Last morning in NY

We're finishing up our trip to New York, by rights the last vacation we'll have in a long time. Not just because we're broke but because the company Cris works for has now taken up the practice of deducting mandatory days off from employees' vacation pay. So that even though it looks like she has two weeks of vacation saved up, five of those days are being decimated this week as the company makes everyone take a mandatory "vacation" the week of Independence Day. Thus we all become happy Americans.

I almost wrote "the company Cris still works for." Having spent more than ten years at Sybase, she must be one of the oldest employees now, what with the dotcom boom that drained off many workers and endless series of layoffs that canned many more. She's been there so long we still marvel each time she escapes a layoff. Until now it's been mostly a matter of morbid curiosity: which one of us would lose our corporate jobs first? I've been laid off three times from three companies in the last six years; Cris has dodged it each time. Now that we need the income, this has become less morbid curiosity and more anxious worrying. But I was raised a solid member of the middle class: I don't worry too much about whether I'll survive.

Yesterday, on our last full day in New York, we made our annual pilgrimage to the Bronx Zoo and the pen of Rapunzel, the Sumatran rhino. We learned the poor creature is sick. Sumatran rhinos famously die in captivity and this is one of three in the U.S. She's been here every time we've visited, for the last five years. When we got to the zoo in midday, she was conked out in the ground, snoozing in the heat; after 4:00 she was up and doing her usual pacing around the grass and dirt pen. I was glad that our last view of the creature was that of an active rhino, not a sleeping one.

Today all we're accomplishing is packing. Cris sent me out of the room to get me our of the way, so I'm at a Kinko's, where they charge 30 cents a minute (!) to use these machines.

As I've said before, this is my last fling before I actually settle down and, for the first time since early October, get a job -- at a large national chain bookstore. I'll be working for a friend so I won't be able to publish much dirt about the l.n.c.b. -- she's doing me a favor by hiring me in these times. A church secretary job is the only other thing on the horizon for me.

New jobs mean the end of long mornings of reading the paper and long afternoons of working on my (fortunately completed) book. Of course, I suppose I could sell my (fortunately completed) book for a lot of money and won't have to work after all, but since the liklihood of that is nil, I'll be selling books in the more common way: over the counter. I'll be sure to note the first time if and when someone actually buys one of my own books.

Still in New York

Cris and I are supposed to be doing this trip on the cheap. Most of our hotel is being paid for by our Hilton "points," and her air ticket was free. We're not spending the way we used to -- no Broadway show tickets. But we're still spending a lot, I'm afraid, on meals and souvenirs. We walk into a museum shop and emerge fifty or eighty bucks later. Credit cards are dangerous things.

The weather here was hot and humid and sticky in that inimitable New York way for the first few days of our trip. We spent as much time as possible indoors, in museums, movies, and the hotel, and tried not to travel places on the subway we had to transfer (the trains are airconditioned, but the platforms are, famously, not). We did spend an evening at Shea Stadium, but watching a ballgame in warm weather is a treat for someone from San Francisco where, not even a week ago, I wore long underwear to a night game.

Today the weather changed. It was a little cooler and the humidity was much lower. We braved an architectural walking tour, and later walked through Greenwish Village and Chinatown to Little Italy, where Mulberry Street was closed and the sidewalks were covered with restaurant tables. We had a great meal at one of those restaurants -- and I'm sorry I can't plug it, but I have no idea of the name -- they all are more or less alike as far as I could tell. Cris bought a bunch of t-shirts with the word "fuck" on them. Finally, back to the hotel, where we iced our ankles and knees and watched things like "World's Scariest Police Chases" on television. Quelle luxe!

Privacy confirmed

Where were you when you heard about the Supreme Court decision overturning Bowers v. Hardwick and affirming the right of individuals to privacy in their homes? Cris and I were in an elevator in the New York Hilton, one of those elevators with an annoying television playing CNN Headline News when the news was flashed upon the screen. (At least it wasn't just some tourist commercials.)

Loath as I am to add to the crush of comments on the matter, I have to say I was most amused by what Jerry Falwell had to say (no surprise there). Quoted in the New York Times this morning: "It's a capitulation to the gay and lesbian agenda whose ultimate goal is the legalization of same-sex marriage."

That's funny for a few reasons. First, on this day even Jerry Falwell has to say the words "gay and lesbian" -- not perverts, sodomites or any of the other slurs he would have used ten or twenty years ago. Second, he thinks the "ultimate agenda" for queers is legalization of same-sex marriage. My first reaction to that was, ha, just wait til he sees what else we have in store. Once Candace Gingrich becomes President, all must learn to play the piano! The color turquoise will be forbidden! (Apologies to the city of Palm Springs.) Tout le monde will be forced to wear natural fabrics! And everyone will moisturize.

Once I calmed down, I still had to laugh -- same-sex marriage! So scary. Ooga booga booga! What if they realized many queers don't want "marriage" if it imitates that of our parents? The freedom to be miserable -- to feel trapped -- to live with someone who despises you. Gee, I've wanted that all along -- not. The fact is, queer people have been free all along to be just as miserable with each other as our parents were, and we don't even have to get married to do it. As far as I'm concerned, Jerry Fallwell can stuff marriage up his fundamentalist fanny.

No, not all queers feel that way. The point is not to "imitate" marriage but to procure the same legal protections -- I know. But I wish there were no legal protections for marriage. Then all relationships would be treated the same without benefit of approval by the state or church.

Ripped from the wires

While I was in Seattle last week I came across this story in the Seattle Times. I offer it as evidence that journalism in Seattle is not, as some have said, dead or dying. Read this excerpt and watch for the word "basement."

Taking it all off: the lowdown on the Brazilian wax

By Pamela Sitt
Seattle Times staff reporter

For bringing the Brazilian bikini wax to Seattle, Anne Uhlir credits actress Demi Moore.

Uhlir, who waxes everything from eyebrows to panty lines, had been called to the Four Seasons Hotel to give the visiting Moore a standard bikini wax — only it wasn't.

"She was like, 'I want the full monty' (translation: everything off)," Uhlir recalls, "and I said, 'Are you sure?' "

That brief 1999 encounter launched Uhlir's Wax On Spa on Capitol Hill, specializing in "the full monty" — commonly known as the Brazilian bikini wax. Wax On — the self-proclaimed "Home of the Brazilian Bikini Wax" — is one of a growing number of local salons to offer the Brazilian, which is a very thorough removal of one's pubic hair. ...

"What makes a Brazilian a Brazilian is when I 'clean the basement,' " said Pegi Carnahan, who does at least five a day at ARIA Salon on Capitol Hill. "It's Brazilian (thong-style) swimwear that requires that kind of intense wax, which is why they call it a Brazilian."

I just came from Holden Village, where it's hard to convince people to clean the bathrooms. I wonder what they'd say if they knew there are people whose job it is to wax the hair off people's "basements."

Blaze of light

On clear summer evenings in San Francisco, one discovers a little-discussed advantage of the usually present fog: it blocks the setting sun. Not that there's anything wrong with sunlight or sunsets, but late afternoons -- by which I mean 7:30 pm, like now -- with the sun slanting low across the city: man, what an explosion of light. (Someone wrote me after seeing my abortive "Living in SF" blog, in which I made all of three entries. They wanted to know things about what it's really like to live in SF, which is just why I created that blog. But I didn't have time to do two blogs and write a book. So all you get is this one. I'll try putting more "what it's like to live in SF"-type things here.

For today, there's the blazing low sun of early summer, and this website, which quite boggles my mind in its earnest reaching attempts to invent something we otherwise call "religion" or even "spirituality" without ever using those words or even admitting to the existence of same.

Several years ago, at the instigation of a supervisor at work, I signed up for a couple of weekends of what was billed as a "communications seminar." I showed up at the first session, at a rented hall in downtown San Francisco, and found that I had signed up for basically an EST-like weekend in which we were going to be put through the wringer and then all bond. During the opening address, the event's leader discussed a number of concepts relating to new age spirituality (like "your soul's desire"), apparently supposing that none of the 100 people attending the event were aware of the existence of organized religion, since she said several times that there was nowhere in today's society a person could have these spiritual needs fulfilled -- except, of course, in the very seminar we were attending.

I'm not suggesting that the person behind "Your Celebrations" has any relation to that EST-like seminar, but her assumption seems to be the same: One has a need for events, consultations and rituals to mark the significant occasions of one's life, and for presumably wise people to help you get through them; since human society has never seen fit to meet these needs until now, we'll just make it up as we go along, producing "healing ceremonies to release illness, forgive others or let go of anger."

It's all so earnest and well-meaning that it seems mean to make fun of it. But are people really so clueless that they are in need of a made-up spirituality? Aren't any of the religious traditions of the last 3000 years sufficient to -- to quote them again -- "expand your horizons and nourish your soul"?

All this is illustrative of "what it's like to live in San Francisco." (Okay, this woman's from the East Bay, but here it's the same.) Not the new age spirituality per se, but the notion that one is supposed to regard anything well-meaning, no matter how preposterous, and accept it with a mild sense of tolerance. As I've written elsewhere, the one taboo in San Francisco is not some outré sexual act, but disapproval or, more precisely, laughing at someone's earnest attempts at identity. If someone says "This is me, this is what I do," you're not supposed to laugh. You're just supposed to say, Oh, how creative of you.

So I'm obliged to say: Vaya con dios, Alexandra True -- or whatever your real name is. Or... well, not con dios. I guess it would have to be con "the light of your own acceptance and unconditional love until you are overflowing." No need to ask forgiveness of a God, to accept or try to improve your karma, to follow a law or a tradition. It's all within you -- "flood yourself" (holy baptism, Batman!) with "your own acceptance." Sheesh.

Now it's summer

I worked last night on editing the journal I kept up at Holden Village. I wanted to post an edited version of it so that friends can see what I was up to there, and so that people searching for information on the place can find a detailed account by somebody. But after working on my personal journal entries for more than an hour, I came to the conclusion that they were both too personal and too boring for anyone to want to read. So I'll give it another shot, starting fresh and maybe including just a few verbatim excerpts from my actual journals. Readers might have to wait a few days for that, however.

How I spent my first full day back in town after seven weeks: errands, websurfing, puttering around the house, watching a little television. The biggest event was when Cris and I walked to the nearby Park Bench Cafe to have coffee and a croissant to celebrate Croissant Day. This purely private holiday marks the day in 1986 when I was sitting in a nearly deserted high school cafeteria, waiting to help register students for summer school. Cris and I were both summer school teachers; she approached me and mooched a croissant which, having brought about three of them, I could not refuse. We chatted all morning, went to lunch together, and that was the start of our relationship 17 years ago. Five years after that we became domestic partners on the same day, thus reinforcing the anniversary aspect of the date (actually four days ago, but I was in Seattle then).

Obligatory silly link: Biblical figures bobblehead dolls.

Jiggity jig

After a long, long trip on buses and trains (I won't bore you with the details), I pulled into Emeryville aboard Amtrak this morning sometime before nine. We had just cruised along the shore of San Francisco Bay with the morning sun lighting up the city like a dream. I've had the experience of seeing the city from the air after coming back from a long trip and almost weeping, it was so beautiful. This experience was like that. "There's San Francisco!" I cried to everyone else in the car, pointing out the windows at the apparition across eight miles of water. No one responded, except for a leery look on the part of a few passengers.

Cris picked me up and we had a late breakfast, the better to wait out the morning traffic. Then we flew home across the Bay Bridge and into our street. In the house, the cats approached cautiously -- it had been seven weeks, after all.

Yes, it's good to be home. There are bills to pay, errands to run, and our friend Nancy reset the passwords to our wireless node without telling me, so that my laptop is incommunicado. (I'm doing this entry on the big Macintosh.) But the air is sweet and cool and the flowers in the garden are so pretty. Newspapers are plentiful; the Giants are on the radio; the internet works.

It'll take until my laptop is back on the wire before I can post a long journal of the last seven weeks. I'll feature that on another page.

Down from the mountain

HELLO HELLO HELLO     I'm in Seattle -- down from Holden Village. Dialing in from a motel while I watch the Giants-Dodgers game on ESPN, I've just come back from a big fat dinner at a big hotel and a visit to the local branch of the Lusty Lady. So yeah, I'm re-entering.

Tried to phone Ellen but it was busy. I'll get her a little later. Til then A BIG FAT THANKS to Ellen for posting my postcards. Please read below in the blog for some of my exploits over the past few weeks.

I'll post a longer version of my sojourn up there after I get back to San Francisco on Friday the 20th. Til then, briefly: My tooth, which was a major problem during week three, seems to be fine. I finished work on the second draft of my novel, and I even got the name of an agent from a writer I met up there. I managed to make it thorugh my weeks in the kitchen there without poisoning anybody.

For more updates, check back in a few days. And THANKS also to everybody who sent me a postcard up there.