C is for Castro.

No, not the Cuban revolutionary, and as much as I would love to write an “Ode to Isabel”, not her either. The Castro. At least I thought I was going to write about the Castro.  Well, correction, I did write about the Castro. I embarked upon a walking tour of my next-door neighborhood and world famous hotbed and headquarters of acceptance and rainbow flags.  How exciting!  My first destination piece of the summer. I wrote a thrilling, emotion-ridden piece where I preached my feelings about gay marriage and rejoiced in the wonderfulness of San Francisco and of tolerance in general.  It was exhilarating!  But then, shame on me, I committed the ultimate no-no in new blogger etiquette (and well, in life really.)  I had my professional (a.k.a. bossy) writer boyfriend Chris copyedit my writing.

Sigh.

In his fruitless search for missing commas, mixed-up clauses and poor punctuation (thanks, Middlebury!) he did manage to scavenge some, yes, constructively critical suggestions for improvement.  He wanted more of me in the writing.  Something interesting must have happened on your walk, he says.  Did your feet hurt while you were walking?  Did you embarrassingly drop a pair of edible underwear in front of a shop attendant? Well no, darling, it was just a normal walk into the Castro: I got a Phil’z coffee, a woman at the puppy adoption booth set up outside the B of A offered me some hand sanitizer, I pondered getting a manicure at the Hand Job nail salon, and then on my way up to the library I walked past a guy wearing a very revealing pair of running shorts (no underwear).  A relatively benign Castro experience if you ask me.

So, was it not interesting to go on a rant about Prop 8?  Am I not allowed to shout out to the world about gay rights?  He might find the mundane anecdotes about my neighborhood walk interesting to read, but surely a political statement is more thought-provoking.  But alas, he threw a brand new, blood-red sock into my load of white laundry, and there was no turning back.

Here’s to the Castro, to Chris, and to copyediting.

P.S. Enjoy the photos of my Castro-hopping.

P.P.S. If anyone wants to read the original, flawlessly written editorial, please let me know.