2nd Year of Fog City Living

So a few weeks after the Hungarian and Big Head, I met my Irish friend's brother, the Irish Lad. Oh the epic tale of this man. On our first date, I stayed the night with him. It was late on a Saturday, and we couldn't get a cab and his neighbor had blocked him in the garage. He offered to sleep on the couch, but I was comfortable with him, so we bunked together. We didn't kiss. I slept like a rock which I never do by myself let alone with a new boy, so I knew something was different. We woke up the next morning ate breakfast in bed. We fell back asleep. We woke up and gabbed, played with the dog, and fell BACK asleep. It was comfortable from the start.
A few weeks later was the Mission Armory party. My Irish friend who worked for the commercial real estate firm I worked for, was the agent who was handling the sale of this controversial building. The owner; the Hungarian, who I hadn't dated in over a month. So the party's in full swing with Willie Brown, protesters, camera crews and yours truly as the greeter at the front door. There was a documentary made about it called Boom and I have about 3 seconds of screen time. So the Hungarian proceeds to get hammered and hides my purse so that when I'm ready to leave I can't. I rally a couple of friend's and we search his studio until I find it wedged between his bed and the wall. He begs me to come back later and stay with him and I sternly protest. I went home, went to bed, and at around 2:30 in the morning my roommate comes in and says that he's been ringing the door buzzer for a while now. And then I hear him yelling my name outside and telling me he can't live without me yadda, yadda, yadda. Finally my roomie picked up the phone and told him I wasn't there, she was sleeping, please go away. The next morning there were 26 messages on my machine, his drunken blabber about my being off with someone else, he's ready for me now.... Drama King!
I continued to hang out with the Irish Lad. As we spent more time together, I continued to date other guys, and he commented on how cool it was that I wasn't looking for anything serious because neither was he, we were in the same place. I asked if he was dating anyone else and he said that he had a little crush on a friend of his, but they hadn't kissed or anything so he didn't know what was going to happen. So when I met him, this friend had just left for about 3 months, so for three months we were inseparable. I've never felt anything so right in my all my life. We were close, comfortable, silly, adventurous, perfect together. In August I went to Burning Man, and the week I was gone was the week his friend was supposed to be coming back. I knew what he had said about her before, but I was confident that the last few months with me would lay to rest any rush he had on her.
My first Burning Man. I am a force of nature I swear because it's hotter than hell on the playa but the year I go, we have record lows and rain! I had started my period the day we got there so I was crabby, and my camp was a bunch of druggy freaks that I didn't know so well. The last day was warm and sunny and it actually made up for the first 3 days of agony. I visited the Tom Jones camp which was constructed of panties, I played at the trampoline camp, I watched a girl running around the playa with a vacuum trying to 'get this place cleaned up', all the while walking around in nothing but a tiara and a sash that read Miss Chievious. I would randomly hug people and ask them if they could belive that I had won! I ran into the Hungarian and his girlfriend, who politely invited me to come hang out at their camp. Poor girl.
Upon my return to SF I was faced with the Irish Lad's indecision. He said that he hadn't thought about his friend the whole time we were together, but now that she was back he felt torn. I gave him space (if you love someone..) and we hung out a few more times, him expressing how much he like me and how understanding I was, but eventually he said he wouldn't make a decision to choose one or the other so he was going to stop hanging out with both of us.
In October I held my 1st Annual Family Feast. A nice dinner with people who mean a great deal to me. Not acquaintances, but true friends that I consider my community, my family. There were 14 of us at the BitterRoot and it was beautiful. It was so nice to know people that I respected, that would do anything for me, that I would do anything for. This was a big change from the party crowd I ran with in Virginia.
Next was my 2nd Castro Halloween. Holy bajeezus was it fun. This year it peaked at 500,000 characters. I decided that no matter where I live, I want to spend my Pagan New Year in SF every year! I had a fetish Alice in Wonderland costume made by stitchbitch, a girl I found on craigslist who is now a super good friend. The costume made the portfolio section of her website, she is a magnificently talented designer. She introduced me to her Wednesday night Ladees Nite group, a wonderful gathering of positive, proactive women. They have become a huge support system for me!
In December I went to the Irish Lad's sister's holiday party and he was unexpectedly there. He was glued to me the whole evening. He snuck into the bathroom while I was in there and we broke down about how much we missed each other. He said he was mixed up but he asked if I'd give him a year to sort things out. Then he said it was unfair to ask that of me (damn straight) but I clung to that glimmer of hope that when he was ready for a relationship, he would want it to be me. Later in the month I went to Santa Cruz and spent the Winter Solstice with my friend Saucy. We went to a beautiful beach and dug little holes to drop tea lites in, she called the installation Bringing In The Light. We must have lit a thousand lites with fewer people than expected and drizzle. In the end it formed a beautiful dancing angel shape, and one girl fire danced on the shoreline. We shared a picnic and explored a near by cave, it was such a moving experience.