Palindromic date again. Bad news from afar, just as my horoscope didn’t predict.

I made the mistake of going to the Splash pool party on Saturday. It gave me the same feeling that I used to get at high school dances: why can’t I get into this? Why does this seem so unappealing? Where is my School Spirit? Of course, C. was there and I fell out of interest with him. I think I left him and his friends a little abruptly by saying, “OK, I’ve had enough of this.”  I try to tone down my thoughts to a level suitable for public consumption, but even then my words are too harsh. I skipped Pink Saturday in the Castro, went to a few parties, was snubbed by T. (again), and went to bed early.

Sunday: 315 miles on the road for seven perfect hours at Hoyt’s Crossing on the Yuba River with G. He first brought me there about five years ago, when we were having an affair. The water was cool and fast moving, but not deep. The sand is full of iron pyrite flakes (fool’s gold), which glitters under water. With each footstep, the flecks shimmer for awhile until the current carries them away. I swam and read and climbed over the granite boulders and around the waterfalls and built small cairns and watched a grizzled prospector pan for gold. Dragonflies landed on me.

Why I don’t celebrate “Pride”

San Francisco used to have the Gay Freedom Day parade, not a “Pride” parade. “Pride” sufficed for other, less evolved, cities. The parade here wasn’t a endless cortège of various corporate entities, it didn’t have an official lite beer, and most importantly, the route wasn’t lined with barricades and overbearing monitors. You could easily step off the curb and become part of the action.

People do feel ashamed about being gay, and it’s good that they can overcome it, but they should not then have pride in their homosexuality. There is nothing to be proud about being gay (Exhibit 1: flagging) any more than there is to be proud about being straight (Exhibit 2: Bob Dole’s Viagra ads). Gay Freedom Day was about being free to be gay and being free from oppression, which is what Polk Street and later the Castro represented: a place where you could build your life; love freely; gather your chosen family; and pursue a career, if so inclined. In other words, make something of yourself, and all the while being free to be as gay as you wanted. Where does pride enter into all of this? It doesn’t and it can’t, except as one small part of living outside the closet. Choosing “pride” as the organizing principle has stripped the parade of most of its political power; hence the recurrent debates about the inanity of each parade’s stated theme.

There should be no Pride Parade in San Francisco: it should be a proper march. All those who wish to participate should gather, with their friends or with their contingent, at the foot of Market Street at 9AM on the last Sunday in June and march (or mince) up to the Civic Center. Unless they have mobility problems, no gay men or lesbians should be standing on the sidewalk watching: they should be in the march. If heterosexual passers-by happen to watch, that’s fine. If not, oh well. I’ve ridden my bicycle in the parade the last few years with Mikes on Bikes: no message but our general faggotry: it’s the way the whole day should go. 

So, dear readers, don’t watch the Parade, be the Parade.

…

I finally went to the new Asian Art Museum. I visited the Japanese and Tibetan galleries* , and I saw the tiny corner devoted to the arts of the Sikh kingdoms. One of my grandfathers was Sikh. He came to the U.S.** in 1921 to study pomology but stayed on, bought a gas station, and quickly Americanized himself: no turban, no beard, no dagger, no bracelet, no uncut hair. He only went back to India*** once, in 1974, where his brothers and sisters had settled after the Partition.

And then for old times’ sake, I had a nice Chinese-Vietnamese lunch at Hai Ky Mi Gia of preserved orange skin duck in a clove and star anise-scented broth.

I put up a jar of cherries in brandy: something to look forward to in the fall.

C. and I had a nice date last night after we walked out of “Totally Sexy Loser” at the Film Festival. I’m a little freaked out about finding myself dating someone both eligible  and foxy since I have no excuse now to turn down his advances. It might mean that I have to gather the courage to give up my comfortable bachelorhood…

____________

* where all of the buddhas and bodhisattvas are listed under their transliterated Sanskrit (but not Tibetan) names
** by steamer: Calcutta-Shanghai-Yokohama-Honolulu-San Francisco
*** on Pan Am: San Francisco-New York-Paris-Tehran-New Dehli

S-O-D-O-M-Y!

Arise, dear readers! Get your ass to Texas* and sodomize someone! Celebrate your ability to perform the simple act that will demolish the very foundations of the American way of life and the Sacred Choices of heterosexual marriage and child-rearing!

``This reasoning leaves on shaky, pretty shaky grounds, state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples,'' Scalia wrote in his dissent. That’s right.

In order not to be hypocritical, I am off to Black Sands beach to find, perhaps, a fellow sodomite. High tide: 11:41AM at the Golden Gate. High temp today: 96F/36C.

Remember, kids, liberty is a practice (Foucault) – exercise your liberty while you have it.

_______________

*This exhortation also applies to those who find themselves today in the confines of: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah or Virginia.

The only charity them orphans gonna get from you is syphilis.
 – A Confederacy of Dunces

Now that summer’s here, you need to know how to make a quick salsa verde. It’s good on everything grilled:  chicken, quail, lamb, fish, vegetables, polenta. Finely dice one medium shallot. Place it in a small bowl; add a pinch of salt, a little lemon juice, a little red wine vinegar, and a little lemon zest. Let this macerate for a half-hour or so. Meanwhile, finely chop half a bunch of parsley. Add it to the shallot mixture. Add olive oil until the flavors balance. You will probably need to add a little more salt. It will profit from the addition of any of the following: chopped and rinsed capers (salt-packed), chopped anchovy, chopped hard-boiled egg, a little finely chopped thyme, or minced garlic.

Yesterday wiped me out. I got home from NY at midnight Friday and got up at 5:55AM Saturday to go to work: a luncheon for 100. I got home at 6PM, went to the gym, napped, and walked to Sugar. I didn’t stay long.

I’m sitting at Peet’s Coffee (there is no escape) at JFK, waiting for my plane. Lots of Australians around here, waiting for their flights. They’re all lumpish and about 25 years too old for me. Ever since I met Lionel (fresh from finishing his military service in France) on a long night flight, I make sure to wear something fetching when I fly. American airports are nothing like Italian train stations.

I have mixed feelings about going home. In the next week or so: two catering events, a shift or two at the restaurant, the farmers’ market, looking for a new apartment [Hello, Mr. Foxy Australian Pilot (with a fauxhawk)], the party for the June birthdays, the Yuba River, a date with C. (in your words, a Hottie McSitonmyface), the film festival, and hopefully, a little touching somewhere. I want to find a way to leave again and soon. [Hello, Mr. Foxier Australian Pilot (with a buzz cut). I have to change seats now so that I’m closer to the flow of inspirational traffic.] Is it a timeout from San Francisco or avoidant behavior? I know already that there is no escape. Are excessive parenthetical asides avoidant behavior?

For reading on the plane: A Confederacy of Dunces and Petit Propos Culinaires No. 72. I wish this airport had a Café Rulli like SFO. I need a panino.

19 June 2003

If you live with a man, you come to know the other women he has loved
— Evelyn Waugh

Of course, you also come to know the other men he has loved. I met Glenn only twice, first on the day J. died, and once on Glenn’s own deathbed. Glenn was a constant in Steve’s life — his first love, his guide, and the first man he left. Steve for a long time thought that our relationship would be like his with Glenn. Steve left Glenn a few times; Steve nearly bolted from our relationship several times; it took us three tries before we could manage to live together. As Glenn did for him, Steve taught me how to be a boyfriend, how to have a boyfriend, how to fight, how to make up, how to compromise. Steve also taught me how to let go when the end is in sight.

Time to pack my things. I have a plane to catch tomorrow.

18 June 2003

I admire people who find out early on (say, at age 28) what they’re good at, pursue it with the encouragement of their peers and mentors, get advanced degrees in it (formally or informally), develop their skills in it, and make something of themselves: I wish I could do the same. My grandmother, who didn’t begin teaching until her 40s, was like this. I have almost no memories of her that don’t involve pieces of paper. I found out when I was older that they were the articles and books that made her famous in her field.  I think I’m destined to be like my grandfather, however, who was by turns a chauffeur of a Cadillac (in 1903), a winemaker, a grocer, and countless other things. He never did any one job for very long, but he did them well, and then moved on. His motto: I left nothing behind. I keep hoping that I’ll find something that will occupy and sustain me and be a good use of the extra measure of talents I have been given. Editing (i.e., reading, not writing) and cooking are the two poles of my lodestone, but I want to do neither exclusively. Next year I will be in a kind of trade school, yet again, to start on a new track. I’m the only one holding me back.

Or should I just emigrate to Canada, now that I can get married there?

The Gym Report: bosoms and triceps for us.  Peaches and his pal (let’s call him Coco, because he has a way with his bandanas, hats, and visors, and a different one every day) were busy with legs and abs and obliques. After every set each boy had to lift his shirt to (a) wipe his brow, (b) admire his stomach, and (c) expose it for general approbation. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that six-pack abs are so mid-‘90s.  Since the obliques machine at the gym is very close to the prone leg curl machine (hamstrings), they alternated sets of each. I got lost in a train of thought (…) while Peaches was prone and curling his legs (…).  I started to have a crush on a friend of Peaches and Coco (lean, buzz cut, pleasant demeanor) until I saw that he had poor form and swung the weights around. Too dispiriting.

My web hosting service was down last night and yesterday. Sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused you.

17 June 2003

Today a recipient of degrees from two of America’s Leading Institutions of Higher Education earned his wages by taping together cardboard boxes in a warehouse.

I think I’m going Boy Crazee since I’m not getting any out here. I picked up a copy of YM in the grocery store tonight. So many delicious sights amongst the working classes here. Today my first boyfriend was the guy we saw at the liquor store this morning in a big white Hampton Marine pickup truck : a little shorter than me, tan, tight, tight build, wry smile, and a little surprised that some fag was cruising him. And then at the gym tonight (shoulders), Peaches and his workout partner (shoulders and arms) were there again, admiring themselves again. More interesting sociologically were the three pukateers (chest and triceps), all about 21, all sporting puka-shell necklaces. One is clearly a closet case. He had that Slavic/Italian look that drives me crazy, and he’s probably in love with his workout buddy. He’s barely out to himself, certainly not to his friends. He carries himself with a blustery bravado, but the subtext is “I have a Big Secret.” Are his friends dense? When did he last have a girlfriend? Closet did have a good outfit; he adjusted the hem of his tank top about once every three seconds. Up a little. Down a little. Up a little more. Down a bit. He will have a weight problem if he’s not careful. We decided that he will be a voracious bottom once he comes out.

Of course, my other job is getting busy just as this job is heating up, and Sprint has terrible service out here. Another cross for me to bear.

I think I want to run away from my life at home. I brought my passport with me. I hope I don't go online to see if United has any $200 RT specials to Rio from JFK.

15 June 2003

A long but perfect day yesterday. The itinerary: after I alighted from the jitney, I went to the food hall at Grand Central Station and bought some pimentón de la Vera for C., who likes all things Spanish. Then to the Union Square farmers’ market, which was much improved since my last visit in April. Peonies for a dollar each! Bison steaks, snap peas, green garlic, and zucchini (some of which are baking in a gratin as I write this). Then to Zara, where, fortunately, the clothes don’t really fit me, since I’m not a scrawny, chain-smoking Spaniard. Only two tank tops later, I went up to the upper west side to drop off my tracklements, walked across the park (so splendidly green), to the Met to see the Manet-Velásquez show with J., who informed me that she was just made a Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et Lettres in recognition of her work as a translator. At the Neue Galerie we appreciated the decorative and applied arts more than the fine arts. What was going to be a snack (Weisswurst mit Kartoffelsalat) at Café Sabarsky turned out to be a long, lingering, late lunch in a window seat. A huge rainstorm led to Sachertorte , Dobostorte, and a pot of tea. I made my pilgrimage to Kitchen Arts & Letters. I love being recognized as a regular customer in a store I visit only once or twice a year. They know about my passion for the first Michel Bras book, but it’s still completely unavailable. From there, a quick visit to the school I want to attend most, then to the gym (Crunch on Lafayette), and dinner with A. and his new piece, and a party in a very hot apartment in Williamsburg. Home by 3 AM, up by 7:30 AM to catch the jitney back. Today was the beach and more acting out by the dog. He found a half-live crab and cut his gums on the shell. I had a nice talk with d., who completed the San Francisco-Los Angeles AIDS Life Cycle yesterday.  I’m home alone now with the doors and windows open, the light glinting off the pool, a roast chicken resting on the counter, the beach towels in the dryer, and a pastis by my side.

I’ve brought the cold weather with me from San Francisco. It’s foggy and windy here tonight, just like home.

Wait a minute
Now, I don’t mind when it rains ‘cause everything needs it
But sometimes it rains for four days or even tin [sic]
Take the sun to come along and bring the pretty weather
I don’t know about you, but I know I’d like it better…
Baby, give me the sunshine
Give me the sunshine.

I’m going into the city tomorrow morning. I didn’t give my friends there much notice. Kitchen Arts & Letters is on the agenda, too: the best cookbook shop in the U.S.

I love going to new gyms when I travel. My only option in this town is an overpriced, under-ventilated dump. It’s straight. I don’t think that the summer people work out here. It was dismal the day before yesterday: mostly grandpas and pious Mr. Cuba, with a big old gold cross hanging from his neck and a bigger cross tattooed on one arm. “CUBA” is pricked out on the other arm.

I found much more to gladden the eye last night. Pious Mr. Cuba was there again, working out his arms again. Time to focus on your legs, honey. Lots of local boys however, with the typical booming deep voice and grating accent. Is there a worse-sounding dialect of English than the one in Long Island? It doesn’t have the snap or sexiness of the patois we find in the outer boroughs; it just hurts the ears. First bachelor (I’m sure they’re all bachelors, despite their nice physiques. Compensate much?): dark hair, tan, no jewelry, 27-30. He’s the sometime workout partner of Mr. Cuba. B1 was mostly silent and worked out alone (back, then biceps, just like me). He probably had the best outfit: a loose, sleeveless, tan shirt, black shorts, and nice dark sneakers. Very nice arms and chest. Took me a while to discern that he was working on a spare tire. He eventually noticed me checking him out, but I think it would be a long-term project. If he’s gay, he’s closeted at the gym. Bachelor 2: peaches & cream complexion, tall, very nice Abercrombie-ish build, no jewelry either (too WASPy for that). His workout partner was much slighter, and a lot more goombah. Both were very loud. Peaches admired himself indiscreetly in the mirror whenever his friend went off to get a drink of water. We know that Peaches likes to jerk off in front of the mirror. I wonder if he knows about Dudes off Campus yet. Hmmm. Definitely straight, which means that he gets laid about 1/10^th as much as he would if he were gay. I wonder if he knows that.  Bachelor 3: I will call him big brother, because he looks like he could be the older brother of W. at my gym at home. Same complexion, a little taller, same slightly pinched half-smile, same solitary workout, but much more muscular. I wish he were my big brother. He came over near me at one point to do some military presses (135lbs, Dear Diary), and I got quite distracted imagining being the mayonnaise in a sandwich between B1 and big bro. It was all going well until Peaches came over and bumped into the weight bar just as big bro was lifting it. Big bro was nice about it and didn’t drop any weights on me. I saw big bro later on, shirtless, in the locker room. He was drying his ears. So cute, and such attention to hygiene. The view was very nice. He had a tattoo below his navel (but above his Tommy Hilfiger underpants). Could he be a circuit queen? He saw that I was checking him out as I walked to the shower; did he like the attention?

12 June 2003

Karaoke tonight in Sag Harbor. In the words of Michael Musto, it was so brilliant I will not coarsen it with description.

Rain today. Everyone was crabby and the dog is acting out.

8 June 2003

This morning I look out my window and see a well-dressed couple pawing through a few boxes of junk left over from yesterday’s block sale. Times are hard in San Francisco. On Friday night, while walking to Zuni with B., we see a guy who works at the interior decorator’s shop next-door loading in some furniture. B. asks him if it’s for the block sale, and the guy says yes. B. ends up buying a Haywood-Wakefieldish chair that the guy had made himself. I notice for the first time how cute the guy is. I’ve lived next door to his office for almost two years, but hadn’t noticed. He’s even friendly. I think, hmmm.

Saturday morning, on the way home from the farmers’ market, I artfully position the cherries and veggies in my basket for maximum eye-appeal. I’m hoping that I can chat with the guy next door as he mans his sale. As I approach my building, I see R., who's selling a few objets d’art. I briefly dated R. last fall. He's funny, smart, quirky, opinionated, driven, successful, and so forth, but I wasn't attracted to him. I haven’t seen him since we stopped dating.  As R. and I keep talking, the cute guy comes over and starts showing R. a copy of House Beautiful from 1968. It’s so horrifying that the cute guy decides to keep it.  R. and I move inside the shop where we’re alone, and we catch up. Dear Diary, he has been dating the cute guy for the last six months! They must have started dating at about the time we stopped dating. Rats. Foiled again. Anyhow, R. is happy and has found something in the cute guy that I couldn’t give him. I think we’ll reconnect when I get back. R. and the cute guy were very sweet later that afternoon, when I took a lamp to them and had them pick out a shade for me. So nice to have licensed decorators in the neighborhood.

My sister and her girlfriend spent the night last night. I made us a spatchcocked roast chicken, a chard and rice dish, and a cherry clafouti. We went to bed early, but I woke up at 3AM. They got up at 4AM to leave for the AIDS/Life Cycle, which started this morning. Insomnia sucks.

And Dear Diary, C.called (!).

It’s going to be a great year.

6 June 2003

“See the Beauty –
Touch the Magic”

My theme for the coming year.

Who rules the world? Geminis. Doy. It has long be apparent to me that the New Year should start in June when the year truly does begin again. What changes on January 1? Nothing but the fiscal year.

B. took me to a lovely birthday dinner at Zuni (chicken livers with polenta, onglet with watercress and an anchovy-olive garnish, cherry-frangipane tarte.)  I’m wasted after too many Beefeater martinis and most of a bottle of wine. On the way out we ran into B.C., who was celebrating a friend’s birthday tonight. Of course, the birthday girl and I totally agreed about the magic of being a Gemini. Everyone says we’re “not deep” because we don’t feel their pain or we aren’t getting upset about some triviality that is SO important to them at the moment. Whatever. What they don’t realize is that we’ve already moved on. We felt your pain and now we’re running circles around you while you are  emoting so profoundly. Oh yes, I was giggling while you introspected. Sorry you noticed. I suggested to her that other signs are like tragic birth defects (e.g., Sagittarius), and she said, “Oh, yes. Cancer.…” Our eyes locked and we didn’t have to say anything else. Aries, Leo, Libra (maybe): let’s rock. Anyone else: catch up, hunny, put your right foot on the throttle where it belongs and press down.

OK, I am drunk and drink brings out the solipsism, but still. The most adaptable of signs. We laugh, you cry.

Is it wrong to stare at the cute round butt of a co-worker as he reaches up to get something off a shelf, or is it wrong just to get caught? I was frustrated again at work and walked around muttering, “I quit. I quit. I quit. OK, I’m quitting” for about an hour. Once I found the 2-ounce ladle, I calmed down. I hate being stymied. My hands still smell like duck.

My Leo’s Sunshipp CD came today. Only one good song, alas, (“Give me the Sunshine,” in two versions). Not worth the money spent on it, which is typical when you buy music, and which is why I only own about 10 CDs. I wish I had spent the money on a bottle of wine instead.

I’m looking forward to getting out of here for a few weeks, even if it means not having the possibility of meeting you. Next time.

Tomorrow I will go buy my birthday presents to myself from my parents and my sisters. So much easier that way.

In preparation for my date with C., I looked up some of his reportage. He wrote about meeting a very cute guy whom he turned down because he was only in his twenties (yes). C. says he’s single, looking for love, and likes older guys. So far, so good. I’m four years older, but I don’t know if that’s what he means by “older.”  When was the last time you got asked to a first date at a taqueria?

Another palindromic date.

Tonight the cute guy in my class, J., came in a fauxhawk, but he’s young enough and blond enough to overcome that. He’s so foxy, even with blue-grey eyes.

I’ve finished my horrid temp job as a telephone surveyor. Best response to all of my calls: “No, you can’t talk to her. She’s Totally DEMENTED.” I wish I had taken Ignatius Reilly’s approach before starting this job:

I am really quite fatigued as my first working day draws to a close. I do not wish to suggest, however, that I am disheartened or depressed or defeated. For the first time in my life, I have met the system face to face, fully determined to function within its context as an observer and critic in disguise, so to speak. Were there more firms like Levy Pants, I do believe that America’s working forces would be better adjusted to their tasks. The obviously reliable worker is completely unmolested. Mr. Gonzalez, my “boss,” is rather a cretin, but is nonetheless quite pleasant.

--A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole

I hope I was the Miss Trixie at that job.

2 June 2003

Thank god for ex-boyfriends with computer skills. Little d. came over and worked for five hours this evening to get my laptop back working. Good-bye Novell. Good-bye and fuck you McAfee. I fixed him dinner in exchange (a duck tagine with couscous, a zucchini ragout, and then rice pudding with dates and rosewater).  I owe him a lot more than dinner.  He’s the only real boyfriend I’ve had since Steve, and now he’s one of my closest friends. He showed me that I could have a boyfriend again without being traumatized.

We did a little Friendster browsing and compared notes, and perhaps saved each other from Tragic Errors. “Hunny, you don’t want to go out with that one; she’s an aspiring A-Gay who has to have the towel ready before you can cum.”

More dreams last night about Steve. As usual, he never says much; it’s all physical. I keep waiting to meet the girl that he became (an Aries). I know I’ll meet her one day. It might take a while, since I don’t really care for children and don’t have many in my life. She’d be about six years old now. I don’t think I’ll go the rest of my life without reconnecting to something Steve-ish. When we first kissed, I felt that my body had found the other half of the jigsaw puzzle: everything interlocked. Emotionally or mentally, though, we weren’t always such a perfect fit.

I have a date with C. on Thursday. We're going out for tacos in the Mission.

And advice from A.: don’t keep your desires secret.

1 June 2003

You know you’ve had too much bourbon to drink the night before when:

1. You spend 20 minutes on your hands and knees hunting for the one last Advil that might be on the floor of the apartment, and
2. You turn down an offer from friends to go sailing on the bay on one of the most beautiful days of the year (sunshine is too bright).

I went out last night, first to Mecca, where I ran into M., who wondered if I was still feeling monkish, and into J. from my class. From there to Sugar, which was dull, and then to Mezzanine, which I found just as antipathetical as the old Universe. Same drugged shirtless guys, same bridge and tunnel types (in their shirts). Don’t need to go again.

I spent too long in Dolores Park. Sat next to a guy wearing the same bathing suit as me (he also bought his in Brazil). I also met C., Dear Diary, and would like to know him more and in several senses.

Since my laptop has blown up (thank you, McAfee Firewall and your support team. Stars also to Earthlink DSL’s semi-moronic help staff), this will be short. Back to dial-up from my old Dell, which has keys in funny places.