September 29, 2005

• Edited to add:

  
  

  I’m seeing political references in the comments, and I want to be clear about the tone of the parade.  If my daughter hadn’t told me it was a gay parade, I wouldn’t have known.  That was the cool thing about it, everyone was just out to have a good time.  We all danced to the same music.  People were in costume or naked or not, and nobody paid much mind. That was the beauty of it.

  
  

  I’m in the mood to write [read 2 Jack and Cokes], sitting here all dressed up while my poor, lonely, still-suffering dog tries to get slobber on my knee.  I say still-suffering because I left her today, too.  I figured she probably didn’t have the expectation of a lot of togetherness, me having been gone.  So when Teresa asked me to go to Bridgeport, which I’ve wanted to do for months, even though I’ve been gone and vowed to get to that article that I should have turned in before I left.  Even though I had yard work.  Even though I was going to start the hunt for a concrete (cement) guy.  I could go on.  But my rule is when someone invites me to do something I say yes.

  
  

  So I got dolled up, just like I have for the last week — Which felt good because the idea of putting on my shitty clothes and hanging around the house working, after a week of fun in the big city — I was more than happy to extend my vacation.  She and I compared trips.  We flew to S.F. the same day but she went to Mendecino for a wedding.  Teresa is my closest friend in Portland now.  And the thing is she is someone I met when I was married and had money.  So when we go out it feels like old times.  Only I can’t afford those times anymore.  But I still go and pretend I can.  Fortunately she is careful with her money and our usual date is a bowl of soup before the matinee.  Today was a fluke.

  
  

  Bridgeport is a huge outdoor mall.  It reminds me of the one I go to in Palm Beach.  She told me all about it months ago, and I’ve waited for her to show me where it is.  Today was the day.  Great place to look at beautiful stuff.  And it’s right off the freeway so it will be a good place for us to meet.

  
  

  You asked about the trip.  It was probably the last trip I’ll make to S.F. for a while because the daughter who lives there is moving back.  So I did a lot of touristy stuff I’d always wanted to do.  We took a picnic to Half Moon Bay and laid in the sand.  We went to the LOVE parade.

  
  

  Okay.  I gotta tell you about this because IT WAS SO FUN.  I didn’t realize it was a naked gay-man thing.  But my daughter steered me downtown, and pretty soon I heard the music.  Then we saw the floats with all the crazy dancing people, and as we got closer people in the streets were lined up.  That’s when I noticed naked men with their penises bobbing up and down as they danced to the driving bass beat filling the streets.  Throngs of costumed people were following floats to the square.  But before we got there my daughter popped into a convenience store and bought a large plastic container of Fanta — One of my new readers talked about Fanta and I couldn’t remember who you were or what it was but I said I wanted some.  I didn’t realize she was then going in search of a liquor store which ended up being right down the street.  She bought two little airplane containers of some kind of rum to put in it – I have to say it was quite good – and we got back in step with the crowd, sipping our giant drink.  I knew we’d arrived when I spotted the line of Porta Potties and from there the floats began to pull in and park like a circle of covered wagons, each blaring their music while the 20 or so people atop the float continued to dance.  My favorite was donned by a mystic in white wearing a long, grey beard.  He sat in the front and used his hands to gesture rhythmically; finger to thumb, looking like a cross between a yoga and a Hindu.

  
  

  Lines formed for the beer and toilets with people taking drinks to gather ’round their favorite float and dance.  In the middle of these dancing clusters would be a naked man, shakin’ his thang.  Some were harnessed but most were dangling.  Keep in mind I haven’t seen a man undressed in a while, gay or not.  That Fanta was hittin’ the spot and we found we both favored the mystic, she for the music and I for the hand gestures.  Plus there was a young woman dancing whose tush was covered only in fishnet.  She wore white kid gloves and a saucy smile.  I liked the way she moved in her black lace-up boots. 

  
  

  My daughter raised our arms and twirled me around — I was clutching her hand, afraid of being separated in the crowd.  The next thing I knew I was shimmying, back-to-back with the bare bobbing, this one unharnessed.  I bolted and we left our guru, but not before we got a free CD.  After hitting the line for the toilets we left the Love Parade for the Haight.

  
  

  Then I spent two days with my best friend and her kids.   She’s the reason I’m a Xangan.  (Hi A and E!!!)  She’d been telling me about Nina Williams and I came to get a look.  That was a year ago last week.  My friend and her daughter, malkamix, who is an 8th grader and a fabulous writer, are two of the three people who know my screen name.  That’s why I use it backwards.

  
  

  Anyway, we had a great time; she and I took a ferry to Tiberon and ate at Sam’s, and we all went to dinner Sunday night.   I miss them already.  But it’s fall and the fun’s over.

  • 1:11 am
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