Trans/plant/portation

My premiere gay parade took place in Syracuse, New York, in the early 90s, heralding the theme of Out*Rage*Us, which hopefully is self-explanatory as a message. We were 300 brave-enough-to-march souls: the owner of My Sister’s Words, the feminist bookstore, several students and staff from Syracuse University, a few employees of Carrier air conditioners, a few more from the local Phillips Magnavox factory, and some other locals. We took all morning to ready some jury-rigged floats and signs, and marched down what was likely the shortest parade route I’ve ever seen—four blocks in Syracuse’s downtown. The actual marching was over in minutes. We didn’t even have a chance to get bunched up as paraders, and that never gets avoided. It would be a couple of years before I would march in New York City’s Pride parade and if this was a triumphant moment for a newbie gay, that was like being dropped in the middle of Mecca at pilgrimage time.

Many years later, I moved to DC and grimaced every time I saw the “Capital” Pride signs. It’s Capitol, people, like the place, not like the investment. Whatever, they stick with this egregious error like it’s a tradition. Maybe nobody wants to buy out whoever owns capitolpride.org.

I’ve gone to this DC parade at least a half dozen times since I moved here, and it’s always the same:

• It’s totally over-commercialized. I swear I have heard an MC at the musical stage, next to the actual Capitol building, proclaim, “Welcome to DC Pride, sponsored by Absolut! and Bank of America! Because every LGBT-identifying person needs to be drunk while wielding a checking account. What? This year they even had a “float” for Frito-Lay. Frito-freakin-Lay, people. This “float” was a Frito-Lay delivery truck with some rainbow flags duct-taped to the sides. This is what Susanne refers to as a “phoned in” float, cuz I know that truck just ditched the flags and turned the corner onto Massachusetts to make deliveries to the Giant Foods store like it’d never been throwing bags of Doritos into the streets for free. Damn closeted Frito-Lay truck.
• It’s too hot to cheer. I understand the Stonewall Inn riots happened on June 28, 1969. It was New York City’s finests’ problem that they pissed people off in the heat. And now it’s every queermo’s problem, as we stand around fanning ourselves with moist paper, waiting for an interesting float to pass by, or at least the DC Cowboys. They shoulda done better at the America’s Got Talent show. If they can stay synchronized on a moving truck bed, well, that would throw people like Susan Boyle, I bet. The heat melts us all so quickly, even with the parade starting at 6:30, the best we can do is attempt to remain vertical, although clapping does generate a pithy breeze.
• There are too many straight people. I can tell that DuPont isn’t the gay central it used to be, because I saw a hell of a lot of confused-looking straightniks yesterday, walking across the street, some of them in the middle of say, marching bands. People, that is rude as all get out! Pretend just for this evening that you’re afraid of us, okay? Next thing you know they’ll be pushing their baby strollers through Robert Novak’s funeral procession. I bet that actually happened.
• Too many politicians come a’calling. Every single person running for every single office in a 40-mile radius was in the parade yesterday. The current mayor. The wannabe mayors. The folks running for council. The council-at-large contenders. Sheesh, I just wanted them to go away. Ain’t nobody gonna vote for them just because they showed up for the Big Gay Parade. It’s a Democratic city, you better be gay-friendly! Walking in a parade is the least you can do, especially when your GLBT Affairs Office does nothing for the community (I’m looking at you, Fenty).
• Confusion regarding what kind of parade this was. All of the aforementioned politicians brought with them mardi gras beads, each some kind of color that was supposed to indicate which politician one supported. In this regard, it was coincidental that many of the folks running for office had colors for surnames: Orange, Gray, Brown. But clearly, the most gay-friendly pols were the ones who tossed us rainbow-colored necklaces. Susanne remarked that no way was she going to flash anyone for beads.

We watched, we waited, we saw all manner of church groups trolling for more congregants—excuse me, recruiting, excuse me communicating about their services—and we began wondering where the leather-clad men wearing chaps were all at. It’s not a gay parade without furry butts to avoid seeing.

At some point, our feet began signaling their discomfort, but there was nary a bench or spare spot of curb. The parade was in full tilt, bands of PFLAG people, united Methodists, gay foreign service workers (only in DC’s parade), and the always lively Different Drummers. Very few activist groups, and certainly none of the intentional freaks of the April Fool’s Day Parade in San Francisco graced the asphalt. If conservatives like Rush and Ann Coulter are concerned for the revolutionary potential of this assembly, rest assured they need not be.

The parade was drawing down, and I heard someone near me catch their breath. Up in the sky, a rainbow. A real rainbow.

Apparently God showed up at the event!

This post contains adult content.

There were a few odd moments on our 3,500-mile journey to DC, not the least of which was the “I have no guilt” stockbroker cheering on the recession in Lava Hot Springs, ID.

Then there were the children, all through Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. Screaming children, temper tantrum-having children, sobbing, inconsolable about something children. There was even one kid who started hitting his mother while Old Faithful was going off, because she wanted to watch it and he, apparently, wanted to do something else. Buy some moose fudge, maybe. Note to self: if my 3-year-old is hitting me or Susanne, I will need to rethink my parenting approach.

We noticed out in the wild West that many things that call themselves “hotels,” “inns,” and “suites,” are in reality, motels. If you drive up to your room’s door, it’s a motel, people. It’s okay to be a motel. Don’t worry, motel owners, that people still think Psycho when they see you. I don’t really care if it’s a motel or hotel if the inside of my rented room is nice, and free of a boil water notice (it’s happened before).

The Corn Palace, in addition to serving as basketball arena, community center, and kitsch emporium, is also a venue for corn-created ethanol gas. There were two or three displays about ethanol with some misrepresentation of corn’s value—corn is actually the toughest crop to turn into the substance, with switchgrass being one of the easiest. I also didn’t care for the subject-verb agreement of the following sentence that was in one of the displays: Guess where livestock gets their food?

Collective nouns, people! Livestock is a collective noun, like army, staff, or herd.

But the winner of our strange, hilarious, bizarre moments on the road belongs to whoever owns this car:

This was in the parking lot of Old Faithful. Lemme tell you about some old faithful!

I think I prefer seeing a daisy in the bug-standard flower vase.

After seeing the Grand Teton and Yellowstone parks, I wondered if my retinas could take in any more amazing landscapes. Not to worry, apparently we had Bighorn National Forest and Badland National Park to get through, and those blew me away. Before last summer I’d never had occasion to climb around the side of a mountain high enough that I could gaze down on all of it like an eagle. And though I’ll always love my Jersey shore and the calm I feel just listening to the Atlantic surf, I also think I’ll never tire of the euphoria of being at the top of a mountain chain. If I wasn’t such an accident-prone scaredy cat, I’d seriously think about climbing to an actual peak.

We headed out from Cody, Wyoming, after our quality time with Old Faithful and its friends, first stopping at the local Albertson’s to get a few provisions. It was there that the cashier told me that 9 people had been struck by lightning at Old Faithful just two days earlier. Egads! And nobody was talking about it when we were there, not that I walked up to the rangers and asked if there had been any bizarre accidents near the geyser lately.

The actual spewing of sulfury goodness was pretty fun to watch. Old Faithful should have a subtitle of The Big Tease, because it spews a little and stops, vapor billowing out the whole time, then some more water, back and forth until kablam! the thing is off to the races. An annoying guy who kept trying to make eye contact with me had a devil of a time trying to capture a photo of the lead-in frothing before the big release, but he kept failing because he insisted on turning off his camera between attempts at getting a shot. People, charge up your camera batteries before you attempt to take pictures for hours. Or just buy a nice, professional photo in the visitor’s center. They have plenty.

So with our educations edified about the safety hazards of Jellystone, we departed our friendly grocery store and started pushing eastward again. We’d gone a ways from the main interstate to get into the national parks, so  we were cutting our way back when we spotted a small post office. I for one love small post offices, for several reasons, including the lack of long lines and the earnestness of the service—smacking just the tiniest amount of desperation to see another human being, but mostly just free from the crushing bitterness that comes with being a public servant in a busy, crowded office. We pulled into the parking lot, which had three spaces in it, and headed inside.

A lovely transgender postmistress greeted us, and we chatted with her for a few minutes as we figured out our postage needs. It’s always hard for me in those kinds of moments not to jump up and down and do a trans dance, but truth be told, there is no ballet of the trans, as much as I’d like for there to be one. And there’s no way not to sound creepy with any such announcement, so I just bit my tongue, trying my best to look extremely happy to procure stamps. We left, wondering what it is like for her in a town with a stated population of less than 100. Were people supportive? Had she lived here her whole life? It didn’t escape us that her employment came from the federal government and not say, from the local farmer’s cooperative or some other local business. She was cheery and smart, and I figured she’d won most everybody over with her charisma, but maybe I just like thinking that. We were fairly satisfied that we’d met the GLBT community for the tiny town, if not the vast majority of it.

Maybe I’ll send her a postcard sometime and tell her how much I appreciated the experience, but probably that’s still too creepy.

Eventually we made it to a 75mph road and triumphantly made our way into South Dakota. This meant we drove through Bighorn National Forest, which looked like this:

Yeah, that was what we thought, too. We had set our compass for Mt. Rushmore, mostly because we didn’t think we could miss it while driving this close to it, but also to see what we presumed would be grandeur and awe. As opposed to shock and awe, which neither of us, frankly, would drive to experience.

Roughly 2.7 million people visited the monument last year, which means that nearly 3 million folks were disappointed in spending the $10 parking fee to see some sculptor’s ego carved into the rock. The guy was a little kooky, preparing to sculpt “famous Americans” and put them into a vault called the Hall of Records for what, some alien civilization to discover? Something that would stand the test of time after we’ve obliterated ourselves from the face of the earth? I don’t get it.

We saw the monument, and I didn’t appreciate it because it was football fields away from me, giving me to sense of its real size. The curating of the exhibits were fourth grade level and didn’t answer any of my questions about why those presidents, why that order. I much prefer the Lincoln Monument in DC, the FDR Memorial, the exhibits that allow some kind of intimacy with the work and the subject, but I grant [sic] that that’s just me.

Next up was the Corn Palace, which not one but five friends insisted we stop and see on our drive. The last time I listened to such pushiness was for taking the Maid of the Mist in Niagara Falls, and it didn’t let me down. So naturally I presumed this would be pretty awesome in all of its kitchy-ness.

It wasn’t. While once upon a time the corn palace was completely redone every year, now only the panels on the building change, and they’re mildly interesting, but not interesting enough to warrant driving through Mitchell, the townies of which must just hate all of us tourists. It was fun enough, and I remarked that it was better than Mt. Rushmore because we didn’t have to pay for parking and we got some very tasty popcorn to boot.

Finally, we hit Sioux Falls on the east side of the state and met up with my friend Anna for lunch at the Phillips Avenue Diner. Note to everyone: fried cheese curds are an excellent bad for you snack, and I recommend them when they’re on the menu. Sioux Falls had an interesting feel to it, somewhere between Portland’s sprawl and the downtown of a small city, like Savannah. Anna showed us the actual falls, which cascade over pink quartz. I can not believe how much rock there is in the United States. Why don’t we export more rock? Where is the rock economy? Nobody is talking about rock getting us out of this recession, and we’re sitting on so much of it! We have to play to our strengths, people.

Clearly, it is time for breakfast. Pictures galore in the next post.

We’ve been through four hotels in as many nights, and after our repeated exposure, I’m now prepared to say a few things about the Tourist of the West, at least as far as hoteliers are concerned. Using the set ups of our rooms as indirect indicators, I’ve deduced the following:

1. Tourists in the West like extremely hot showers. If you are not a Tourist of the West, you need only turn the shower dial three-quarters of a scant inch to get the water in the hot tub range of 100–103.
2. They are likely to bring along their small-to-medium size dog, even to national parks where the rangers tell them that those dogs only look like tasty snacks to the bears. Because clearly, they aren’t just dogs to the Tourist in the West, they’re part of the family. Would you leave your little sister at home while you go on vacation? (That’s rhetorical.)
3. They still smoke. Nothing cuts through the crisp air of Wyoming and Idaho like a fresh Marlboro.
4. They appreciate the free continental breakfast. Even the 2.5 star motels have a free continental breakfast of Costco-purchased food. Nothing says roughing it like making your own burned waffle while CNN plays on a communal television.
5. The Tourist in the West either doesn’t noticed or has actually caused every bed in the hotel/motel circuit to be as lumpy as spoiled cottage cheese. Perhaps using topographical maps as beds is a form of massage that I simply haven’t yet noticed.
6. The Tourist in the West likes to fancy herself a horse-riding, white water-rafting expert, although it would appear that she has done neither in a long, long time. The people out there riding horses and braving the Snake River seem to be different tourists altogether.
7. The Tourist in the West likes to wear a ball cap from a college they attended roughly 40 years ago, or a ball cap from some relative or friend’s college attended roughly 20–40 years ago. This is because they think, it appears, that they are thus wearing a conversation piece on their head. DO NOT engage the Tourist in the West in any conversation, however, unless you have half an hour to kill.

Now then, back to my vacation! We’re going to see Mt. Rushmore today, and thus discover why South Dakota’s tourism revenue far, far exceeds that of North Dakota.

Another brief run-down in numbers of our trip. We’ve now spotted:

• a beaver, who regarded us from about 10 yards away and let us get a couple of good pictures
• a white wolf, who went running by our car on the side of the road at the Grand Tetons
• two bald eagles, separate sightings
• a hawk or osprey, who flew away when we got too close
• a mountain blue bird, who literally posed for me
• at least 30 bison, one of whom walked next to our car
• an elk couple, gnawing on some grass
• a grizzly bear, too tired to stand so decided flopping over on his side was preferable
• a couple pronghorn sheep on the side of a cliff

The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone are really incredible, simply put. There are so many different kinds of features I have a hard time fathoming that we’re in the same 300,000 acre area. Hot springs, geysers, mud pots, and volcanoes on the west side of the parks, enormous canyons, mountain-fed waterfalls, iced-up lakes and evergreens on the east and southern sides. And everywhere, precarious cliff drops, beasts and birds of prey, natural wonders I’ve never laid eyes on before, I could look in the same direction for 10 minutes and keep seeing new and interesting things.

The other thing I’ve realized on this trip is that it takes a hell of a lot of work to make a national park functional, from building in trails and roads without disturbing the ecosystem, staffing the park with rangers who know what they’re doing, writing up points of interest accurately and interestingly, and effectively keeping people aware of safety hazards and relevant laws. This last one cannot be understated as challenging for the park service. There were so many times Susanne and I saw people behaving with total ignorance of their surroundings, or what I can only imagine was disregard for rules, laws, and guidelines.

Passing a sign telling us that this area was “frequented by bears,” a hiker pulled out a sandwich and started eating it as she walked. Mm, tasty human with tasty roast beef sandwich!

At a hot springs basin in which all manner of sulfur-living bacteria floated on the water, smelling like dead bodies, a woman dipped her hand in the water, for what reason I have no idea. Susanne and I were astonished at her carelessness—she could contract a parasite, or worse, become the Undead Swamp Woman. Or so I imagine.

At the same hot springs basin, a sign warned travelers of the thin crust to the earth, and to stay on the raised platform. Here is the sign:

This sign clearly shows a boy off the raised path, regretting his action, while a woman with a pained expression on her face looks on, trying to figure out what to do as the child begins boiling himself. Notably, a man with a bag in the background walks on, aloof and indifferent to the entire ordeal, which tells us something important. Never trust a guy with a man purse. Let’s please also note that this sign is in five languages, and topped with an eye-catching red banner. There really is no reason not to at least glance at this sign. You’re about to walk through a lava field, people. Aren’t you the least bit interested in what the rangers saw fit to share with you?

Does this look like you should stand next to it?

So what did we see happen four feet from the start of the trail? An entire family, one by one, getting off the platform, walking right up to a bubbling crevice, kneeling next to it, and pointing at it, the other members of the clan gleefully snapping pictures. Of what could be their last moment on earth. I think my jaw dropped.

Later that day we saw several vehicles stopped along the side of a road, and we figured something interesting must have been happening, so we slowed down, since rubbernecking is okay in these parts. Lo and behold a grizzly bear was sitting in the brush, just hanging out. We had also read by this point no fewer than 10 pieces of instructions regarding bear encounters, everything from how to photograph them safely, to proscriptions against feeding them, to what to do if one attempts to rip out your throat (note, it does not involve climbing a tree).

None of the people taking pictures of this grizzly were abiding any of the very incredibly sensible rules around bear trauma avoidance. No one was keeping a safe distance, all of them were out of their cars, presumably going on some kind of numbers game—he’ll probably attack someone other than me, so I’ll have a chance to run back into my Hummer3. One woman with her crappy Canon PowerShot (hey, I’ve got one too, so I know about these things) asked another person, “do you see any cubs?” What the hell, lady? Susanne rightly knew that if there were cubs around, this bear would not be nearly so docile-seeming, and chaos would have already ensued. There’s nothing like a real vacation killer than running for your life because you had to get a close up of a baby animal and your zoom just wasn’t cutting it. People seem not to realize that the professional photographers of the wilderness world have amazing equipment that lets them get extremely close shots from very safe distances. The amateur’s stupid Pentax is not going to be the same. Just by the $10 poster print in the national park store and be done with it.

I can only glean from all of this bad behavior that our time is fairly limited on this planet. Those hot springs have been pulsing out boiling water way longer than we’ve been around, and they’ll be here after we lose out to the cockroaches and sparrows of Earth. But it’s a shame—we humans went to the trouble to create language, and then we spend so much energy not listening.

And all that aside, the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone are really amazing places. More on that tomorrow.

I have been dreaming of sitting in a hot tub for months now, knowing that we’d planned it for the first leg of our cross-country journey. Having spent a week in Radium, British Columbia, last summer, I had some expectations about what Lava Hot Springs would be like in Idaho. It’s actually the first set of expectations I’ve ever had for Idaho that didn’t involve either potatoes or white supremacists. And while I’m sure that’s not entirely fair to a state that hasn’t actually done anything to me personally, I have driven by Disciple Way in the northern part of the state, and it made this Lebanese boy rather nervous.

Our original plan was to leave early today, the day after we vacated our house, but the thought of getting up at 6 in the morning to drive for seven hours was just overwhelming. I didn’t think we’d manage it, actually, or if we did, we’d be off on the wrong foot, all cranky and overtired. So we caught our second wind yesterday and drove as far as we could until it was time to turn in. Well, logistically speaking, we had to figure where we’d be likely to find safe and decent accommodations, so we identified that it would be either Baker City or Ontario, OR. We pushed it and made it to Ontario, which made Walla Walla seem like a veritable metropolis.

The front desk of the Holiday Inn was happy to tell Susanne that this was a full-service hotel, I suppose because it had a “Tap Room” and a sit-down breakfast available at the Country Kitchen. We had hit the big time. As it was, we were excited to get out of town quickly, so we pulled into a Burger King and got breakfast: two crossanwiches, two orange juices, one water, one coffee. I drove away as Susanne popped open her orange juice, the iPod humming with some catchy pop song dittering along. My coffee was way too hot drink for a while, so I looked for some OJ.

“Oh no, they only gave us one,” she said, looking around.

I eyed her small container expectantly. And I was astonished at what she did next.

She saw me seeing her juice box and rushed to get her mouth around the straw so she could finish the last sip! Yes, she raced to finish the juice!

I drove with my jaw hanging open.

“I really wanted that juice,” she explained, as if articulating her awful behavior would somehow provide impunity. I muttered something about sending an email to Burger King.

After five hours, we rolled into Lava. It wasn’t nearly as pristine as Radium, but at least it didn’t have any kitchy fake Bavaria presence. We quickly changed into our bathing gear and the warmth was all around us. Susanne and I positioned ourselves in front of two hot water jets. The joy was indescribable. After 20 months in Walla Walla, a week of constant packing, and months of anticipation, we were here, our feet floating in 104 degrees.

On the other side of the pool, an interesting conversation emerged:

Older woman who identified herself as a beekeeper: So what is it you do?

Guy who had been chatting up everyone at the springs: I was a stockbroker for 30 years.

Beekeeper: Oh. So I suppose you haven’t been doing very well in this economy.

Asshole stockbroker: Oh, this is when people make the most money, actually.

Beekeeper: And how well do you sleep at night?

Asshole stockbroker: Oh, I sleep fine.

We decided we liked the beekeeper, who also took the guy to task over saying the mortgage industry collapse was all the fault of poor people who couldn’t afford their houses.

Afterward, we started driving again, through valley system after valley system, cutting through five or six rows of mountains. As soon as we would get used to one style of mountain—say, tree-lined—we’d round a corner on a pass and would then befall a new style, like snow-capped rocky outcroppings. All above us, clouds and sky. The sky is so big out here, actually, that just standing on the bottom of the canopy one can see entire weather fronts, rolling this way and that. When lightening strikes it gives all of itself away, from the start to the terminus, and for 50 miles around, everything is bright, just for a few seconds.

Finally we drove along Stateline Road that divided Wyoming from Idaho, and I’ve never seen anything as informal as that boundary. It’s not like the state line between Washington and Oregon is lined with armed guards or fences, but there are signs denoting the two states’ territories, and oh, road lines. This was a rung or two up from a seasonal road, and it was barren of all markings, as if each state were refusing to spend money on painting the surface. Unleashed dogs ran around on the shoulder, and buildings that had been abandoned long ago had also at some point given up their ghosts and just crumbled to the ground. It was a rural brand of poverty that made me realize a little better how many Americas there are in one big country. And all that mountainous beauty amid such a dispossessed people. When we finally came across rich houses with four-car garages, I sensed my own frustration at the inequity.

We motored on, driving under a ridge of a T-cell storm, the rain literally on one half of the car, and pulled into Jackson Hole. I’m not sure where the tourists are form who visit here, but there are a lot of tourists. It was late enough that most of the shops and tourist-boutiques (read, fake nice things) had closed for the day, but we wandered in to the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, or perhaps I should say we sidled up to it. Sure, sidled is better. Susanne and I ordered up a buffalo and an elk burger from the window and watched a local band belt out some country music. I still can’t see country folk and not think they’ll have Southern accents, but I’m trying.

Then it was time to turn in. We’ve got some exploring of the Grand Tetons tomorrow. I wish I’d never realized that “teton” is French slang for boob. Crazy French trappers.

In 2003, I volunteered at DC’s gay film festival, which meant working with some very nice people and a few overly controlling people, but I was willing to take the long view and deal with challenging personalities in order to get passes to other movies for free. One of the films I went to see was Drag Nuns in Tinseltown (rereleased in 2006 as The LA Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence), a documentary about the antics and charity work of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Some of the Sisters attended the screening, laughing along with us and hosting a Q&A afterward.

Unlike other drag performers I’d seen before, the Sisters don’t eschew things like facial hair (a Ru Paul no-no) or insist on lip synching to women-sung songs, but instead will occasionally take on tenor or other “male range” compositions, singing in their own voices.

They also have a tendency to rework lyrics to songs we’d otherwise be able to belt out with them, in order to make a point. I’d forgotten that little bit of Sis-trivia until last night.

Susanne and I trekked to the Tri-Cities yesterday with a few colleagues from the college to see the Seattle chapter of the Sisters host a fundraiser for Walla Walla’s Blue Mountain Heart to Heart organization, a non-profit direct service charity for people with HIV, AIDS, and Hepatitis C. Heart to Heart is, in fact, the only direct service charity of its kind in southeast Washington state, and Franklin County, which it also serves, has the highest HIV infection rate outside of Seattle, so their work is rather desperately needed here. I would have gone to see the Sisters in any case, but knowing it was a fundraiser for Heart to Heart only solidified my commitment to making the 60-mile trip.

We found our way to the only gay bar in these parts which, on the inside, was a series of differently shaped rooms and a hell of a lot of seating: booths, high tables and stools, plain diner tables that looked like they’d been purchased from a going out of business sale from the empinada counter around the corner. A room in the front boasted a stage and short catwalk where the Sisters and local performers belted out everything from Xanadu’s I’m Alive (unfortunately not performed on 70s-style roller skates) to Bjork to School House Rock, Electrify, and some strange German song about genitalia that left me covering my face because I was there with a student from the college. Talk about awkward! Thank goodness there’s no sexual harassment policy at Susanne’s school. (Ironic, I’m being ironic.)

As the performances rolled on, audience members left their seats to slip money into the contribution basket at the end of the catwalk. Here’s where I was reminded of the unofficial rules about gay bars:

1. No matter how gay the bar is, there will always be a creepy straight guy trying to strut his stuff or hook up with some random lesbian. Persistence of said creepy guy is in an inverse proportion to his level of attractiveness. And creepy guys tend toward creepy props/dress, like a pipe or opened up dress shirt.
2. As soon as a couple first hooks up, they must stand in a corner or against a wall, making out. It helps if they’re anywhere near a heavily trafficked area, so that more people will notice their coupled upness.
3. Older couples should feel free to bicker in the bar or stand apart from each other, at turns looking cold or hurt.
4. There will be an overworked, overtired lesbian bussing tables and shooting daggers out of her eyes at the careless customers who spill their drinks for her to clean up.
5. Even if the gay bar is occupied by 95 percent gay men and < 5 percent lesbians (the other 1 percent straight allies, transgender people, and lost people who haven’t realized they’re not in a straight bar yet), there will still be a long line for the women’s rest room.
6. A small group of depressed looking older men will be quietly sitting around a video monitor of gay porn.
7. A few young or questioning people will be in the bar on any given weekend night, looking astonished at the naughty humor and antics of the other people there.

All of these I saw with my own eyes last night, and nearly 20 years after walking into my first gay bar, I smiled a little to myself, because no matter what else changes, these dynamics are the same. Not that I don’t want all of those to stay the same, certainly not. But it’s kind of like I haven’t aged.

Who’s up for Gay Bar Time Machine? Or the Curious Case of Benjamin Buttman? We can make it happen, people. Actually, maybe I should do an Internet search and see if they’ve been filmed already.

So we’ve sketched out and thought about and worked our way through to some summer plans, and wireless connectivity what it is, will be relaying our journey on this very blog, in what will wind up being a reverse travelogue of our trip in August 2008. Once June rolls around I will also be guest blogging for Bitch magazine, so I will have to get a bit creative in the early part of the month on ways to get my posts published. But as far as trans/plant/portation goes, here is a preview of our trip back east:

Hot springs in Idaho—non-sulfur pools like the one we’ve been to in Radium, British Columbia

Grand Teton National Park—Susanne revealed to me that “tetons” is from the breast-like mountain silhouette. Yeah, she had to go make it dirty.

Yellowstone National Park—we’re aiming to reach this park on my actual 40th birthday, because I can think of nothing as wonderful as standing next to “Old Faithful” when I enter my 41st year.

The Badlands of South Dakota—I have no expectations, but I am told it will be breathtaking, so I’ll bring some extra air with me.

Mt. Rushmore and the Corn Palace—I feel an itch to write this blog post very badly, juxtaposing the majestic grandeur of the presidents with . . . corn.

Minneapolis/St. Paul—no trip cross-continent would be complete without at least a short visit to the land of the Fargo Accent.

I think it may be fun to make some kind of flip book like I’ve seen for little kids. It could combine the destination, the beautiful feature of the destination, and how I could wound or maim myself. Roughing out the idea a little, here are some examples:

Everett got splinters | taking pictures of trees | in the Grand Tetons

Everett got sunburned | looking at the sculpture garden | in Minneapolis

Everett was bitten by a bear | hiking the stunning cliffs | of the Badlands

Mixing and matching only makes it more fun! I see a children’s book here, really.

After all of this traveling, we will land in DC, just in time for the DC Pride weekend, which will, it nearly goes without saying, be completely unlike Walla Walla in tone and demographic. And just watch, I’ll probably get overwhelmed from so many people. The desert’s always greener, or something.

Day 2 in San Francisco and I had a much clearer, well rested brain in my head. I decided to brave the BART and check out the Castro district. Primarily I wanted to see the GLBT museum and check out the bookstore, since I really loved the stretch of Connecticut Avenue between Lambda Rising and Kramerbooks when I lived in DC. I’ve ascertained that I really miss a good, robust bookstore, even as I find them sometimes annoying—not for the books, but for the other pretentious people and the conversations they sometimes insist on having in them. Do note that I include myself in the “pretentious people” category, because I think pretentious conversations can be like twisting back and forth on a squeaky chair: fun for the user and irritating for everyone else.

There’s a BART stop right outside the hotel here at uh, what’s the name of this neighborhood again, Embarcadero, right. I’ve realized I’d be screwed if I lived in California because I can’t seem to remember any of the Spanish names to places. It’s like I get so concerned about pronouncing the name right, even just to myself, that it seems to prevent memory implantation. Damn all those years of studying French. They weren’t even that helpful for reading Lacan or Derrida, the latter of which was written intentionally to be confusing in any language. Maybe Susanne will get into a conference in Montreal. But this day, I was in San Francisco, trying to remember Embarcadero, Embarcadero. So I pulled a Sarah Palin and wrote it on my left palm. Actually, I knew how to crib notes in 7th grade, but unlike Sarah, I chose not to.

Down the subway stairs I went, it smelling a little bit like New York City, looking a little bit like DC. The maps to the subway, the information scientist in me notes, are not nearly as good as DC’s Metro, because they only show the names of the stations. On DC’s subway grid map, you can also see, in gray, almost like a background, the names of the streets that lie above the grid, so you have a context for the stations and don’t need to know in advance that you’re looking for a given station. Moreover, many of the station names are the same as the neighborhood, like Woodley Park, Van Ness, Foggy Bottom. And even though I thought it was a giant waste of money at the time (it cost Metro $100,000 to change all the signs and maps in the system), I can see how adding names to stations, like Foggy Bottom/GWU, is helpful for newbies or tourists.

And now here I was, a newbie, clueless, staring at this map like I was waiting for a religious conversion to BARTism. Castro, Castro, I knew it was southwest of Embarkingdare-o, but where? I glared at the plastic screen over the map and sighed. Standing next to me was a Don Lake lookalike and a little person all decked out in San Francisco giant-labeled clothing. I asked them which stop to take for the Castro. I was a tourist on a mission and without a map, and Embarcadero scrawled on my left palm, so I was going for broke here.

“Oh,” said Don, leaning over the map, which did not give me any confidence, because if we were in the District and he asked me how to get to. . . well, anything I can come up with like Bethesda, the White Flint Mall, Arlington Cemetery, they’re all clearly illuminated as Metro stops. But my point is, I’d know how to tell him to go without looking at the grid. I would use the grid only as a teaching tool for my temporary pupil. This is not what Don was doing.

“Here you go,” he said, pointing to something below what looked like Oakland. I was pretty sure the Castro was not in Oakland. Harvey Fucking Milk was not on the city council of Oakland. I nodded and thanked him. In the midst of this the walking art installation/ode to the SF Giants concurred, that Castro Valley was right over there. He got that Don didn’t have a clue what he was saying, and was being clever about sending a secret message to me. Hmm, I wondered, what other little person had a secret message for people, and doesn’t San Francisco have a neighborhood called Twin Peaks?

It was more than I could bear, this place filled with randomness collapsing into old television narrative. I had become postmodernism! I thanked them, but now I was supposed to stand on this side of the platform, waiting for my train to Oakland. I didn’t want to let Don down, but no way was I going to get on a train headed in the wrong direction. So since the next one was coming in eight minutes, I pretended to find a place to sit down, and then jumped on the train on the other side of the platform. I knew the Castro was somewhere around 18th Street, but I had no idea from the subway grid where the Castro Street was. So I opted to check out the Mission. Maybe I would find a street map or a bookstore.

The Mission reminded me of DC’s Adams Morgan in the days before the Williams mayoral administration started gentrifying everything. Adams Morgan at one point was a Latino/a community, and walking down the sidewalk of say, Columbia Avenue, a passerby would see several Spanish-named bancos, a laundromat, one or two grocery stores, a cellphone store, the windows filled with phone cards that screamed their low, low prices if one wanted to call Latin America, Mexico, or Spain. But really Adams Morgan was about the smells, the lovely aromas of Hispanic, country food that made my mouth water and my mind do a quick assessment of how much cash was in my wallet so I could just slip in and get a torta or fish taco, always wrapped in brown paper that did its best to illuminate the food inside as the grease from cooking coalesced at its edges and folds.

The Mission is kind of like that. There were also short, squat grocery counters, and I realized that all of these foods were local because hello, I’m in California. I didn’t want to stop walking, though, and I promised myself I’d come back later. I have no idea when later is. I also got a good vantage point of the hilliness of San Francisco without having to sacrifice my knees. I took in the row houses; there are some I’ve seen that just look depressing in their run-down condition, but these were like tittery older ladies sitting around on Sunday in their worn but nice fancy clothes and hats. It made me homesick for tiny, old women of color streaming out of church in DC, their headwear three times as big as their bodies, and all bright with every color Roy G. Biv could imagine.

I walked and walked, looking down the side streets for the pearls I suspected were there; a crepe maker here, cheap haircuts from cosmetology students there, the standard cell phone dealer, a blacksmith, of all things. My legs started sending me Morse code by clicking and popping as I walked the uneven sidewalk, so I figured it was time to head back to the BART and rest up before heading out, this time to the Castro for reals.

Back in Alacarta, or wherever I was, I was awakened from my catnap by rhythmic drumbeats. I figured I might as well check out what was going on. I looked out my fifth floor window and saw marchers. Or demonstrators. It was difficult to tell which from my height. But they were chanting something, I couldn’t tell what.

And then I saw the clowns. The very angry, protesting clowns. Wearing G-strings. Hoo boy. Okay, here was the San Francisco I’d heard about. Not the angry, rise from the dead every 27 years to feast on small children Stephen King clowns, but pissed off, make fun of Tea Partiers on April 1st clowns. Whatever, I’m not a fan of clowns, period, because they freak me out and make me think of John Gacy. There seemed to be people dressed in all sorts of outfits, like Abraham Lincoln and Greek . . . goddesses? I really wasn’t getting what the message was. Did people need a parade to see how screwed up the Tea Party is? I thought that contingent was making it clear all on their own.

I put my head back down and after a time, ventured back out again, this time to check out the City Lights Bookstore, a bit north of Chinatown. I hopped a cab and $7 later was perusing the books, surprised at how small the place was. I figured it would be at least as big as Kramerbooks in DC, a well-known independent bookstore, infamous for refusing to turn over the receipt for a certain book of Walt Whitman poetry to Kenneth Star. This place, instead, was packed tight with progressive books and sections of shelves that would make any liberal reasonably happy, since we’re too pretentious to get actually excited: Praxis, Gender Theory, Surrealism. I spent a good amount of time looking at new takes on old classics and contemporary literature. Everything in there was serious, and eventually I wanted something else, but City Lights wouldn’t offer it to me. I hoped I wasn’t too Barnes&Nobleized.

I passed by the palm reader with only a moment’s hesitation, thought about getting a beer at the pub across the street from the bookstore but didn’t want to be the middle-aged guy drinking alone on a weekday afternoon, and kept walking. I walked right into Chinatown, with its glare of plastic lanterns and “import” shops of Asian kitsch, if there is such a thing. Samuri swords for $14.95. Aren’t Samuri Japanese, I asked myself, wondering if it mattered to the 9-year-old children who would lose their minds trying to cajole their parents into buying one for them. Probably not.

I walked and walked for a while, listening and looking and occasionally snapping a picture of something interesting. The Bank of Guam turned out to be roughly the border between Chinatown and the financial district, and my knees started complaining again. Darn knees. I want my knees of three years ago back again. How could 36-year-old knees and 39-year-old knees be so different? Especially when my ankles and hips were just hunky-dory. I looked to find a cab, but every taxi was already on route somewhere with passengers. I could not find one to save my life. Maybe another street corner would be better. Maybe I looked like a terrible fare, or something, with my black hoodie sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. I walked some more. Fifteen minutes later I finally caught a cab with a sweet older male driver. Sikh, wearing a really nice blue turban that he’d matched to his shirt. How great that Sikh men can accessorize that way, I thought, collapsing onto the vinyl seat.

“Where to,” he asked, sounding like Barry White. I looked at my hand.

“Hyatt Regency Embarcadero,” I proudly announced.

“That is four blocks away!” Oh, crap. I apologized profusely. I hoped he wouldn’t throw me out of his cab because even if it were only four blocks away, I had no idea which four blocks they were. I could be wandering around for hours. Okay, maybe not hours.

He turned off his meter and we turned a corner. The Hyatt stood tall in front of us.

“Yup, there it is,” I said, rather sheepishly.

“So it tis,” he said. His meter blanked out—I suspected he didn’t want his dispatcher to see this stupid fare he’d taken—I asked him how much for the ride.

“Oh, whatever,” he said. I was really sad to have pissed off India’s answer to the R&B giant. I handed him $5 and thanked him again. “And now you can get another fare,” I said.

“Why thank you,” he responded.

Perhaps it was time I collected myself with another bit of rest. I saw a box on the sidewalk, apparently left behind by the protesting clowns earlier in the day.

THINK INSIDE THE BOX, it read.

Initially we debated whether to stay up or sleep for three hours, because our flight left at 5:56AM from an airport an hour away. We suspected we had lost our minds somewhere along the way, and then opted to sleep.

For those out there not so educated on this, hearing a clock alarm blare at 3 in the morning is like having a woodpecker attempt to find sustenance in one’s right ear. Definitely not the left ear, and if you feel that, you should call your doctor quickly. I stood up, not sure why, teetering just a little, because I suspect I was only using my lizard brain, waiting for things like my frontal lobe and memory of self to come online.

Susanne was more than happy for me to take the first shower. She’s a clever one.

I remembered to step into the tub, which was orders of magnitude more intelligent of me than I had been just 30 seconds earlier. I knew I was getting on a plane, although I still wasn’t sure why. By the time the water had hit my skin and I realized I needed greatly warmer water, I could recall every second of my life again.

San Francisco, Susanne’s politics wonk conference. My time to explore a place I’d never before seen, but had heard about for years.

It’s mythological, legendary, about lots of people, but certainly for people who have “teh ghey.” Would it be a nonstop Folsom Street Fair, with nary a stitch of clothing because everyone was decked out in leather and rubber and spandex? Would I see lines of rainbow flags, heralding in ships to the Bay? Was there a gay trumpeter? There had to be a gay trumpeter.

I jest, but some of this wondering is serious. When Susanne and I took a weekend trip to New Hope, Pennsylvania in the spring of 2006, I told her to expect a lot of gayness. I’d grown up across the Delaware River and hung out there a lot in high school, usually around the record store and a short line of shops next to the river. I was there for the comradery of friends, true, but I noticed that there were a lot of references to this alternative lifestyle, as I remember it being called then.

Susanne told her friends about our upcoming trip, and one of them who was also from the area, remarked that she’d never noticed any such thing. She was kind enough to stop short of saying I was making it all up, but I’m pretty sure she thought it.

So we showed up at the bed and breakfast that was around the corner from the main thoroughfare, The Wishing Well. The manager greeted us with bear hugs and a high-pitched, “Hulloooo! Welcome to New Hope!” He went on to tell us, excitedly, that we were the first guests of the day and if we wanted, we could sneak around the house to check out all of the rooms before settling into ours.

“But of course, you’re in the nicest room,” he said, practically gushing, “the Cathedral Room!”

Before I knew it, I had oohed. I looked at Susanne. Her jaw hung open a little, as she took in the lovely aura of the B&B. The gay aura.

We unpacked and freshened up a little, and still being a new couple at the time, took some time to check each other’s breath. And then we walked to the first cluster of stores. One was charmingly named Suzy’s Hot Shop, so of course I beseeched Susanne to pose for a snapshot, which she was kind enough to do, even as she gave me a withering look, eternally now captured on film. We decided to check out the store.

The proprietor was happy to have customers on what was still a frigid day, and she apparently needed more human contact than she was getting, because she went on about her girlfriend and their two dogs for what seemed like half an hour. We bought a small bottle of Ecuadorian tabasco sauce, and waved goodbye.

“Okay, it’s a pretty gay town,” said Susanne. Next up was a chocolate shop, the man behind the counter flitting and making a happy fuss to show us the freshest chocolates he’d just made that morning. He only seemed bereft of a feather boa, and he could have gone through half the music of La Cage Aux Folles* for us.

We shopped through a few more places, coming back to our B&B for a rest before dinner. I asked our host for recommendations. He led us to The Raven, a fine dining establishment. Many potted plants set near tall mirrors lined the walls, and the two-level dining room was decked out in many, many flower centerpieces and long white tablecloths. We looked around at the diners and it was as if we’d taken the Hot Tub Time Machine to 1976, East Village. I think everyone in there was gay or lesbian. They seemed mostly segregated, the women with each other and the men likewise, although there were a few daring sort who had gone for a mix at their tables. And they were all, every single one of them, over 40. We took our seats and enjoyed a fine, if not fantastic, dinner, a little on the edge of being over-gayed or gayed-out. For those who don’t know what this is like, one wants in these moments, usually, to find a traditional gendered outfit that is also mature or even dowdy (because a pink frilly dress won’t do here), and some country music sung by a man about a woman. Or one could simply make a trip home and all feelings of gay freedom will cease immediately.

But we weren’t quite there yet. We were still amused and to some degree, in shock. I had said the place was gay. I hadn’t say it was a gay explosion.

So I’ve always thought, I suppose, that if New Hope is gay, then San Francisco is sequin-squirting, pink frilly lei, Cher and Madonna GAAAAAAAY. Having gotten to the end of my 30s is as good a time as any to find out, I figured. How nice for Susanne’s discipline to select this city as this year’s conference site.

This, all this, was why I was standing in an off-temperature shower at 3AM. To see if I could surpass New Hope.

We put ourselves together about as well as two people can on three hours of sleep, and I plugged the iPod into the car so that I’d have something other than engine and road to listen to as I drove through utter darkness to the airport. We parked in the long-term lot which is laughably 10 feet and a fence from the short-term lot, and dragged our bags up to the security checkpoint. The TSA officer asked if I needed any help putting my toiletries into a quart-sized bag, and I showed her my pre-made bag. We must have been the only regular travelers that morning, because she visibly relaxed. I wondered if there was anyone left who hasn’t flown post 9/11.

I found out the answer almost immediately.

We boarded our flight, setting our bags on the rack next to the Canadair regional jet, and took our seats, neither of us caring that our necks didn’t like sleeping while sitting. A woman came on after us and clearly had not flown often in her lifetime, and most definitely not in the last 8 years. She had sixteen questions for the stewardess, blocking other people who were trying to board. She sat in her window seat, next to a woman who clearly had difficulty getting up and down. Five minutes later she had another question for the flight attendant, so she got up again. And then she sat down again. And then she got up again, this time to take the open seats behind us. I pretended to be asleep.

Right before we landed in California she tugged on my sleeve from behind. I had actually fallen asleep, apparently.

“Yes,” I asked.

“We’re so low but we’re still over water,” she said anxiously.

“It’s okay,” I said. Again, I wasn’t really in full control of my faculties yet.

“But why,” she asked. She looked mid-30s to me, but maybe she was 6. Maybe she was Benjaminette Button.

“It’s a water approach,” said Susanne, and Susanne is so nice you really have to know her to know she sounds annoyed.

This woman clearly had no idea what water approach meant, and probably figured it meant we were going to pull a Hudson River landing on her.

“The land will start before we touch ground,” I said, smiling so she knew we should all remain calm.

“Oh.”

That little bit of inanity over, we grabbed our bags and cabbed it to the hotel. I saw a sign for San Jose to our south. The song played in my head for the rest of the day.

And now, I’m off to see just how gay this city really is.

*As an aside, I saw La Cage Aux Folles with my mom and sister when I was 15, and I was just amazed that they could get Joan Rivers and Cher in the same performance. And then my mom told me they were all men, and blew my little mind.