Dresses and Aliens

After a long day of walking the streets of Hayes Valley I decide its time to eat. I remember going to Hayes Kebab spring semester during one of my photo shoots for photo 2. The thought of mediterranean made my mouth water, and I remember having a pretty dam good gyro there. I walked up to the window of the restaurant and became confused then angry. Hayes Kebab no longer existed. Instead of seats and glorious mediterranean food there were racks filled with frivolous dresses. I stood bewildered just staring into the window.

"Are you looking for something?" somebody asked from behind me.

It was an older man around my height and a heavier set. He explained to me that the store I had been looking into was filled with old dresses from the drag bar down the block. I told him no and proceeded to ask him questions about the neighborhood. I got some good stuff from him. He then asked me if I liked men. I told him no, sorry I like women. The man then told me how difficult it was to come out to his parents, and after that shit started to get deep.

Stories about how is grandma's spirit had visited him and told him to talk to his mother. How he saw spirits during his childhood, and then asked me if I had any experiences with aliens. I told him the truth that I've had dreams about them, but every kid who watches ufo hunters on TLC has had multiple dreams of ET. Apparently this guy has seen several ufo's and communicates telepathically with them. Throughout the conversation all I can do is nod my head and say wow, and sometimes that's crazy. Every time I said that's crazy I hoped I wouldn't provoke an attack from the man. After about thirty minutes of this he had to go to work. I went to shake his hand, but he went in for the hug. The guy had some great info about Hayes Valley, but that was a strange conversation.

A walk through the Hayes

For my reporting class everybody had to pick a district in San Francisco to write on. With the restriction of picking an area of the city you are familiar with I ended up picking Hayes Valley. I've been living in the city for three years now and I had no idea where the hell Hayes Valley was located. So I went online found the district lines and headed to my default favorite area of the city. I rode the 14 from my house on Brazil and Mission all the way to 11th and Mission. I hate riding the 14 with a passion due to its consistent two stops between cross stops. It took me around forty minutes to travel four miles, so my first trip to Hayes Valley was off to a bad start.

After one of the longest bus rides of my life I headed towards my final destination. I'm not a huge fan of the downtown area due to the vast amounts of homeless/not homeless people, so I wasn't too hot on the idea of Hayes Valley, but as soon I crossed Van Ness the world seemed to change for the best. The dark wet feeling of Market Street turned into a warm dry feeling. The sun felt warmer and the sky looked clearer. Sure there were people walking around, and sure there were still homeless people, but there wasn't a constant smell of piss in the air. As I walked around everybody was super friendly. It was as if I had walked into bizarro downtown. I patrolled the outer lines of my area and then the heart of it. When walking past the African Outlet I saw people dancing on the sidewalks with smiles on their faces. This was something I have never witnessed in the city outside of Haight St. Even the homeless people were great. Out of the five I saw the only thing that they asked for was a cup of coffee. So my first impression of Hayes Valley would be comparable of seeing a smoking hot woman. She looks good, but you don't know if she's really messed up in the head.