the luxury of solitude

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where to start... my last entry left off when I was still in Seattle, at the end of May.

After leaving Seattle I visited Rhea again in Portland, then travelled south to meet Spud in San Francisco.
We met up with my dear friend Sunny who's currently living in Berkeley, and Sunny's friend Mik offered us a room at the place he was staying. With the luxury of a room to ourselves and a key to the back door, we set off to enjoy San Francisco. As usual, Spud wanted to check out the dancing scene and the bridges, so we managed a very touristy trip to Golden Gate Bridge and also a visit to the Park to join in with the Sunday Lindy in the Park session. Dancing on concrete isn't much fun to me, but the atmosphere was fun and trying to swing to "Mambo No 5" was hilarious if a little ridiculous.

Spud was leaving on the 2nd, and I had booked a ticket to Tennessee on the 3rd and we had a bit of a sad goodbye.
Tennessee...
I was travelling to a little festival in the middle of Tennessee, just south of Nashville, on the recommendation of my friend Sunny. Idapalooza.
Ida is a queer/trans/radical faerie sanctuary and an organic farm. Each year they throw a big music festival called Idapalooza, to have a good time and maybe put some cash into the project. A few hundred queerfolk took the trip out to Ida for the festival, and I had arranged to meet up with Gal (now to be known as Silver Spook) at the festival. I was a bit overwhelmed when I arrived - my supercheap flight involved a few different stopovers and no inflight meals, so after I arrived and had to wait at the airport for a couple of hours for pickup I was a bit bewildered when I finally got to the farm and was suddenly in a different universe of sorts: a whole bunch of fantastic genderqueers hanging out in the shade or playing frisbee. Luckily Sunny kidnapped me with some others and we headed out to a nearby swimming hole - heaven in the heat of Tennessee, what a comparison to the freezingness of San Francisco!
The festival ran for a week, and involved daily shows, workshops, music, circus and waterfalls. Mostly during the day it was so hot that I didn't really want to do anything but sit in the shade and play cards, or sit by the river drinking Red Stripe. In fact that's how we celebrated Spook's 21st: sitting in a fresh creek drinking mildly too-warm Red Stripe in the shade. Learning quickly about things like poison ivy and chiggers. So whoever thought australia was full of weird and scary insects obviously didn't compare them with poison ivy and chiggers. Chiggers - a microscopic little insect that injects a liquid into your skin that putrefies your flesh and hardens the surrounding skin creating a kind of little straw which they then use to suck your liquified flesh out and feed. Sounds gross? yes, because it is. Chiggers are everwhere in the long grass and woods. The only way you can keep them away is by using chemical sprays and avoiding the long grasses, and possibly washing a few times a day. They like to hang out anywhere that your skin overlaps or you have a waistband or something to prevent them from being scratched off. Some people at Ida ended up with horrifying bites, all over their tenderest places... I managed to stay chigger free until we left the festival, and that's another story.

The festy was great and involved several Aussies - including Spook, Sunny, Jackson (Brizzy), Ane (Melbourne) and Elliot (currently in West Philly) and Regret (dunno where she's from). Our delightful accent attracted an adoring crowd of followers and we started a pseudo-Aussie band which performed during the "No-talent show". Featuring our own version of "beautiful girls" amongst other things. Sadly we were cut short before we got to perform our "celibacy is so radical" hiphop song which we hadn't exactly written yet... Ida is the kind of place where it's not unusual to see someone in stilettos in the veggie patch, wearing sequins while cleaning the kitchen.

After the festival Spook and I had decided to find the legendary Dollywood. A whole theme park dedicated to Dolly Parton? In her hometown of Pigeon Forge? Surely this is an unmissable experience! We brought along our fabulous new friend Fox and hired a tiny posh little black car and drove off into Tennessee. Our first night camped on the side of the road was a little rough: biting insects and fireflies and ghost stories and then being woken up super early by a belligerent man who apparently owned the little bit of gravel we were lying on, and later the Police who came to make sure we weren't starting fires or anything, so we headed in to Pigeon Forge for a reviving breakfast. Sadly the Happy Days Diner was closed but we managed to find a meal amongst the 78 different pancakes offered at one diner and then spent a few hours trying on cowboy clothes at a nearby Western Store. Funny, Tennessee isn't really the West at all, more like the South...

Dollywood... we arrived at around 10am, and joined the queues of people lining up in the hot sun. Paid the fortune to get in, only to find that there was very little evidence of Dolly at Dollywood. Save for some token references here and there and a tribute show supposedly full of Dolly's friends and family, oh - and her face on the Dollywood Dollar, the major theme was more like old-timey coal mining Tennessee. Which was still fun. We tried all the rollercoasters and looked at the crafts and got our photo taken as cowboys. It was a great day... soon enough our heads were spinning and we had to get out, so we drove around Pigeon Forge looking for a cheap motel and ended up with one by a little creek, and a view across to the "Outback Steakhouse".

Next day we were back on the road heading for Nashville. After an early distraction at thrift stores we had a very funny encounter with a waiter at Olive Grove (a bourgeoisie kind of fast food) who was in to Dungeons and Dragons and really liked Fox, hmmm. We rented a really cheap and bodgy motel on the outskirts of Nashville and spent the night talking trash and tattooing each other, while thunder rolled by and the rain came down.

At Nashville Airport we miraculously managed to navigate the car back to the rental agency and arrive at the airport with time to spare and a bag of unopened beers. Too bad we had to leave the beer with the security guys, but found ourselves all on the same flight heading for a stopover in Chicago. The plane was pretty small and the hostess really liked us so we had some bloody marys to help with Fox's flight nerves and the time passed quickly. We almost missed our connection in Chicago thanks to Fox & Spook heading off to cooch in the toilets and our plane being delayed a little, but soon enough we were touching down in San Jose, and heading north on the train.

Our friend from Ida, Sam had graciously offered us some floorspace, so we spent our first couple of days back in San Francisco exploring the Mission (one of the last working class neighbourhoods in San Francisco also the major radical queer/dyke neighbourhood) which is packed with DIY craft stores, thrift shops and funky restaurants. Spook kitted out with some fancy new clothes while I fretted about budgets and boring things like that. We hung out with Sam and their friend Ellen watching the entire 4th season of the L-Word (yes whatever, it's bourgeousie fancy crap that's totally femme etc but still enjoyable) and eating burritos, and drinking coffee from Philz - where Sam worked.

Soon enough Fox rolled into town and we headed over to stay with Fjord on Balmy st. Balmy st is just a few blocks from Sam's but lined with amazing colourful murals and art. Fjord's place was packed with punks and felt kind of like home. Thus began the descent into the revelry and decadence of Pride. In between the abundance of good times we managed to see Sunny's performance as part of the Pride festival: two shows called "Othering" and "Gender-queer seeking" which made me proud and amazed and Sunny's talents blew me away.

Luckily for my liver & sanity I escaped the revelry for a few days and headed south to meet up with Teresa and Margaret in Santa Cruz, where I spent some time weeding & watering a wonderful permaculture garden and gazing across the hillsides and over the ocean (and strolled down the famous boardwalk for my first Photobooth Adventure in the US), and then down to San Luis Obispo to see the ever fabulous Linda Seeley. I got to spend a few days with Linda, enjoying the quietness of her house, climbing hills that reminded me of south Australia, meeting her funny hippy mates who live in the hills and import healing rocks from India. We drank tea and told stories and had a really great time reconnecting... For those who don't know, Linda and Teresa are two of the people who trekked all the way over to Denmark (western australia) for the Joanna Macy 30-day Work That Reconnects workshop in Jan/Feb 2005. Sharing such a special time with them made it more excellent that we could reconnect.

So soon enough I was back on the bus to San Jose, heading towards a highly anticipated Pride festival in San Francisco. I rolled in to Balmy St just in time for eggs in bread and a beer before the Trans picnic and parade in Delores Park. The wind was high and it was a bit difficult to hear the performances but there was a huge Ida contingent in the park and it was kind of like a big reunion. We drank beers and Sparks (a highly dangerous energy drink/alcohol) and then Fox's friends Skyler and melody rocked up with accordion and drum and it was time to make music for the parade. As with most parades the procession meandered through the streets with a small audience which grew once we reached the Castro - traditional gaybourhood of San Francisco. Back to the park, some food, some more drinks, some parties... We tried to go and see a band called Below the Salt but were 3 hours late so we watched a comedian/MC convince one of the band members to drink a shot of shoju every time he stuffed up repeating a poem-tongue-twister. And headed back to Balmy. We stayed out late on the street, Fox, Spook, Finch and I, listening to the night sounds of the Mission and talking about all kinds of serious things...

Next day was a little hungover, but we prepared to head over to the Dyke March & Picnic, same idea as the day before. We faffed and snacked and didn't make it to the park until the parade was leaving, and opted instead to sit on a grassy slope and play music with the crew from the day before. Soon enough the paraders were back and everyone was heading to the Lexington. Instead we ended up busking for a while and making enough cash for a few pitchers of Margarita and had a fine meal of burritos and quesadillas before heading over to our new resting place on 21st st. We'd decided that Fjord and his delightful housemates Eric, Hector and Fable might have had enough of having random women sleeping on their couches and floor, and found a new house to crash in. There was a sort of party that night, and the accordion pirate music from the loungeroom kept everyone's spirits high.

Next morning we all drowsily rolled in to the kitchen to find Sealu and Daphne keen for a huge southern-style cookup. Collard greens, vegan biscuits & gravy, fried potato (homestyle), salad and more... the kitchen table groaned under the weight of the feast and the crowded knees of the people sitting around it. This was definitely a sign of things to come, as Sealu magicked vegan delights from the dumpstered and organic produce and we spent the rest of the day faffing in the kitchen and also moving our gear from Balmy st with the help of Bikerack Betty and Pi's auto. We decided to pretty much skip the big gay day of Pride and instead headed over to Oakland to try again to see the gypsy band Beyond the Salt. We made it in fine style, Fox Betty Pi and I drove over after having to break in to Pi's car to get the keys out. The band was awesome. Afterwards the whole posse crammed into the car to head over to the 5th Avenue Marina, a marina surrounded by little dingy artist shacks and art made from driftwood. A tiny pier remains there covered in bits of flotsam and tickytacky and there was a huge bonfire surrounded by couches. The Hobo Gobbelins showed up (Skyler & Melody) along with some other musos and a pirate shindig began. We heel and toe'd it for a while until Sealu, Anna and I decided to take the shopping home and start the incredible southern cookoff we'd been planning. Talked about aboriginal art all the way home, surrounded by San Francisco on all sides. I learned how to make vegan cornbread, while Sealu made a kind of sweet potato mash covered in sugar and marshmallows (a bit overwhelming but apparently authentic) and when Fox Spook and the others arrived on the last train we had another big feast.

The next day was spent dressing up in the clothes from the house's FreeBox (a very good idea for those communal houses where stuff just turns up: put it in a box labelled "free" and soon it won't be your problem anymore...) and cooking and then an evening excursion while the housemates interviewed potential new residents - we headed to Pop's, a dingy little bar on the corner of Bryant & 24th where Fjord, Fox, Spook, Sealu and I spent a couple of hours and a fair bit of cash on photobooth adventures... and that was my last night in San Francisco.

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