places, part two

my friends look at this picture of me pretending to ride a four wheeler in the field of kathy's house in greencastle, mo., and they say, "that looks like you being you". and yet this picture could not be further from my life here in los angeles.  i DID actually learn how to drive the thing, mind you, and it was quite a bit of fun to tear around the mowed hay field in the back yard of the house.  but i hear what my friends were saying.  they were not commenting on the context of the photo, they were commenting on me, within the photo.  they were commenting on how i look just like me, even in different surroundings.

well, duh.

i suspect that they were expecting to see me in overalls, sporting a kerchief and straw hat.  but the truth is that i have a pretty agreeable self-presentation that requires very little altering from situation to situation.  the way that you see me in the picture above is how i might also look one day at work, or how i might look one day at the movies--you get the idea.  i do know of gay men who have their "work clothes" and their "play clothes", but goodie for me, my outfits are pretty interchangeable.  

and yet there is something different about me in the photo, and that would be the place.  i don't often find myself driving a four wheeler in a hay field in greencastle, mo. and so, despite the recognizable presentation in the photo, i am not, actually, me being me.  i am, instead, me being me in a small town, while on vacation, and that was a nice me to experience.

the me that i experienced in greencastle was not subject to the anxiety i encounter here in los angeles as soon as i leave my apartment.  on the contrary, i looked forward to venturing outside of kathy's home and into the surrounding neighborhood.  rather than looking at the ground and guarding myself against interaction, i noticed that i was looking up, and meeting the gaze of passing motorists, who then gave me the finger.  no, not what you are thinking, but rather the raised finger or two of the hand on the steering wheel, indicating an acknowledgement and a greeting in one economic gesture.

drivers in los angeles do not give the fingerwave.  believe me when i tell you this.  but even if they did, i would not notice it, because i don't look at drivers when i am walking in l.a.  there are too damn many of them, and they are not looking at me.  but in greencastle, mo., there are very few drivers, so when one of them passes you by, you take a look, because they are taking a look at you.  that's the way it goes back there, and it's not a bad way to go about your day.  not a bad way at all.

in greencastle, as in green city, the neighboring town, i looked up and around when i walked about, and i was reminded of who i was as a child, constantly curious, endlessly innocent, forever wondering, fantastically imagining.  i had nearly forgotten that me.

there were so many things to look at that are different from what i see in los angeles:

beautiful old houses in varying degrees of upkeep

i was told that i could buy a house like the ones above for around $15,000, and that is why people who are retired so often retire in places like this.  i mean, who wouldn't?  well...me.  but i am not so sure.  other than being missed at church, i am sure that if i were to retire in a place like this, i would pretty much resemble most of the other "old folks" in town, with the exception that i would have better furniture, music, and clothes.

never ending country roads

riding a bike, believe it or not, would be more hazardous here than in the big city, primarily due to the lack of width of the roads and lack of shoulder.  in addition, at night few of these roads are lit, as you can see by the lack of street lights in the pic above.  my little powerful bike lights wouldn't stand a chance against the country darkness and the big rigs.

re-imagined old opry houses (now housing lions club bingo on saturday nights)

abandoned school buses serving as home

i actually saw a confederate flag in one "yard", which amused me more than it surprised me.  i can say that there is a lot of "white trash" there because there is even more "white trash" in los angeles.  in los angeles the trash just masquerades as reality show stars.

amish farms and stores

believe it or not, i bought a few of the pamphlets sold at the amish stores, primarily for "research", and i am sure that i will soon write a post about how sensible i actually think their way of living is--minus the whole god part.  i bought some gifts for my friends back home.

small town main streets that had seen better days

abandoned theaters (this one now serving as a private residence)

lots of tractors

rows of mailboxes

rustic beauty

as i wandered and wandered, camera in hand, i imagined who i might have been if i had been raised in towns like these--small, sidewalk-less, traditional.  and as i wandered and wandered, i imagined who i might be if i were to currently live in towns like these.  my imagination ran wild, i have to say, and i like where it took me.  i liked the me i imagined in these towns, while realizing that the town in my imagination would not be the town that perhaps existed behind the doors of these century old homes and rustic windows.  but i must tell you that what is important here is not that i would ever consider living in towns this size, because i wouldn't, as mentioned in the previous post, but that i was able to connect with the less guarded, more imaginative and adventurous person i remembered from so many years ago.  i was able to connect with the me that nods at passing drivers, and says "hello" to people i pass on walks. it sounds hokey, but it was a relief for me to have an experience of myself apart from my "social anxiety" and aggressive stance in the world.  little did i realize that by traveling back to missouri, i would not only revisit memories of my childhood, i would also revisit myself.

***

here is the thing about a "response" that one has to life.  we can't help but wonder if that response is a permanent change, or merely a layer on top of the base.  i do have the opinion that both cases occur.  have you ever seen a loony old person and wondered to yourself who they were 40, 50, maybe 60 years ago?  well, i have.  and in the middle of that wondering, i find myself thinking about what happened to them that caused them to journey down the road toward looniness.  could they have chosen differently?

i would like to think that my choice to leave los angeles is the opportunity to take myself off the road to looniness.  besides having a wonderful vacation, my time in missouri showed me that i still have the chance to choose.  good to know.

"fourth of july" parade baby.  adorable!

places, part one

fortunately for me, my vacation this year was not planned by me.  it was planned by my brother.  well, sort of.  he called me earlier this year and told me that he wanted to go visit our aunt edith and her family where they live in greencastle, missouri, as she is 94 years old and may not be around much longer.  he told me that he was going to ask our sister to join us, and since i had not seen her since our mother's funeral, it would be an opportunity for us three to spend some time together.  would i be interested in joining them? 

well i must confess that when it comes to vacations, i don't usually hold greencastle, missouri, in the competition for destinations, but i did like the idea of seeing both my brother and my sister together, along with my aunt and her family.  the week my brother proposed for this gathering was over the fourth of july.  we would have the opportunity to participate in a real small town fourth of july, with fireworks (legal in missouri), potato salad, and a main street parade.

so i said yes.

***

the last time i was in greencastle, i was with my family, and it was many many years ago.  i must have been around 13 or 14 years old, and we had travelled there by car from san diego, california.  my brother is 14 months older than i am, and this was probably one of our last "family" vacations, where the four of us would all go somewhere together that was decided by mom and dad.  my aunt edith had lived with us for a few years at an earlier time, and so we were visiting her family in missouri: her daughter karla and her husband ron, and their three teenage daughters karen, kathy, and krista(seriously). 

it was summer at the time of this visit, but not the fourth of july. we had a grand time, as i remember. ron was a big muckety muck in the town, which was impressive to me, but not that big of a deal in a town of 250 people, i guess. but he owned and ran a small grocery store, a laundromat, and a carwash, all located within a block of their nearly 100 year old home. he was also the mayor! at the time, my dad was managing a safeway store back home, so he was considered the "expert" in the grocery business, and we all pitched in at ron's store to help "fancy up" his shelves and make it look more professional. we kids would tear back and forth from the house to the store, stocking shelves, sweeping, you name it, and little did i realize at the time that nearly 40 years later i would still be working in the grocery business (a humbling admission).

but the best memory was of the weekend, when the town held a 72 hour softball tournament in the field at the park, and of course we all pitched in, though not literally, since we weren't playing.  but they needed people to man the hot dog stand, and i was more than happy to help with this task.  i remember getting up in the wee hours of the morning, it must have been 3am or so, and running over to the park to work my "shift".  the park was only a half block away, and in a town of less than 300 people, parents don't worry so much about their kids running around.  it was so much fun, and the fact that it is one of my lasting memories tells me how impactful this experience of "community" was for me.  i felt safe and welcome, and i had something to contribute.  who could ask for anything more?  i think that perhaps i am still longing for those feelings again, after all these years.

***

this time, there were a few differences in ol' greencastle.  the town is depressed, but then that is the case with pretty much the whole midwest, as far a small towns go.  ron's grocery store is long gone, and the laundromat and car wash are closed; the buildings are boarded up and grown over.

kathy, the middle daughter, lives in the house where karla and ron used to live.

she raised five children there with her husband randy (who she was dating when we were there as teens).  karla and ron now live in a house next door, and my aunt edith lives with them.  the two houses are located between two church buildings, which concerned me a bit.  i hoped that i would make it through the week without being burned at the stake, but i needn't have worried, because i never saw any activity at all in the church buildings.

the ball park is still there, but there is not much going on, except during the labor day holiday, when i hear that all sorts of activities happen:  truck pulls, rodeo, etc. but despite the changes, the place retains its small town charm.  amidst the white trash trailers, junk-filled front yards, and confederate flags, there are still beautiful victorian homes, and fields of green, and centuries old trees, and lots of quiet.  

there is not much business going on in town, but there is sandy's country cookin', which appears to do a decent amount of business.

this is still a town where ron will leave the keys in the ignition of the car after he parks it, where everyone knows everyone, and where people are connected to nature and its effects on the weather and the growing cycle.  people here know how to fix things, because you have to know this.

but of course, i could never live there.  or at least, if i did live there, i would not last for long.  this is god's country, and if you do not believe in god, then you might as well be burning american flags on your front lawn.

add into that the gay factor, and i am sure that in no time at all there would be rumours of me having a forked tongue and a basement for abducting cornfed country boys (the latter not being an unappealing idea, at least in my mind).  and yet there is something about this small, god-fearing town that calls to me.  perhaps it is the sense of community that i mentioned earlier.  perhaps it is the connection to nature and hard work.  perhaps it is the simplicity of life.  perhaps it is the emphasis on family.  whatever it is, i felt a part of what was going on, which is often more than i can say of my experience in los angeles.  don't we all want to feel like we are part of what is going on?

the san francisco chronicles, day one, part one

on the last day of may, i flew into san francisco for a few days of r&r before my stint crewing on the aids lifecycle. i stayed at a b&b in the castro district from tuesday through sunday morning, and i took no netbook with me...instead, i took an old fashioned composition book and a pen. i found myself writing--alot! the next series of posts will be my trascriptions of the writing i did in the foggy city.

***

tuesday:
day two of vacation. day one was uneventful, even though it was a holiday. to me, it was just the day i had to finish preparing for my trip. even so, i didn't have to work, and i did make a nice holiday dinner that i shared with my neighbor rolando: baked mango-jalapeno chicken and coleslaw with bacon-parmesan dressing. for dessert, we had chocolate chip brownies with vanilla ice cream. scrumptuous!

anyway, back to day two. i am sitting on a plane, about to depart for san francisco. we were delayed by an hour, so i bought a sandwich and a book in the airport. the sandwich was turkey with cheddar--good--but not worth $8.50! the book is a novel called "the solitude of prime numbers", and it cost $15.00. it is too soon to comment on the worth of the book, but after three chapters, i am already hooked. besides, to me, books are priceless, so i probably am not qualified to assess its worth.

i am sitting next to a nice young woman, and she is friendly and sweet. could be worse. she is with a male friend.

i hope that we do not crash and die. first off, that would be a shitty way to start (and end) a vacation; and secondly, i have not made any provisions for what would happen to all my stuff at home if i were to die suddenly. i would not want either the state or my brother to get my paintings and my books. at some point i will have to make some sort of a living trust so these things are taken care of, but until then, i just hope we do not crash and die.

***

we did not crash and die. we made it safely, albeit one hour late, to san francisco. and to my utter surprise (at myself!), i ended up having a whole conversation with the young woman seated next to me, who by the way is named erica. she was flying with her friend justin, and they had just come back from attending a wedding in mexico. erica owns a store in the oakland area, the rare bird, that sells clothing and art and jewelry, and justin plays guitar for a living, and he does not own a cell phone! (my new hero)

i started chatting with erica because i noticed that she was reading "catcher in the rye", and i was rather shocked. i don't see many people in their twenties reading this book on their own. what impressed my even more is that she told me this was her second time! now can you understand why i broke my own "no talking to people on planes" rule? she told me about her store, and she told me about san francisco, and she suggested that i check out the potrero hill area. i think i will to that--it is not too far from the castro district. before i left the airport, i took a chance and asked if i could snap a photo of my "new friends", and they agreed. i am glad i did, and i hope i get a chance to visit erica's store.

erica and justin, "vogueing" at the baggage claim

having patience with berkeley

in the dating world (for those of you who are no longer in it, or perhaps have never been in it), it is a good idea to not come to any conclusions about someone you are seeing too quickly in the process. unless the date is an absolute disaster (and generally you know that within the first 30 minutes so there is still a chance to salvage the evening), it is always a good idea to schedule at least one more meeting before deciding whether or not to pursue the person further. i back up this statement with my own experience with dating, as well as my knowledge about how the attraction and attachment processes work in human beings. i have found that first dates, which for the purposes of this blog are defined as meetings in which sex is NOT the only activity, are most often about determining safety, first, and desirability, second. once we decide (usually within the first 30 minutes--see info on "disaster dates" above) that we are in no danger of being killed and eaten by our date, we can then move on to determining desirability. desirability is related to, but by no means attached to: personality, values, and beliefs. desirability is that elusive quality that belies common activity interests and shared film tastes. it is that quality that is often triggered by the subtlest of physical qualities--the length of eyelashes or the curve of an ankle--despite our possible disinterest in the whole. and yet, unfortunately, desirability's elusive nature means that we often don't become aware of it on the first date. it may be hiding behind awkwardness or shyness, it may be buried under the embarrassment of a dropped appetizer or a booger in the nose, it may be overwhelmed by neediness or sexual arousal. it may just choose to not fucking show itself. and...when that is the case, we will often conclude that, though pleasant, this person does not justify a second meeting.

this, i say to you, is a mistake, and i am advising you to avoid this at all cost.

second dates have a tendency to reveal subtlety and nuance; allowing space to explore the combined effects of personality, looks, and chemistry. it is during the second date that we often notice what was hiding or overshadowed during the first date. in my experience, i have agreed to second dates with guys who have been agreeable, if not outstanding first dates, and have been happily surprised with the discovery that i sort of really like this person.

the same goes, as it were, for cities.



my recent visit to berkeley did not leave me experiencing "love at first sight". i had a hotel in downtown, and i was amazed by the number of homeless teens and mentally ill i had to walk through to get from the bart station to my hotel on bancroft. i thought, could this be berkeley? the city that surrounds a great university? it seemed much more like seattle with the number of homeless on the street. i wondered to myself: how could there be such a concentration of homeless this close to one of the premiere institutions of higher learning in the nation? could they all be just students, and not really homeless people? granted, not all of downtown berkeley was like this--there is an area north on shattuck known as the food district that was quite nice, but i think that i was expecting all of downtown to be more upscale like this area.

during the visit, my best bud and i toured the university grounds and loved the mix of historic and new buildings, landmarks, old tree groves, as well as the shirtless (male) students lounging in the springtime sunshine. but there were so many young folks that i figured that an older guy like me would be pretty invisible here--i was literally overwhelmed by youth.



after two days in berkeley, i came to the conclusion, despite the absolutely fantastic coffee that is available on nearly any block, that i could not live there.

then an odd thing happened. i walked a mile or two away from downtown to an area known as rockridge. it was here that i was meeting my friend zamiera for some coffee (at cole's) to catch up on each other.
she has been living in the area (from los angeles) for a year now, and like me, she is an mft intern getting her hours. well, as i walked the streets further out from the university on my way to the coffee shop, i discovered all kinds of beauty--tree lined residential streets with carefully preserved victorian homes; quaint storefronts, and old movie theaters with marquees advertising a single film.

as i walked these beautiful streets, i realized that this was more the type of setting i had imagined when i thought of berkeley. there were people walking dogs and tons of bike riders, and despite the occasional person who looked at me as though i were going to attack them, i began to enjoy myself and feel glad that i had agreed to meet zamiera here in rockridge instead of downtown. once she arrived, we each ordered a coffee (brewed individually!) and two poached eggs on sourdough toast, and then we talked about her job and her experience in this city; and what she told me is that east bay, like los angeles, is full of money (parts of oakland and the area around my hotel withstanding).


but unlike los angeles, people in east bay spend their money on food, coffee, wine, and cheese, as opposed to cars, clothes, and plastic surgery. wow. i could see it all around me--a dearth of bmws, mercedes, and prada bags. instead i saw lots of bikes, regular clothing, and flat shoes. hmph. i also saw LOTS of restaurants and coffee houses. could it be that in east bay people value quality of life rather than quantity? zamiera confirmed this to be so. i became more interested. this morning in rockridge, and my subsequent walk through the telegraph/temescal area, left me with a changed mind about the living possibilities here for me. the east bay could be the place where i would not be out of place at all as a gay intellectual, a bike rider, and a man of a certain age.

now here's the thing, and it is a big thing. though the east bay may have just jumped over portland, oregon, to the top of my consideration list, that does not guarantee that i would actually be happy there. it is possible that i could be happy, or at least as happy as i am now (pretty happy), in east bay, or in portland, or in austin, or in scotland (thanks darren!), or even in (god forbid) southeast florida (sorry, lara). when it comes to moving, there is really only one way to find out if happiness is to be found in a city: move there. and it is here, readers, that i circle back to the connection with dating, and ultimately (finally!), the point of this whole long post. with moving, and dating, we can get all the information that we can find in order to help us decide about commiting, but even with all the information in the world, we just never know. at some point, we just have to decide, we just have to commit to going there. fortunately we have the ability to change our minds, but before we can change our minds we have to make up our minds. of course, for me it is a lot easier to change my mind about dating someone than it is to change it about moving, but the concept still applies. i could pretty much live anywhere, but i just need to decide on one place. one. and if that second look generates more interest, then the challenge for me is to give it a chance before moving on to the next possibility. the answer is not in berkeley anymore than it is in any one of the men i am dating. the answer lies in who i decide to be in that city/with that person, combined with the interactive affect upon me by said city/person.

east bay, i am glad i took a second look. i'll be seein' ya.

becoming regular

i have the feeling that nobody comes to los angeles because they think they are "regular". i know that i didn't. i came here (in 1991) to be a fucking star. i might have been too, if i had known the business better. i believe i had the talent, and that is just an honest assessment. i certainly spent enough years and money in san diego taking classes in dance, voice, and acting. if i didn't learn something, then i had no right to call myself a performer.

anyway, the point is that i did not think i was regular. nobody in l.a. does, i suspect. it is certainly interesting to me that nearly 20 years later, regular is exactly what i am trying to be...to an extent. i think that maybe i am trying to be regular in the same way that stars are when they show photos of them in In Touch magazine with captions like "they get their own coffee", or "they feed the parking meters". in other words, i am not regular, i am just trying to be. i am too smart to ever be regular. i can say that and not be conceited because my intelligence is something i was born with--not my accomplishment at all. what i have done with it is my accomplishment, but we are not talking about that here. i was just born smart--lucky me. meaning that, since most of the world is, uh, not smart, i have very little chance of fitting in with those regular folks.

so what the hell do i mean by "trying to be regular"? well, what i mean is that i am tired of feeling like i am special. believe me, not regular and special often go together, and that is where the problems usually lie. because if you think that you are special just because you are not regular, then you are guilty of arrogance. and yet the twist is that because i was not regular from a young age, i was then treated like i was special. follow?

the problem is that special does not work very well in the adult world, mostly because nobody gives a shit. but the reason why special really does not work in the adult world is because in reality, nobody is special. it is just a state of mind. we are all, in fact, regular, but with different talents and abilities. this is what i mean when i say i want to become regular.

god, where am i going with this post.

i am looking for a place where i can just feel regular, as in not special. i want this experience because as time goes by, i have been getting closer to regular, and i like it. fuck, i love it. regular is messy, but it is engaged. regular is unpredictable, but it is surprising. regular is uncontrolled, but it is electrifying. in other words, regular is alive. on the other hand, special is isolating. just like los angeles. here, since everyone wants to be special, there is the mixed message going on that we want to be adored but not approached. is that just here? ugh. please, please approach me.

where can i be regular? where, as knucklecrack writes in his blog (i would link if i knew how!), can gay men be regular? i don't think it is here in los angeles, though god knows i try.

i was recently in the miami/ft. lauderdale area for vacation, and i was able to be pretty regular there, but i was also somewhat invisible because i didn't have money or boobs, two things that attract attention, at least in miami. ft. lauderdale seemed different to me, easier to be regular. the guys were regular, you know?

i met a couple of guys while i was in ft. lauderdale, and the nicest things that they said to me was that they would want to date me if i lived there. that was just the nicest thing to say. i don't live there though, and i don't think i could live there. i am not a big fan of mosquitos, though they seem to be crazy about me. but the fact that these guys wanted to date me, well, that made me feel, kind of, well, regular. you know?