath the shadow of a ginormous cruise ship which earlier in the dark had startled me, looming up above me like a docked spacecraft all lit up or a small city looming in the water, dazzling in its brightness.  Now it just looked like a massive cruise ship but that's still pretty cool to look at, as much as I would like to never be on one. So I took my pictures (like the one above) and breathed the fresh air, loosened my back & legs, stared dazedly at the sprinklers dousing the flowers and sat in the car to count my money (not bad, by the way).

I still don't really know what this job is going to feel like - will it be too much for my nearly  40 year old body to take this upside-down schedule a few nights a week?  Or will my life-long night owl tendencies plus the pure joy of so much very random social contact, flirting, and meeting new people keep me high enough to avoid the bad crashes?  I know that it will provide a lot of material!  So now I need to go clean a large amount of spilled coke out of my floor mats, take the car to the wash, get a haircut so the back of my head looks sharp from the back seat and get ready for another round tonight.  I can't wait to see what unfolds.


Notes: things I found out I need - more breakfast & over-night coffee & food recommendations, a list of bathrooms & a new Pack & Pee, and a digital camera to capture the things I see in the night (when an iPhone just won't do).