And I'm back...

I got a little quiet there, more than a little overwhelmed.  Each night driving for Homobiles is an adventure, each night has lines or moments that could be spun into short stories or, ahem, blog posts.  And I'm a little awed by it and at the same time worrying about the practical end of things - driving all over San Francisco for hours on end is hard on your brakes.  And struts. And steering, etc etc.  I love the community service part of it, the connection with random and not-so-random people (I LOVE it when my friends book me!).  Sometimes crazy stuff happens and I think "Can I really write about that?  Will it get me in trouble?"  When telling the stories out loud I catch myself toning it down, sort of underplaying the bizarre carnival that happens in my car most nights.

Sure there's some self-preservation involved.  And not wanting people to be scared for me or worried too much (did THAT post already!).  I'm scrawling down notes as it unfolds and need to sit down and just write my balls off, some of it not intended for public consumption, other bits just needing some time to pass before sharing.  Also, I don't want to just write about Homobiles, even though it is the gateway drug I have been dying for.  It has uncorked me, made the need to write so apparent in my skin that it twitches, makes me hunger for the pen and the keyboard.  I moved to California with the intention of pushing myself to write, to get published, to use my real name or maybe not.  So thank you late night San Francisco for pushing me over the edge.

You want a few moments, a little taste?  Here's two:

Quote from the back seat "Do you mind if we do mushrooms in your car? They're in chocolate so it's not vegan."  The concern was palpably for the use dairy products more than the hallucinogens.  

Monday late night/early morning it is often just me out there and I was running late having mistaken 15th Street for 15th Avenue when agreeing to pick someone up from the ER - a fairly big difference in driving time.  I swing around Dolores Park in the dark, brakes squealing, and pull up to fetch two men and two small children on the way to the airport.  People on airport pickups really don't like to be late.  Nor should they have to be!  So I was very apologetic and just kind of tried to disappear in the traffic flow and music from the speakers.  The guy in the front seat started humming along to an old school Price jam.  We talked music a bit, what's good to listen to at dawn versus earlier in the shift, nice and easy chat.  We pull up at the terminal, they decide to pay with a credit card, I whip out my newly purchased iPhone plug-in for exactly that purpose and open the app, which displays my name across the top.  The guy sitting in my front seat pops out with "Hey, you're Holly Fogleboch, you went to Hampshire."  I stare at his face, shocked and trying to roll back 19 years, and guess wrong (totally embarrassing but not a bad guess, Michael I'll bump into you one night!). He tells me his name, and of course it clicks into place, we've actually been Facebook friends for a while, I just was not looking for him in the front seat of my own car.  He was the first person I saw do really subversive, mindbending drag and his Div III show (Hampshire for senior thesis) has always stayed in the back of my mind.  It was a delight to see him, so I hopped out of the car for a hug.  I look a little more carefully at each face now, presume connection when there might not be any but really, would it take even two degrees to find a link?