totallygone

travel, at a tangent


There's a flog in my throat, and it's cloaking

A flying visit from my dear friend Zoe (we met at Kopan Monastery last November, and sped around Bangkok for a couple of nights in May), who rolled up in her Volkswagon Camper en-route to Seattle before flying to Bangkok next week. Those of you (you know who you are) who told me they had a gut feeling that the Land of Smiles, rather than San Francisco, is my spiritual home, will be delighted to hear that you're probably right, after all. Zoe and I have spent the last couple of nights reminiscing about Bangkok (in between The Return of the King (superb) and Lost in Translation , which is basically one long "flying tonight" joke, accompanied by a sour-sweet romantic sub-plot) and planning her trip. Walking around the Castro with her is a scream - she's 6' with dark skin, black hair, and so androgynous that she's constantly mistaken for an beautiful young man. So all the guys ignore me and make eyes at her, while I'm yearning to yell at them "She's a DYKE, you know!". But I leave them to their fantasies. I'm trying to practice kindness and generosity, these days.

So, back to Bangkok - I feel a calling again, and have spent the last couple of days looking at TEFL courses and jobs in Thailand. Working here isn't working - for a number of reasons that I can't publish but will be happy to regail you with in person, so my feet are itching, and I reckon I'll be back there before you can say "Pad Thai."

I write from the local clap clinic where, in desperation, I'm trying to get treated for strep throat. Although the non-profit I'm working for provides insurance, this hasn't been processed and I don't have the paperwork necessary to get access to a doctor. Fortunately, San Francisco has a number of free clinics for the uninsured, and I can go to SF general hospital tomorrow if this tactic fails. Unlike British STI clinics, packed with sheepish men drinking lukewarm tea from polystyrene cups and eyeing each other furtively, the Castro's Magnet drop-in clinic (two blocks from my flat, and conveniently located opposite four gay bars) is easily mistaken for a trendy lounge bar designed for well-dressed men of all ages. With its ceiling of frosted plastic to diffuse the light in a more flattering fashion and (naturally) tracklighting to illuminate the noticeboard (a mixture of local entertainment, sexual health information, and listings for sex-clubs), cherrywood flooring, free internet access (yay!!), gorgeous (yes, it's true!!) staff, and 70's disco music, it's the kind of place that makes you WANT to get tested, even if you're 100% healthy. Come again?


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Come, friendly bombs...

Just before I left Waller World for Queer City, (my last abode) I spent an evening with my flatmates and their friends watching The Office, which is something of a hit here. I did my best to describe the horrors of Slough, remembering a job I did (in one of my previous incarnations, last century) at Slough Police station, advising two teenaged delinquents in my role as a solicitor's representative for "specialist solicitors"Wainwright & Cummins (they specialize in everything). I commented to the group of Office-watchers that the best thing about that job in Slough was the travel; from central or east London via Paddington inevitably took at least an hour each way, and I got paid £11 per hour travel. So I'd look at my watch every 15 minutes and think "good - that was a G&T!" or some stronger and more long-lasting substance, back then.

Anyway, the point of this story IS - my dear friend Donella has found herself in Slough, working. Like all of us, she seeks happiness and avoids misery. This is a tough job down there. If any of you can spare a warm thought, a spark of bliss, a moment of wishing happiness for someone you do or don't know - please send it to her in Slough, now.


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American Idle

The New Year's resolutions have slipped. Not worked out yet, and writing less than once per week. I'm falling into a TV routine, however, with my new favourite show being "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance." Forget Big Brother, Survivor, the Bachelorette, etc. "MBFOF" takes the cake. Totally. Class, as they say back home, unlike American Idol, which is disappointingly massive here, with 21 million (can you imagine the ENTIRE population of Canada glued to Simon Cowell?) viewers for the series 3 premiere. Awful. Yes, I know, it's unlike me to write about TV shows, but trust me - this one you'll love. And NO, I'm not turning into a couch-potato, or going native, although my favourite Aunt accused me of uptalk last time we spoke. It's because people here think I'm speaking Serbo-Croat unless I modify my pronunciation. Honestly.

So, news is, I finally moved to the Castro, the Mecca of the gay world. And yes, it's true that many men in this area can often be found prostrate or on their knees. For an (explicitly graphic) idea of the testosterone levels present in the neighbourhood, Craig's famous list (now available in my home town) is the perfect barometer. It is, indeed, raining men. So the odds are good, although the goods, as my good friend Kathie La says, are a little odd. All the same, needless to say, one doesn't leave home without doing one's hair first.

So, the move went smoothly, and I'm glad to be here, although my job is challenging, to say the least. If I drop dead tomorrow (or the earth swallows me up, which is far, far, more likely), I can expire safe in the knowledge that I've done just about everything I've dreamed of so far, including living here. A far cry from Stratford, E15, let me tell you. It's a weird place, tho - my new flatmate says that if one subscribes to the theory that cities tend to adopt the persona of their founders, then San Francisco is a refugee, a gold-prospecting drunkard, an anglo-sino-blatino- transexual woman of ill-repute, and a missionary. So don't worry, y'all. I'm in good company.


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Crawling Back to Happiness....

So, Saturday night I was supposed to move, and didn't because my ride went AWOL. So instead, I went on a Castro pub-crawl with my friend David, a SF veteran who, twenty-odd years ago, bust his way out of his Fort Lauderdale closet, threw its contents in the back of a Ford Thunderbird, waved goodbye to the crowd of family and friends who'd gathered to see him off, and hit the gas hard until he was safely across the Bay Bridge. He was in similar mettle on Saturday, having promised to escort me to every bar (around fifteen of them) in the neighborhood until we fell over.

I think we made it to about five of them. Gay bars in San Francisco (this I didn't know) are famous for serving supersized drinks, and a G&T here contains enough alcohol to give you instant liver damage. So by the end of the evening, in Detour (named, I've been told, after the noir movie), one of the trashier dives in town, I took what, in Glasgow, is colloquially called a "whitie" (note the "ie" rather than "ey." As in "bridie.")


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Dear John

This post is brought to you courtesy of John. I don't know who John is, but like many democratically-minded and generous San Franciscan geeks, he's sharing his wireless connection, meaning that if you've an 802.11 card in your laptop, you can flip open it's lid and connect to his high-speed connection, within a 100-meter radius of his router. At my current address, a neighbor i've never met who goes by the name of Joe shares his Apple "extreme"wireless network, meaning that I've free internet access from anywhere in the apartment, or in the street, if I so wish. A recent drive to collect something from the DHL depot turned into a fully fledged nerd adventure - I managed to find the place using my laptop from the passenger seat of the car, "hitch-hiking" on various wireless connections as we raced through the Mission. I'm here at the moment, writing at a table in a shabby little cafe whose walls are covered with a century's worth of tat, sipping peppermint tea and listening to jazz, surrounded by vegans, bearded old artists, that kind of thing. There's a faintly Parisian feel to it, even down to the music (jazz - natch).

Tonight, I'm resolution-juggling. This is when you've made two resolutions - like going to the gym or updating your weblog, and you ditch one in favor of the other.You'll notice I've decided to adopt U.S. spelling. That's another resolution. But writing to you all from here, at least once a week, is one that I'll try to stick to.

You'll have wondered what's been happening for the past three months, why no postings (of note or interest), no cards or calls. The truth is, I've been suffering from such a massive culture shock I've been completely knocked for six by it and have had my first major case of "writer's block" since Pushkar, where I was just too stoned to get out of my hammock. That's not what's been happening here, sadly, although it's certainly possible to exist in San Francisco on a 24/7 diet of illicit substances and do nothing for days. I've resisted so far. San Francisco is a very odd place, indeed. Full of refugees from places where it's not OK to be a vegan lesbian transexual amputee with lactose intolerance (and a menagarie of bipolar cats), of dinosaurs in leather and denim, where the extraordinarily diverse ethnic population: Asian, Hispanic, African-Americans and gays are visible only in their own neighborhoods, each of which coincidentally has its own climate. Really. You can walk three blocks and change seasons three times, literally. There's no winter as such - it's a place of enduring spring and fall. I once met someone who thought he could remember snow, but it could've been somewhere else.

Tomorrow, I move to the epicentre of the gay universe, the Castro - my short-term stay in the Lower Haight is up and I'm taking a room in a shared apartment above a quaintly-named little caf?. No word of a lie - underneath my typically San Franciscan bay-windowed bedroom there's a sign that says "It's Delectable." Imagine. A couple of doors down, Bette Davies' eyes loom large above the local gay travel agent, and, as just about everyone I've mentioned my move to has said "hey, you'll be right in the thick of things". Sounds about right, huh? So I'll sign off for now and write from my new pad. By the way - it's delectable. Happy New Year!


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