The Same Old Lines

Wait, I have more to say on wasting time, and oh, this life. Doug is in town and wants to go to the live sex show at the Nob Hill Theatre. I’m like I NEVER go there, but okay. So, I know you’re wondering, and yes, “live sex show” does actually means live fucking on stage although I don’t if anyone was was actually aroused, you know what I’m saying? Or, at least I wasn’t, but jaded is my middle and last name–Mary Jaded Jaded.

We plan to meet there before the show. I’m looking around the dark, surprisingly cute theater. Where is this bitch? Tonight’s headliner, a local porn star, is giving lap dances. And there’s Doug down in the middle, occupied with a new friend. He gives me a little wave, and a what’s up? This friendship feels so intimate. I’m like, okay what’s going on downstairs in video booths? I paid $25 for this shit, something fun has got to happen.

There’s a lot of maybes down here, but I just can’t decide. Well, maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Oh this one definitely. But no, he’s not feeling it. And then there’s this super cute young queen who’s scowling at everyone. I’d like to chat with him at least, to be like, tell me about yourself, but I don’t think he’d be into it. Or he probably would be but he wouldn’t let on that he was. Well, let me walk around once more to make sure I didn’t miss anyone. Everyone is waiting, standing and waiting. Or walking in circles like me, thinking I’m going to miss something but there’s not much to miss. Before, at home, I was fantasizing about sucking off all kinds of dicks, all at once. But now I’m feeling picky, indecisive.

It’s always horrible here. I mean, it’s my first time, okay? I mean, my first time on a Saturday night. It’s horribly depressing, and yet I’m incredibly drawn to it. It’s fascinating, this scene. This gorgeous thing. Or what could be a gorgeous thing. If only someone would walk up to me and kiss me. Lightly, the right way. Like they knew what was up. Put their hand on my hip and give me a little push. Brush my cheek…but no I don’t like random people to touch my face. And see, the fantasy unravels. That would never happens here, anyway. Something so open, and yet we all know why we’re here. The free peppermints, but of course.

I’m trying to get lost in this subterranean red light dream world, doing a little dance with the leather curtain leading to the “Playroom.” I do like this song. A nineties dance hit that I would laugh at in any other context, but it’s perfect right now. And then there’s a new person, he’s not afraid to show his attraction and I’m into it. He’s goes into a booth and locks the door. I go into the next booth. Sucking cock through the glory hole is not my favorite thing, but at this moment I’ll take it, so I go down. I’m squatting on my feet, I guess because being on my knees is too painful, but squatting is actually much worse it turns out. I’m having trouble being in the moment, I’m trying to get into this. Maybe it’s these shoes, I’m not sure, but after a few minutes of sucking his cock, my left foot hurting is hurting. I’m putting too much pressure on it, but it will be fine once I stand up right? But no, when I stand up it’s really, really hurting. I can’t just shake it out. We decide to take a break, and now I’m limping. Still, I’m not necessarily ready to go home, I still have to hang out with Doug and watch the live sex show. And I still want to cum, hello. I can’t believe this happened, I don’t even know what happened. I hurt my foot sucking cock at the Nob Hill Theatre? I never hurt my foot all those times I went traipsing around Buena Vista Park in the middle of the night. Did I sprain it or tear a ligament or what? Should I just take a cab home now? Will I be able to go to work? What will I tell people? It’s too much. I make it up to the live sex show. It’s amusing, that’s the best thing I can say about. The theater is crowded which is surprising. There’s even some Castro couples and a bachelorette party. Doug wants to hook-up with someone after the show, so we don’t really have a chance to hang out afterwards. I limp home, too impatient for a taxi, all the while thinking I just should have stayed at home.

Do you like me?

I decided that I have to start making better use of my time.  No more wasting time on Grindr or Adam4Adam, for example.  I need some dates, some sex, some love…bites, but not with these flakes, okay?  No more chasing after people who can’t communicate, be honest, or at least be decent.  I’ve tried connecting with introverts, sluts, drunks, awkward drunk sluts, awkward introverts, whores, condo-owning tech sector employees from Facebook, Google, Oracle, IBM, Twitter, and Yelp, radical faeries, writers, hair stylists, and hot fucking nurses, yes, nurses.  I don’t have faith in the usual ways that people, I mean gay people, you know, faggots, meet each other.  Or more importantly, I don’t have faith in the types of people who are deemed respectable, the ones who dominate this online hook-up world–class-striving, consumerist, vapid, closet-sluts who talk about smartphone apps and their favorite coffee growing regions of the world.  But then what is the alternative?  There’s no clear answer.  As an ambitious librarian, I’ve got things to do, webinars to watch, HTML5 to learn, all of it, the whole claw-my-way-to-the-top scenario.  But in the meantime, I’m barely employed, very single, and horny, so I keep looking for that next offline adventure.  

That’s why when I’m with Alex in the Castro, yes, the Castro, and this strange bird of a person follows right behind us and uses that old line, do you have a cigarette, I’m not turned off, I’m just amused.  I’m not too surprised either since I was just staring at him as we passed by because I was trying to tell if we were wearing the same purple scarf.  It’s a different scarf, thankfully.  So when he asks for a cigarette, it’s actually perfect because I have a pack of cigarettes in my pocket that I found at The Mix that I was so excited to find even though I don’t smoke…but you never know.  He’s elated by the full pack of cigarettes.  He’s asks us what we’re doing, he says he likes our style.  I ask him what he thinks about the gays and he giggles, says he likes them.  That should have been my first clue that he was just a little too wacky for my taste.  But I like his style too–genderfuck bike messenger meets waifish nerd. And then he says he never talks to people and yet he just came up to us and started talking, so I’m intrigued.  He also says he needs to get cat food for his cat.  Makes perfect sense.  I get his number just in case.  

We leave Vinn at the corner of Castro and 17th, in the parklet where the nudists used to hang out before it was banned by Weiner.  We walk past Sliders and Hi-Tops on Market Street.  You can get mini-hamburgers and then go next door to a sports bars for just for tops and their admirers.  We’re gagging.  We’re gagging over all this great culture, this gay mecca.  At the Japanese restaurant, I mention that there’s a lot of meat in the City, and then we can’t stop laughing.  And is that a straight couple next to us getting uncomfortable?  

We talk about growing up in small towns–Alex in upstate New York and me in Louisiana.  Upstate New York doesn’t sound as bad as Louisiana to me, but on second thought I agree that it’s probably just as horrible.  We talk about coming out, what happened and what we wish had happened.  We wished we’d been more defiant, used more four-letter words, screamed and yelled, and turned the bitch-factor way up.  In actuality, Wren made a Powerpoint presentation for her family and I just confirmed what they already knew.  Yes, yes, I am glamorous girl.    

On Friday night I was tired from work and fine with staying in, but I thought I would call Vinn just to say hi.  A week had already gone by and if I was going to call it should be soon I thought.  I didn’t want him to be wondering, waiting by the phone for my call.  When I call, he says he’s so glad.  How often does that happen?!  He asks if I want to meet up, he’s on his bike and can be anywhere in five minutes.  I say a let’s have a drink in SOMA even though I don’t really drink.  I have no expectations and it’s not a sexual thing for me so I don’t feel nervous or anything like that.  I just hope he’s not a complete nut.  

Of course, when he shows up, he doesn’t actually exactly remember me.  He chats up one of the regulars standing outside, thinking it’s me.  Okay, girl, whatever.  So here’s the story:  he was just excited to get a call from someone, anyone, who he might want to pay him for sex.  He’s trying to be a hooker, but he doesn’t know how, so he walks around the Castro giving out his phone number.  He was sweet about it, I was sweet about it.

It’s not going to happen I tell him, but it’s no big deal.  We’re probably in similar situations.  He says, oh no what are you going to do?  Oh, I’ll be fine.  Then we’re not in the similar situations.  Right, good point.  He’s desperate for money.  He owes money to his hotel on Sixth and Mission.  He’ worried they’re going to beat him up.  He keeps saying how gross it is.  

I get more of his story.  He used to be married to a woman but it didn’t work out so he ran away to his favorite city, San Francisco.  His family won’t help him.  They won’t even buy his book of poetry for twenty dollars. He doesn’t feel sexual anymore, he’s just really into his bike.  A real live bi bikesexual.  It’s a lot to take in.  He’s awkward and I’m awkward, and them I’m just tired of the situation, tired of wasting my time.  He feels bad, he wants to be friends, maybe even go in the back room, but there’s no back room.  I just want to get on with my life.  I give him some advice–walking around the Castro giving people your phone number is not really the best way to be a hooker.  We go out to get our bikes.  I linger there trying to decide if I should go to another bar by myself.  I watch him ride away.  He sits completely erect, hands hang down by his sides, like a complete, beautiful freak.

One of many missed connections

I thought we were cruising each other. Was I wrong? I saw you in the bread aisle. I was immediately attracted. Something about the way you looked at me even though you were wearing sunglasses. Those sweatpants with that telltale bulge didn’t hurt either. You were hungry, I could feel it. You saw me sitting on the bench when you came out and you kept looking back. I followed you or, well, you were going in my direction anyway. And you knew that I was behind you, you kept making sure I was still there. When we got to the cross walk you turned to me. I said hi and I think you did, too. The light changed and I kept walking, trying to be discreet, and thinking that you were going to walk with me. But you didn’t follow immediately, and then you walked really fast right past me and never looked back. Oh, the mysteries of cruising. And why the fuck was I trying to be discreet?! Well, if you read this, I still wanna suck your cock.

Portlandia is tired!

A library patron says, You’re wearing a cowboy shirt!  I like it!  How depressing, a cowboy shirt?  I’m supposed to be giving queen.  I want to be giving queen, blossoming in purple brilliance.  But it’s true I’m wearing this gray and red plaid shirt with these whatever Levi’s.  I had a really rough morning, waking up, it’s usually rough, and then there was a piece of glass in my bulgur wheat.  I rush to BART but then we’re delayed for 10 minutes because of a power outage at Embarcadero station.  It’s hot, and I hate this person who standing directly in front of me with his bicycle looking so entitled.  It’s one of those this-is-the-end-of-everything moments.  I’m going to be late for work, I’ve got a tickle in my throat, when am I ever going to get my shit together, I’ve got to quit this job, I need to move, we’re going explode in the Transbay Tube, I’ll never make it through this day, I need to reset.  Please reset.  
Of course, nobody cares that I’m late.  But then I still have this whole day to move through.  It’s already muggy in here, no air conditioning and I’m wearing a cowboy shirt.  But still, it’s the library.  I’ll take it.  
It’s one of those days that I want to spend thousands of dollars on cute clothes so not matter how rushed I am I’ll always at least have my style.  
I realize that I have to create what I want because the world doesn’t readily provide what I want.  And yet it’s not easy to make it happen, to create.  But still I recognize.  
If only I was into the fucking Olympics, it would be so easy.  

queergender, please

I identify as genderqueer, I would even say I’m on the trans continuum. Meaning that I reject the gender binary that mainstream society imposes. It means I’m trying to love the ways that I don’t and never have fit into the gender binary. It means I’m interested in flaunting my gender non-conformity even though I still get uncomfortable with it in certain situations (even though no matter what I do I’m always a queen). I’m trying to love others’ gender nonconformity, too.
I’m reading Transgender History by Susan Stryker. My coming out as genderqueer is about reading this book right now, but it’s also been building for a while. When I read Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, the trans continuum discussion made sense to me and I could see myself in it.
It’s been building through all the queer reading I’ve done here and there over the past five or so years. It’s been building through hanging out with Mattilda there’s no doubt about it.
I think I’m probably an outsider in the genderqueer community because basically, most of the time, I just look like a random fag, but this feels empowering to me. I wonder about how empowering it could be for so many gay men. But how will they access this information, being so removed from queer culture, so lost in the mainstream?

Scrapbook

We made plans on Thursday to meet at 3pm on Sunday, but I still get nervous that he’s not going to show up.  That’s my low self-esteem (or is it delusional desperation?) taking over.  Mattilda calls, I say it’s probably not a good time to talk because I’m supposed to meet Kenji at 3, but it’s already 3:03.  Mattilda asks if he does that, not show up?  I say no.  And then I get a text, Leaving in 5 mins.

We start walking west down Turk Street.  Where are we going?  Um, I have no idea.  Hayes Valley?
It’s always Hayes Valley somehow.  We go and sit with the yuppie hipster ice cream eaters in the little park there that used to be where the freeway ended.  We sort of look the part except that he’s not white and I’m a queen.  We usually buy yuppie hipster coffee so what can we say really?  That we’re addicted, that there’s no escape, that we’re accepting this, but not really really, okaay.  

It’s just that it’s cute here, and this is Some Kind of Romance.  

Today I suggest we go the used bookstore.  He’s never been, he doesn’t believe bookstores still exist.  But I’m like, they do!  I find Quentin Crisp’s Resident Alien and feel compelled to buy even though I don’t think I really want to read it.  Might be worth it for the tidbits, and bookstores still exist, at least for now, so I better buy while I can.

He answers a call on his cell phone as we’re walking out of the store, and then keeps talking as we cross the street, but he’s making a point of staying far enough away from that I can’t tell who he’s talking to.  I sit down in front of the original hipster coffee stand.  I’m waiting, looking at the book, my phone, I’m kind of getting irritated.  I have to pee and I don’t have any cash so I go to take care of those issues.  He says sorry, I  tell him I’ll be right back.  

When I come back he’s still on the phone.  Now I get my coffee and wait some more.  When he’s finally done of course I ask who were you talking to, what’s going on, but he won’t tell me.  What?!  I’m ready to go home and crawl into bed.  I was worried he wouldn’t show up, but this is worse.  I start nagging, but then I stop.  Okay, so what should we do?  Let’s go eat. But where?  He mentions places like Delfina and Laconda, but I do not want to go those bougie foodie yuppie hipster kill-me-now places.  I suggest Greens but that’s too far. But why are we even thinking about places like this?  He doesn’t want to do “cheap Chinese” like we usually do even though that’s not how I would categorize what we usually do.  Somehow we decide on that downscale bougie foodie yuppie hipster kill-me-now taqueria on Divisadero.
It doesn’t matter now, we’ve made a decision, that’s the hardest part, now let’s just walk, walking is good.  It’s so foggy today, I’m loving it.  I’m dressed for it, he’s not.  These plants on the sidewalk and these buildings are crazy beautiful.  And this is just the Lower Haight.
Over burritos, warm chips and you-know-it gourmet salsa, and yes, a beer, the mystery is unveiled.  I ask him if he heard about that job in Texas.  He says, yes, he got it and he’s moving on August 1st.  At least everything is explained.  He had been talking to a “realtor” in Austin that whole time, trying to find an apartment (apparently that’s how they do it in Austin). I’m happy for him, and that’s true, I know he needed to get this job, for the money, for his self-confidence, for his career, his life, all that.  I’m sad too and I say that.  I’ll miss you.  But I can’t feel much really, trying not to feel too much.  It’s not like we’re breaking up because I was always just the other women, once a week cheap Chinese and hot sex, and I didn’t mind.  Not that it was insignificant.  It’s lasted for months, my attraction to him has grown, I feel emotionally connected to him, I feel like myself, mostly, when I’m with him, it was an adventure, and it’s always about the fucking adventure.

Bush Market

Kenji says you sort of walk like a girl. I just laugh. He doesn’t mean it in a bad way. He likes the way I walk. He likes feminine boys. But still it’s kind of a funny thing to say. I forget the context now.
I’m debating whether or not to go to the Nob Hill Theatre. It’s Monday, close to 10pm, I doubt anyone will be there. But still I need to take a walk, so why not stop by? It costs ten dollars, but whatever. Maybe I’ll change my mind by the time I get there. But I feel that unmistakable pull in my stomach which means I’m going no matter what. I need to be there. To see what’s going on, to participate in that world. And I love to support my gay businesses.
It’s not as cold as I thought it was, and when I get there, it’s sort of crowded. The video booths, the video booths!
They charge to go in now instead of harassing everyone to keep feeding the machines. The lights are turned down low, the porn is always playing, and they even created an open play space, a mini sex club. This all sounds good on blog, but Mattilda says it’s worse than ever. People rarely play in the open space, and maybe there’s more waiting around to see if someone better is going to come in since the employees are not yelling get in a booth!
I’m excited that there’s so many people here, but I’m also reluctant to have sex. I think it could be because of Kenji. I can’t risk giving him an STD. I wouldn’t want to jeopardize his twelve year relationship with his boyfriend. What a twisted way of thinking! Or maybe I’m just not attracted to anyone here.
Walking around and around, let’s see who’s here. He looks straight, but he’s working a hanky in the back pocket of his…sweat pants. That’s a possibility. This other one meets my oft-sought demographic criteria, he says I like your body, but still I’m not sure. But here’s a just plain cute one I want. He gives me a sort of nod, an acknowledgement, but he’s not necessarily cruising me, so I don’t pursue immediately. I see an acquaintance, but I can’t tell if he remembers me. He’s in some sort of hey man this porn is fucking hot grunting and agressive sex club state of mind. I say do you remember me and nods yes and passes into the open door of booth, leaving it open which I think means he wants me to follow but I can’t tell. It’s not exactly the interaction that want even though he’s hot enough. Really I just want to chat but I can tell he’s not into that. I move on. The one I’m hot for let’s me in a booth with him and another guy. I suck his nipples too hard and give him some and light kisses. The other guy sucks both our dicks, I try to ignore him. I don’t even want him to suck my dick, but these are the situations that you find yourself in at the video booths.
I exchange numbers with someone but he says I’m kind of a flake.
I keep saying I’m going to leave, but now I need to come. I can’t leave until I come.
This one guy keeps following me. He’s so familiar. He seems nice, not unattractive, but I just keep ignoring him.
There’s another one who seems sweet. He’s a queen, probably late 40s, tall, cropped dark hair, and wearing just regular “men’s” clothes. And that’s seems slightly tragic to me, and I can see myself. I want him to be wearing something else, something that says yes I’m a queen and I’m still hot. I should have sucked his dick. But I’m feeling reserved tonight. I don’t suck anyone’s dick. I finally come watching the cute guy get fucked by a bridge and tunnel closet type. And that is what we call living.

Los Angeles, really

The good thing about going to readings is that I remember that I want to write. Then my brain floods with all these great ideas, but of course I have no pen and paper to write these ideas down with so then I have anxiety about forgetting them, and well isn’t that just the story of my life. I mean, being prevented or preventing myself from doing what I really want to do.
I’m running from myself, from this tiny apartment (that I can’t really afford), but the running is just prolonging something. I should just sit here and do the work…but what if I miss something out there?
Here’s what I would have missed tonight. Running into Kyle with his new Grindr find, Drew. I don’t feel jealous about that, and that’s true. Kyle and I hooked up twice, he’s cute for sure, but we are not a match. We are both socially awkward, but unfortunately that doesn’t lead to romance. I’m more socially awkward than him and that’s hard to admit. I’m also more jaded. So I wasn’t jealous, but it did slightly accentuate my loneliness. I mean, I don’t even really want to hang out with Kyle as friends anymore. It’s just that they were together, going to watch the Olympics at some Castro bar, while I was going alone to a reading. I kind of love that, would I really have it any other way? Olympics at a bar (at first I thought he said Muppets!) versus a reading?
I could have stayed home and worked on my photo album, library school stuff, art shit, what about the fucking glockenspiel?!, so much. But I went to a sort of interesting reading for Bloom, a queer writing journal. I keep thinking I need to move. Ha! Los Angeles, I mean Hollywood. I’m weirdly, somewhat seriously thinking about it. Like I was there and it wasn’t particularly great, but it was different from here, and I didn’t hate it, and there’s so much more to explore. So, maybe?
I killing my hands and arms by writing this, but writing on paper is just doesn’t feel real anymore. Sad but true, for me, but not all the time. Sometimes it still feels great.

Feeling It

I’m going to write every morning, that’s my new goal.  But will it happen.  It’s seems so difficult to make things happen these days.  So I’m, oh right I was going to try out a strict schedule, like scheduling out my days in hour increments.  Okay, I’m writing till 11am.  Then I’ll get ready for volunteering at the Center for Sex and Culture library.
I went to three Frameline movies over the weekend.   I went to see Wildness with Patrick on Saturday, Mommy is Coming with Reginald on Saturday, and I Want Your Love with Kyle on Sunday.  The movies were better than the “dates,” and that’s impressive because all of the Frameline movies I’ve seen in the past have been scary bad.  The dates were okay, too, adventure-ish, but kind of like work.  Dates are work, I guess, but if they feel like work then that’s not a good date, right?
I met John at Golden Gate Park.  I cruised him while he was peeing by a big pine tree.  He started whacking his cock, showing off, and of course I’m all over it ready to get down there and suck.  I follow him down into a little tree covered sex cave.  Nature did this.  I just got here, he just got here.  This rarely happens right away.  This is a public cruising miracle, or times are so bad that anything seems like something.
I thought he was sort of hippy-ish, which in gay San Francisco means Radical Faerie, but actually he’s a flight attendant for Virgin America.  The sex was hot in the moment.  It was a hot day.  If I’m honest, I’ll admit I fantasized about him being straight.  His long hair in a ponytail threw me off.  We talked afterwards, about what we were doing there, the best spots, what we were reading, where we had travelled to.  I started worrying about the antibiotic resistant gonorrhea currently travelling around the world, and maybe he has it.  I say do you want to exchange numbers and said do YOU want to exchange numbers which was an interesting question.  Is it really his insecurity or my own ambivalence which I thought I was hiding.  Part of my wants to exchange numbers to add to the significance of going to the cruisy park on a Sunday in some sort of frantic desperation even though I was trying to deny that.  And I’m trying to meet new people.  Let’s not talk about how after he left I spent another thirty minutes cruising.  But we went to a Frameline movie.  That’s pretty good, from the windmills to the Castro theatre.
Reginald I meet on Grindr.  He’s a queen and not afraid to show it.  Cute, but the Louis Vuitton bag he’s holding gives me pause.  Still I message him, we exchange numbers, I call, he’s at work, a nurse manager, we set up a date.  He said his last boyfriend was uncomfortable with him because he was always the center of attention and loud.  I wanted to believe he was a queen who knows, and not just another diva.  
We go to Limon and he insists on paying.  He orders ceviche, that’s on top of the raw beef he had for lunch.  I don’t eat raw meat or meat at all.  He tells a  lot of stories where he as the diva is center stage.  But it’s okay, I have a cocktail, he’s paying.  He’s not prepared for the queer porn extravaganza that is Mommy is Coming.  He says this movie is SICK!  He’s physically ill, he doesn’t stay for the Q&A.
Kyle is a sort of friend that I met on Adam4Adam back in November.   He’s gay in a way that I’m not gay or not anymore or don’t want to be.  I can go to the Castro for something important, but really I want nothing to do with the culture.  I’m totally disconnected from it.  I don’t want to check out buffed guys, I want to talk about how shitty it is, but I just end of censoring myself and nodding in agreement.   We’re on different wavelengths.  I don’t think I even like him but somehow he has the position of power in the relationship.  Because I’m shyer, weirder.  
But the movie is okay.  It’s well done, there’s lots of beautiful shots of San Francisco.  What gives me pause is that it’s about pointless hipsters.  If we acknowledge that they are pointless hipsters, but it’s still an okay movie that’s fine.  But don’t elevate them as representative of something important in San Francisco because they are hipsters.  Why is it about hipsters?  Why can’t it be about…?

The Invincible Library

The Gayle Rubin reading was boring, a big mistake for my summer life project. She didn’t really have anything new to say. I was interested about what she was going to say about queer archives, but it was just the obvious–they’re IMPORTANT! And there was no one I wanted to talk to in the audience, as in potential dates or friends. AND those seats are fucking uncomfortable!
I should never go to the Castro again for myriad of reasons. No, actually, I would like to be away for a very long time and then come back for a brief visit as a distant observer all glowing and carefree. Whenever I go to the Castro it’s a parade of people I’d rather not see. Social climbing wannabe personas that I used to work with ten years ago. Guys that wanted to have sex with me but then changed their minds, but it never mattered anyway since I never wanted to have sex with them.
Seattle here I come? Mattilda sent me a card saying Seattle awaits you.