I was at an embassy luncheon in San Francisco. It was first class all the way, caviar canapes, vodka flights, and snifters of brandy. The high life, these are the circles I run in and why not.
If you grease enough wheels or even just polish the right ego, then an ambassadorship to some low maintenance country can be yours! Besides flying first class, transporting all the drugs and explosives you can smuggle (no one looks!), there are parties galore with the movers, shakers, and palm greasers across the globe.
It was at this soiree in San Francisco that I was introduced to Kim Jong-un. People were just tip-toeing around the guy. I can't help but poke fun in these situations so when introduced. I said, "You're the guy lobbing nukes around." Kim Jong-un looked at me in surprise and we chatted about the city and North Korea. "Is dim-sum a thing there?"
The afternoon wound down and I walked out of the embassy, through the columns and down the marble steps to the street. Kim (I could call him Kim now) came rushing out and down the stairs to walk with me as I headed towards Golden Gate Park on my way home.
Mr. Jong-un grabbed my forearm and was pulling me along the path in the park. For a moment I thought I was being kidnapped into North Korean slavery. Doing what? Laundry? I thought they were already good at that.
"What are you doing?" I asked, highly annoyed. Kim looked at me puzzled, and let go.
After we walked in silence for a bit, he tentatively reached out and held my hand. We strolled on like that for a ways. No one seemed to notice that this was Kim Jong-un and why would they? It made no sense. Here was this guy, the size of a Presto log, dressed like The Littlest Communist, walking hand in hand with a young, vivacious, and utterly gorgeous blond through Golden Gate Park.
"Kim. You can't hold my hand. I have a boyfriend so it's not OK." Kim looked crestfallen and let go. I attempted small-talk but he would just look up at me with those inquisitive, shy, and slightly sad eyes.
He reached for my hand again.
"No, Kim. You cannot hold my hand. Put your arm out, you can escort me."
"But escorting is for old ladies."
"It doesn't matter, Kim. I have a boyfriend so you cannot hold my hand but you can escort me."
We continued on across the park until we reached my painted lady Victorian home along the panhandle. The 3rd floor was my apartment.
"I want to see all of it."
"What, Kim?"
"I want to see all of it. This building. I do not see anything like it in my home. What is the top like? What is the bottom like?"
I showed Kim my flat and my bedroom with the big pink fluffy comforter. And then my roommate's, with her Vogue covers and Robert Mapplethorpe on the walls.
We went downstairs to the basement door so Kim could see "what the bottom of the house looked like." But when I opened the door the stairs were gone, having crashed away as water was pouring through a wall and filling the basement. My roommate, Janice Dickinson appeared and tossed a bag of garbage past me into the abyss.
"Oh. You know Kim Jong-un," she sniffed, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
