blurring_the_edges_53_tripping_and_traveling birdmad (3 chapters ot so to go, more later) 041005 ... birdmad Jared, one of your friends from work invites you and a few of your fellwo co-workwers over tio his apartment. Essentially the small contingent of what ou would say are "the cool people" in your workplace both from night-shift and from day-shift.. By the time that Friday night has melted into the earliest part of Saturday morning, you are frying quite nicely on what is arguably some of the best acid you have ever hit. You almost start hitting on Raquel, the cute not-quite-olive-skinned girl who works on the Final Assembly line during the day shift. It's not for lack of nerve that you stop yourself, but for your walking into the kitchen for more beer and witnessing Jared and Raquel playing a frenzied game of full-contact tonsil hockey that you drop that plan. You knew that old Karla, Raquel's supervisor, pressed her daughter to quit seeing Jared after she stopped working there, but you are surprised that, for having seemed so broken up about Erica's decision to do as her mother wished, your pal sure isn't letting any dust collect on his surface. There's Lydia, the shipping clerk, who is absolutely cute as hell too - but you feel weird about your recently formed attraction to her because she's a friend and because she's the little sister of one of your friends from high-school. You have known her since she was just a gawky kid and you've watched her grow up into a woman who you can barely keep your eyes off of. You don't want to complicate things and when it's someone you know this well, that's usually what happens. Most of all, you live in fear of the phrase "Can't we just be friends?" which, based on the times you have heard it, you have learned to interpret as a polite way of saying "eww." You are actually more relieved than jealous when the rumor that she and Ricky from the stockroom is proved true by the way they keep holding hands and then fidgeting away from each other whenever they think anyone sees them. Ricky's a good guy though, so you don't begrudge him his good fortune in managing to attract her attention. By the time the acid really kicks in, most of the party guests have gone and just the stoners from the plant are hanging about. Stacy, the redneck from the Isolator line with a complex about going through life with "such a fuckin' girly name" has gotten good and mellow from the joint he was hitting a few minutes ago and he's finally stopped being a dick for the first time all week. "Good," you think quietly to yourself, "because if i had to hear him go off on another one of his stupid, pointless rants about his problem with Vietnamese people one more time, i was gonna stick his tongue in the goddamn hydraulic press" Stacy isn't reazlly one of the cool people, but he's OK when he's stoned and he brings the best weed, so you put up with him. You chuckle to yourself, because just to test Stacy, Jared invited "Roy" and Ngoc from Isolators just because, in addition to being part of the shop's stoner contingent, they can be counted on to get under Stacy's skin one way or another when he's being a moron. (more later) 041015 ... daxle don't rush the story :) 041016 ... birdmad The visual hallucinations you have off the acid manage to keep you amused through most of the night with the exception of the time you think that Jared's silver tabby kitten Fred is running along the ceiling. That mostly just freaks you out, but you laugh it off. ****** You end up not coming down until sometime suday afternoon and spend the rest of the weekend trying to hide it, worrying at some point that you might have acheived perma-fry ********* The following weekend, Teri calls and you make plans to hit the Atomic Cafe. While you are there, she says she wants to take another vacation with you and this time she wants to go to San Francisco. Not having been there since a brief weekend jaunt to a huge rave two and a half years ago during which you either never left the hotel room or the dance-floor, you agree that it sounds like a plan (...) 041018 ... birdmad Though it is the middle of s[pring, Teri tells you that she won't be eligible for vacation time from the place she is working until June, so this gives yo u a fair head start when it comes to planning the trip. You are surprised to discover that even with the amount of lead time you have to work with based on the time-frame Teri is suggesting for the third weekend in June, there is already seeming to be a shortage of hotel rooms By the time you manage to book a room, the best rate you can find for something relatively close to downtown is $140 per night for Thursday and Sunday nights and $180 per night for Friday and Saturday nights. The woman on the other end of the phone who accepst your reservations tells you that if you had waited until the normal two or three weeks ahead of time, you either wouldn't have found a room or would have paid more than twice as much. "Why's that?" you ask. The chokes back a laugh and simply says, "Late June is our busiest time of year." You get the impression that there is more she is not telling you, but you don't press the issue because you aren't in any great hurry to be laughed at for reasons that are not clear to you. You take the deal and decided, based on a conversation with Teri to tack Monday night on to the stay as well.. The next few weeks pass and wehn you take the trip, you understand that you have arrived in San Francisco not only for Gay Pride Weekend, but you have arrived during what is being billed as the 25th Anniverary of the Stonewall Riot in New York City which is the event on which the whole Gay Pride celebration is based. "Teri," you ask, "did you know that this was gonna be going on when you picked this weekend?" "Of couse, silly, why do ya think i wanted to come?" You are a little bit cross with Teri and at first she assumes that it is because you are uncomfortable being in the middle of the big event. "What, don't tell me you're suddenly all upset about being surrounded by queers." "No, Teri," you tell her, "I'm annoyed because you assumed i would be. The goddamn hotel clerk laughed at me when i made the reservations because i didn't know why the rate was twice the regular rate for the season and my surprise about it when we first got off the airplane was taken for worse by pretty much everybody whose paths we've crossed between the airport and here" "I know, it's just..." she trails off " I don't know why i didn't tell you." "Ahh, no problem...Fuck it, we're here, this whole town is gonna be one gigasntic party all weekend and millions of people are gonna be here partying after the big parade, sounds like a plan to me, babe." "How'd you know about the parade?" She asks, surprised. "Some old leather-man a couple of rooms down asked me if i was here for it when i went to get some ice from the machine in the hall." "Heh." You spend Thursday night getting settled in and relaxing in the hotel room, ordering a pizza from a place that Teri recommends from the time she lived in a nearby neighborhood. The two of you decide thattomorrow would be a good day to do a little sight-seeing and wandering about in general. She mentions a store in the Haight that her ex-girlfriend used to rave about and suggests that it would be a good place to start. Friday is spend roaming around Haight street and shopping very slowly in a.l of the different stores alopng the street. You go into a place called DalJeets you are immediately drawn to a rather monstrous pair of boots. At the same time, Teri spots a pair of purple Doc Martens. You trash your decaying pair of combat boots with the cracked soles, worn leather and the cobbler's nails which are beginning to slip uo and poke your heel and wear your new boots out of the store. At first they feel great, but as they are not broken in yet, by the time the two of you have gotten tired and decide to hwead back to the hotel, your feet and ankles are sore as hell. After dinner and a shower you get dressed and endure your aching feet to join some of your "neighbors" at a nightclub they've heard about. When you get there, the crowd is a mix of gay, straight and all points around and between and the music is hotter than anything you've heard even between The Works, Plastic or anyplace else. You and Teri split up and do your own cruising (...) 041019 ... birdmad At one point, after scoring some ecstast, you find yourself absentmindedly making out with as tall, slender redhead and only distractedly excuse yourself when your mutual grope session informs you that you are carrying the same plumbing. You both break out in a fit of laughter and the redhead gives you a playful shove, saying "Fuckin' tourist" as he ambles away, clearly looking like he is just as X'ed out and floaty as you are. At some point, you lose track of Teri, who has probably just as much lost track of you as the last time you saw her, she was dancing very provocatively with a super-cute soft-butch asian girl with blue streaks in her very short hair and wearing a shredded mini-skirt, black satin panties and electrical tape on her nipples. Roaming around, you see a blonde with a similar outfit but who has decided to dispense with the tape and just let a gold chain connect the rings in her nipples. She seems tense, but since you are X'ed, anyone who isn't seems tense to you. You occasionally glance over at her from where you are scoping the crowd and you conclude that she is either staring at you or she is staring past you. When the guy in head to toe black leather comes and fixes the leash back on the black leather collar she is wearing and pulls a blouse that is small enough to not really be there from his jacket pocket, you conlude she was staring past you. Leaving the club, you hail a cab and head back to the hotel room. When you get there, you dig in your backpack for an old business card and call the number on it. You have saved a small parcel of cash for occasions such as this one. Reading off the account number, you tell the voice on the other end of the phone that you'd like her to be here sooner than later. The X turns out to be shit and starts fading away before Tess shows up. This turns out to be a benefit for what you have in mind. You met Tess once before, a long long time ago. You have not seen her since before you started working with MeeKrob, you remember willingness to do damn near anything regardless of who might be watching. Between her masterful touch with the cat_o_nine_tails, she is also a fantastic fuck and while most would disagree with you, the illicit nature of paying for it made it even more exciting. (...) 041026 ... birdmad In the aftermath of your collisions, you and Tess take a shower, washing away the sweat you both managed to produce even in spite of the refrigerator-like setting of the air-conditioner. As she is dressing, having skipped the niceties of small talk and catching up when she first came in, Tess' eyes light up when she sees the set that there are two sets of bags in the corner. "Is Zoe here too?" she asks "No," you tell her with a sigh, as you light a clove from the pack on the dresser, "She took off about a year ago...went back to Detroit or Grosse Point or Auburn Hills or wherever she calls home at a given moment" "Anybody i know then?" "Probably not," you answer "just another example of my peculiar ability to attract lesbians." "You doing her?" Tess in her ever-blunt fashion strikes again. "Nope, she doesn't do guys or bi girls because she says bi girls smell too much like dick. She likes hanging around with me, though and we get along really well for some crazy reason." "Wild." Tess leaves and you take off the t-shirt you put on after you got out of the shower because you can feel that a few of the whip-marks on your back are open and you don't want the drying blood to fuse you to your clothing at the source because if you try to take it off then, it is going to sting like a sonofabitch. You lie down on your stomach drifting a little as Teri walks in, you notice that the sun is starting to come up and the world outside is that peculiar shade of greyish-blue that seems confined to the_small_hours of the morning. Sporting a look of satisfaction on her face that is equal to your own, Teri remarks that it looks as if you had a pretty good time last night, too. "Y'all didn't get anything on my sheets over here, did you?" "Nope, darlin... none went to waste." "Alex, i'd say 'eww' but i started this line of conversation, so i won't." "You already did." "Heh." (...) 041027 ... birdmad You [put in a call to the front desk to give you and Teri a ten-thirty MA wake-up call. Surprisingly, the desk-clerk agrees to it without comment, probably havin seen several of the hotel guests making their way back to their rooms in the last hour or so. You subject your feet to another round of hard labor after you and Teri manage to get completely turned around on your way to the Embarcadero and Teri, who has lived in the Bay Area a couple of times on brief oocasions insists she knows the way. It's mostly amusing, but you are staring to get just a little bit pissed off with her insistence. Being more of the chick in this strange relationship, you stop and ask directions from a storefront you pass along the way.. Teri seethes at first, until you get the point across to her that somewhere the two of you took a wrong turn and are now headed in precisely the opposite direction. "Aww, shit." When you finally make it to the Embacadero, your feet are positively killing you and it is only for the fact that your new boots are laced all the way up to about two inches below your knees you think your ankles wouldn't hold up too well either. In just over twenty four hours, by your best guess, you have managed to put close to twenty miles on your boots. The first time you went on a road march during your brief, abortive, military misadventure, you put in eight miles, but by that point, your boots were three weeks broken in. it's not so much the distance as the relative comfort level of new boots. A ride on the sightseeing harbor ferry that takes you all the way out to the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz turns out to be quite the pleasant diversion. For a brief moment, standing along a rail near the bow of the boat, you wish that it was Elena or Tina or Zoe that was here with you, but you recognize it as just a pointless wash of that masochism that has always been your romantic longings. Letting that thought slip away into the currents that wash out under the bridge, you sit down next to Teri on the bench just behind the rail and enjoy the scenery (...) 041027 ... birdmad After your ride on the harbor ferry and a short bit more walking, you are more than willing to spend a little extra cash to hail a cab back to the hotel. On the way back, Teri mentions a Mexican restaurant not too far away where she used to like to stop the last time she lived here. On your way to the restaurant, you pass by what appears to be a bar or night-club with a western theme called Rawhide. The sign out front causes you to break out in uncontrollable laughter, though because the logo above the word RAWHIDE is that of a big pink, equilateral triangle turned vertex down with a saddle draped over the base. "What's so funny, Alex?" "Just tryin' to get my mind around the thought of a gay cowboy bar...i mean knowing what i know about the type of people who you usually find in a cowboy bar, does that mean when these guys get really really drunk they try to kick their own asses?" "What am i gonna do with you, Alex?" Pulling up in the parking lot of the restaurant, you pay the cab driver the arm and a leg that the meter calls for, and based on his rather scary driving, you barely meet what you would call your minimum tip. Apparently it is still more than the last fare he had must have tipped him, because he seems quite pleased when you tell him to keep the change. Go figure. The appearance of the restaurant bodes well in your eyes as you are more confident of the quality of small, out of the way, hole-in-the-wall restaurants over the glossier places. The walls inside are the same pale blue as the dining room at your grandmother's house and the furnishings are old enough and sparse enough that you might think Grandma had decorated the place herself. There aren't a lot of people, but considering, using the memory of your dad and his attitudes as a barometer, that a lot of the old-fashioned types who might typically eat in a place like this wouldn't be too enthused about being out and about during Pride weekend. Smells of the kitchen and whatever was used to clean the recently mopped floor (likely to clean a spill) serve to further reinforce your liking of this place, besides, even if it wasn't great, you know anything would be better than the little Mexican-style snack-bar that gave you and Teri food-poisoning when you took that trip to Vegas last summer. True enough, the food turns out to be quite good, but somehow unfamiliar. Curious, you ask the waitress, a pleasant woman in her early 30's, about the style of the food in relation to region. "Perdoname, sen~ora, Me gusta mucho la comida, pero es algo muy diferente que la comida mexicana que he comido antes, de cual estilo es?" ["pardon me, ma'am, I really like the food, but it's quite different from anything i've had before, what Style is it?"] "No estoy seguro que te entiendo. Es comida mexicana" she says [I'm not sure i understand you, it's mexican food] "Pero en el estilo de cuales partes de Mexico? Es Sinaloense? Sonorense? de Michoacan?" {Yes, but from what part of Mexico? Sonora, Sinaloa, Michoacan?] "Ohhh...hay unas cosas que hacemos en el estilo de Baja California, pero la mayoridad es estilo Chihuahuense"[Ohh, there's some stuff we do Baja-style, but most of it is Chihuahua style] Your conversation continues with her for a moment longer before you go back to finishing your food. Teri looks at you with some small measure of astonishment and then chuckles as she takes a quick gulp of her beer. When she smiles like that it's hard not to be struck by how cute she is sometimes. "I must have forgotten that you can speak Spanish because that just surprised the hell outta me." Taking a gulp out of your own beer, you smile back at her and the two of you finish your food, you with a plate of carnitas and a side of beans and white rice with corn and peas spiced with a little jalapeno and black pepper and Teri with her chicken enchiladas. Walking back the few blocks to your hotel room as the sun is beginning to set, you feel pretty good. ********************************* It's Sunday morning. Having gotten a good night's sleep on a pleasantly full stomach and a just enough beer to have copped a light buzz, You and Teri agree to go check out the Museam of Modern Art which is also within walking distance. As the two of you are making your way to the museum, you get detoured by a lot of heavy traffic on its way to one of the ataging areas for the big parade. Yo9u manage to talk one of thje coordinators to let you cut across since the grouop that will be leading the way out of this artery isn't here yet. No sooner do you get around over or through the barricades with the man's permission thasn you are startled to hear the rumbling of what sounds like a very large assembly of motorcycles. Lookiing back before you get on the path to museum, Teri and you are stunned to see a couple hundred or so Harleys and other assorted choppers. The banner being carried across the three cycles in the lead is just unsubtle enough to nearly drop you to the floor in a fit of laughter spawned not so much out of mochery as appreciation of the outrageous. the banner, in black lettering on white said it all: DYKES ON BIKES Whatever it is has been showing on her face since she got out of the shower, and she hasn't said what's bugging her, but Teri regrds yo with a dirty look and spends the rest of the museum tour in a huff before ditching you when you stop to use the restroom. Oh well. after zipping through the last portion of the museum and still having an hour or so to spare before the parade kicks off, you decide to make your way to the parade route to watch the festivities. A pair of cute, and rather androgynous goth-boys start making conversation with you, at first drawn to the combination of your black trenchcoat and the titanic boots you are wearing dressed out over your the pant-legs of your jeans. Your curious nature makes you wonder if they are simply being friendly or if they are a couple of bottoms looking for a top, to which end they'd be disappointed to know that you're as much of a bottom as they are 90 percent of the time. In head-to-toe black, you do stand out rather noticeable among the rainbow hued clothing all around the horde of people now packing the streets. You take a certain pride in your uniqueness. At the beginning of the parade, you were almost certain for a moment that you saw Teri riding bitch on the back of one of the Dykes' bikes. You grin inwardly hoping that she isn't as cranky with the bikers as she has been with you today. The parade is amusing and entertaining, and you are content with that, but you are even happier when your two little goth-boys invite you to a big post-p arade party in the Castro. You hitch a ride with them to the party, stopping at an ATM machine along the way to pick up some cash, since they've asked if you'll chip in for some X The party is a big happy blur which you can barely remember except for dancing a lot and kissing a whole bunch of people and not really caring if they were girls or guys It was Three o'clock in the afternoon when you got to the party and it was almost four in the morning when you got back to the hotel, and since you're staying the extra day to wait out the outgoing rush at the Airport tomorrow, you just hope Teri is not in her same pissy mood. You sleep until nearly noon. 041028 what's it to you? who go blather from