Saturday, April 12, 2008
Brunch at Cove Cafe with Patrick, Danny, Drew, Phil, Nate, and Chris. Bought a heating pad at Walgreen's for Patrick's mom—she's having some minor lower back pain. Patrick and I were planning to do a photo shoot in Golden Gate Park but his allergies have been bad lately and we aborted our plan at the last minute. Dropped off the heating pad. Patrick dropped me off on Market Street and then went home to remain indoors away from potential allergens. I took the F train to Powell Street and went shopping. I first stopped in to Hollister—my first time shopping there. How does this store stay in business? It was so poorly lit that I had to use my keychain flashlight to see the price tags! I understand the concept of mood lighting, but this is ridiculous! I wanted to return to the store another day with the head lamp I bought for spelunking last year, but I think even that wouldn't be bright enough to see colors accurately. I think clothes might have fit me here, but it was too difficult to shop here and only one salesperson—a tall, young, handsome Asian guy—was on the floor in the dudes section, and I'm too used to $8 polo shirts that fit me at H&M boys—the prices here seemed like I'd be throwing money away. After this, I went to H&M boys and bought 3 short-sleeved polo shirts (2 at $7.90 each, 1 at $9.90), 3 packs of socks (two 5-packs at $7.90, one 3-pack at $4.90). Music was a kind of hip-hop which I did not like very much. I left H&M at about 2:03 PM (according to the register's clock). Went to The Gap—it was my first time in a long time. I hadn't been since long before their recent remodel. I am guessing that their current staff has recently taken some new customer service training or retraining. Everyone was very pleasantly helpful without being overbearing, and it was such a pleasant change that it surprised me. They still don't carry much of my sizes—I saw no extra smalls or belts sized 30 or 32 in the mens department. But I did find khakis on sale that looked like they might be a good fit or a starting point for alterations—$27. In the boys department I found XXL t-shirts that fit me on sale 2 for $15. I also found an embroidered white XL (size 12 boys) short-sleeved casual dress shirt that I liked which I was happy to pay a little more than usual for—$25. The boys department is rather a forgotten place here—it's isolated without its own register and only an occasional salesperson and though there are dressing rooms they were locked with no one nearby to service them. It's as though corporate said, "We don't make much of anything from boys clothes so let's focus on the other departments and just keep the boys shelves from getting bare." The music was improved over my last visit around Christmas. At least 3 separate times during my visit salespeople offered to check the warehouse or other stores for additional sizes, and in all cases they were unsuccessful. In one case, a salesperson went in the back for a size which was out on the floor right under our noses—I don't know why he did that. Maybe he presumed I had looked through the pile already, but he was watching me the whole time, and I hadn't even had a chance before we started talking. I left The Gap at about 3:43:50 PM (according to the register's clock) and went to Bistro Burger for a cheeseburger royale with cheddar (meat: medium) and a glass of water. Receipt says 3:55 PM. Bought DVD-R discs from the Apple Store, which does not obviously print the time on their receipts. Home. Rested for about 25 minutes. Went to PDD's for dinner: chinese takeout. Chris, Nate, and Carlos also attending. We watched Relax, It's Just Sex (1998) on DVD. Learned what a spit take is from imdb and Google's define function. Backfilled journal entries for San Diego.