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This is a great post on Craigslist.

Well, I’m disappointed. Just watched the final episode of Boy Meets Boy, and it wasn’t all I hoped it would be. (Of course, I did hope for a twist on the twist – Wes gleefully revealing that he loves the girls and Franklin reciting Whitman with tears in his eyes as he’s picked and whisked away.) My only consolation was that Brian was NOT picked – I loved him, he was the BMB version of me, all Pollyanna and kinda whateverish, sweet but boring. It would have been a copout. Maybe someday their eyes will meet in the bar and it’ll spark off again. Maybe someday, nothing. Might happen next week, since they live in the same area (how is it they didn’t know each other? Hmmmmm). I don’t think James settled, though, (even though Wes is still a little weasel, I think) and that’s the important part.

I’ve finally stopped crying, and I ain’t talking BMB. Got a temporary crown yesterday, and it hurt like hell. I had forgotten I was resistant to lidocaine. Why do I always forget that? Six shots of it later, it finally kicked in, but it always has the side effect of making me cry. Weepy, runny tears, over nothing in particular. I sat on the floor of my apartment yesterday, bawling because I couldn’t make the TV work and I wasn’t going to get my laundry folded before I had to go to work. Tired, achy tears. The exhausted kind.

And I kept it up all night at work, off and on. I’d think of someone I loved, and the tears would just slide. No effort, no headache, just tears. It’s the oddest feeling, and I’ve always reacted like that. I’m glad it’s over. Now I have to run off to work again, for an unexpected fourteen hour shift. I’ve had about an hour off today, not including sleep time. I fit in the taped show and writing this, and that’s all I’ve got.

Hope your day is lidocaine-free and happy. No tears. I’ll be glad to able to answer the phone at work clearly again, instead of puffy and numb, “Nine one one, juhashanemenshenchy?”

So hiya! I’m back. Brown as a berry, with funny Birk tan lines on my feet, with one cracked tooth and a nosebleed that’s off and on, but I’m back. Happy. Did you expect any less?

It was weird to be cut off from technology for the better part of five days. No computer (although I did bring it, I just couldn’t quite picture myself turning it on), no electricity, no running water, not even cell phone coverage. The best you could do was wait in line for one of the two payphones in the campground – there was never less than a half-hour wait, even with the three-minute limit on conversations. I didn’t wait in line. I was cut OFF.

It was weird, but nice. That tells me (I hope) that while I love the internet, I’m not totally and completely addicted. Good. I was getting worried.

I feel like sharing a bunch of pictures, though, okay?

I made camp. I found it and claimed it and waited HOURS for Mom and Dad to arrive and help me set it up (Christy and Beth came the next day). I made four mice for Wendy’s mouse-a-thon while waiting, whoo hoo! Here’s me making a sock later on, waiting for a show to start – I’m not winking, I just don’t own sunglasses.

Our closest camping neighbors were Ronna-Lee, who’s about fifty-five and her husband Tim, about thirty years younger. He’s a stoner; she has odd hair and short shorts and a whole lot of money. They bring EVERYTHING with them. They even had a coffee machine. A real, plug-in machine. Don’t know how they ran it. And get this: They had a remote control light for their tent so they could find it while walking back in the dark. Good thing, too – they were usually so loaded it must have been difficult.

I found old friends, too, who are festival friends, the kind you make and love and mean to keep in touch with and never do and do it all over again the next year. Here’s my mother with RuthAnn Rose, three-month old daughter of my friend Alpha (of dead-frog lore).

Yep, I met up with Alpha and her husband Wayne during a concert – they were seated at the back and the baby started fussing. I valiantly said I’d walk her. I cradled her in my arms and walked to the side of great meadow, dancing and jiggling her until she smiled and danced with me. We had a grand time. I thought we were pals. Then she fussed again, and night was dropping fast, so I walked back over to the part of the crowd I thought her parents were in. Couldn’t find them.

Made another pass. RuthAnn was now crying her lungs out. In the middle of the concert.

Made another walk through the heavily blanketed and chaired grassy area. No parents. Almost dark now. I am now the owner of a small damp screaming infant and I don’t even know her last name.

This is what nightmares are made of.

Finally Alpha saw ME, and shone her flashlight on her face. I scrambled over various people and coolers, dumped the baby, and ran for the beer tent. It was just too much.

We had a great campsite. Bethany slept in her truck, Dad in the SUV they rented (he hit a dumpster in the very parking lot of Enterprise, though, so it was an expensive rental), Mom and Christy in the mammoth tent, and me in my little blue one with the zipper that’s been broken for years. Huh. That zipper had never bothered me before. That’s probably because it had never RAINED before. It only rained for about an hour, but it was enough to send rivers through my tent. But this was how tired I was – I shoved my (oh so) dirty clothes into the puddles and turned my pillow when it got too soggy. Kept on sleeping.

I hung the PACE flag.

At least ten people wandered into camp asking about it, saying they had been in Italy and had wanted one, or they’d seen them other places, what did it mean? (It’s the European symbol for peace, in Italian [pah-chay], and I LOVE that it’s rainbow striped. Of course.)

Alison Kraus was heartbreakingly, showstoppingly good. You know I’m prone to hyperbole, and I sure as hell did say all weekend, “No, really, THAT was the best show yet!” but she really was too good to be true. Her voice is unnaturally pure. And hey: she was backed by not only Union Station (love Dan Tyminsky), but Jerry Douglas on dobro. Jerry Douglas! I hadn’t seen him in years, maybe since he was still playing with Russ Barenberg and Edgar Meyer, and he’s still as brilliant as he was then. I mean, damn. (Yeah, Rachael, that’s an illustrative comment.)

Trying again: We’re sitting in this huge (and I mean enormous) meadow in Yosemite, surrounded by mountains and forests of pine (and the occasional bear, we’re told). It’s dark, the new moon is sinking to the left, Mars rising behind us. The heat’s finally off and the mountain air turns cold. The Milky Way sure is milky (for an Oakland girl, this is a miracle). Alison Kraus’ voice is soaring, Tyminski and Block are holding her up, and Jerry’s sliding along, matching her rise and drop. The drunks who’ve been partying all day don’t yell, the babies don’t cry, and no one folds up their chair with those annoying clunks. No one leaves. Standing ovation. A couple of them. It’s wonderful.

AND: Natalie MacMaster, cute as heck fiddling and kicking her way across stage; Tim O’Brien, who jumped into the lake, clothes and all, after he closed the revival Sunday morning; Open Road, seen here at the same revival:

Dave Alvin singing Mississippi John Hurt songs; and Patty Griffin whom I can’t even bring myself to begin to write about. I’d never seen her in concert before. That, folks, is talent. Some of us can learn and can be pretty good at things. Other things are a gift, and she’s got it. Brought me to tears twice.

It wasn’t the wine, I swear. All in all, we were a temperate bunch. Surprisingly. (Disappointingly?) After I broke my tooth eating crunchy sourdough (I started to yell at Beth about the rock in her bread and then realized what it was and FREAKED out – I have very strong teeth), the sisters tried to get me drunk. I wussed out and let them down. Something about the altitude and the heat made me a lazy drinker. Didn’t slow anyone else down, though; Mom found a man sleeping in the middle of the road last night. We did have a half-assed laugh at ourselves – before the show started last night, we sat in our row: Christy all hopped up on ibuprofen she’d taken for a headache, I was knitting a sock, and Mom, Beth and I split a Tecate. And after the show, there was still a little left.

Weak, I tell you. Pathetic.

No dead frogs this year – not many live ones, either, come to think of it. I did a bunch of swimming in the lake and took two yoga classes under the trees. I got Mom to join me for one, and she impressed me no end. I’ve got a bendy little Mama.

We sang and slept and broke camp this morning (here’s Christy doing just that, my old convertible in the background).

And now Beth is really, truly heading out. Here she is reading her map.

She’s off on an adventure that she hopes will last about a year – she’s living in her pickup truck and crossing the country, taking only backroads and sleeping where she can. She’ll pick up work when she runs out of money and photograph religious shrines and funny signs on the road-sides (like this one).

We left camp, and Christy and I caravanned with her to a teeny-tiny town called Copperopolis, where we had lunch at a saloon that boasted on a hand-lettered sign that it sold not only lunch, but dinner, too. We sat at the bar since there wasn’t a choice. The proud owner (who pointed out his own brand carved into the top of the walnut bar) said that the cook was out, but he knew how to make a french dip. So we had three french dips with Coke and put Bethy in her truck and watched her drive away alone.

Happy Trails, Bethany.

We cried. And then drank some more cold Coke and booked it home – it was almost a hundred degrees out there and I was dying of heat…..

Christy and I took the back route home – it adds a little time, but the drive looks like this:

And not this (which is what we would have been stuck in, had we taken the normal freeway route):

I’m glad to be home. Just one more picture, and I love this one.

This is us leaving this morning. I’m shooting the picture from the driver’s seat, that’s the back end of my car, Beth’s truck behind me, Christy’s green Volvo behind that (we boxed her safely in until after we separated an hour later). The wee person in the green shirt waving goodbye is our little Mama. I love that!

Getting ready to go, packing up, being my normal anal self. Lists and more lists. Re-written lists. Checking things off and then double-checking.

I LOVE lists.

Strawberry Festival starts tomorrow afternoon, and I can’t wait to be there. Four days of bluegrass and sun and swimming in the lake and dancing and beer and my whole family playing guitars.

Last year the family couldn’t make it, and I went by myself. Camping alone was a little alarming to think about (oh, you should have seen THOSE lists), but it was a blast. Met a woman named Alpha who went swimming with me in Frog Lake every day. It’s aptly named – hundreds of teeny tiny little frogs to play with while you’re swimming, putting them on your hand and watching them plop back into the water. One afternoon, as we were squelching through the slime to get to the cool water, Alpha felt something dry and crinkly in the bosom of her antique bathing costume. Thinking it was an old tag, she reached in and pulled out….. a dry, dead frog. A frog that had been there since the day before, when we’d gone swimming and it had apparently hitched a ride. Then she’d ridden off on her bike for a full afternoon of contra-dancing and guitar playing and dinner eating, all the while carrying her friend with her.

I’ve never heard anyone scream any louder than that.

So I’m off. Have a great Labor Day weekend! I leave you with a couple of pieces from my Lo-Tech Sweat – all done but part of the hood and the pockets.

I’m not bringing it with me – I figure I’ll spend time making some mousies for the Mouse-A-Thon and maybe finish some socks.

Ah, summer….

Dude. Let’s talk Bravo Queer TV.

Damn it to hell – I’m DEVASTATED that tonight wasn’t the final Boy Meets Boy, and I’m terrified that yes, Franklin

will be the straight one. AND I have to work next week. If any of you email me on Tuesday night next week, please, for pity’s sake, don’t tell me who won – it’ll have to wait till the morning when I can watch the tape.

Here’s how Mopsie, who’s done the math, put it: That terrible pairing off they did? It was so the producers could assure that gaydar wouldn’t rule the game, and that a straight guy would make it to the top three. We already knew that. But Mopsie has a memory, unlike me, and reminded me that Sean (straight) was paired with Franklin.

Aargh.

And Wes makes my skin crawl. He’s fake, sooooo fake.

I NEED him to be the straight one.

Please. Don’t ask me the hard questions right now.

Wes. Ew.

Ew, ew, ew!

All I know for sure is that Queer Eye (no spoilers) was the best ever, and I loved the big Greek boy. I think it’s hot how the Fab 5 have gained such instant popularity. And the Fab 5 aren’t hiding; they’re not being politically correct. At all! Please! Did you hear Carson’s comment on the chocolate last week? My ears! And I’m good at this game! I can only hope that… what? ….that there IS hope. That a completely straight goofy Greek boy can be swept away by five queers on national prime-time television, so much so that he embraces them out of sheer excitement for how much they’ve helped him (or by how much schwag they’ve thrown his way, which is, let’s face it, a considerable amount). Even Mom Georgia from the old Greek country toasts them, which was freaking adorable.

Sigh. QEFTSG made up for the disappointment that was Boy.

I’m investing in Bravo.

I’ve really been enjoying The Book of Salt, even though it’s not something I would normally pick up. I know I’d read about it when it came out – the fictionalized account of Gertrude Stein’s cook. Nuh-UH! Are you kidding me? That kind of thing normally leaves me cold. But a friend lent it to me, and I started reading it without reading the jacket. By the time it came to me that I knew what the book was about, it was too late. Now I have to keep reading for the language.

Yep, it’s over the top all right, but somehow Truong gets away with it. It might be because the book is ABOUT language that she can get away with being so purple, but I don’t hate its luridness. Actually, I’m digging it.

Just listen to this about jade:

Oh, you know what? Never mind. (This is still me, not Truong.) What was purple and moving in bed after a cocktail last night (see below) is now just annoying. I’ll just show you MY jade instead:

When I was little (you’ve heard this already? I’ve written it? You know I’ve forgotten if I have), I always had a plastic tiki. My mother had the real greenstone one. She told me on every trip to New Zealand that when I was a grown-up lady, I could buy myself one. Always the pragmatist, my mother. So last year, when the whole family went, I did. It’s one of my three most precious objects. (Not that I really have three, I just bet I could come up with three if pressed….)

And I do believe that it’s the most alive kind of stone. It does feel like it breathes next to me, and the way it warms up against my skin is comforting. When I was dating T, she had such respect for it (not that she doesn’t now, you know what I mean…..) She refused to touch it at all. While this felt a little silly, I really liked that she felt like she did – that she believed there was power in such a little item. The other day at Peppa, a couple of women closed their unknown fingers right around it: “Oh, how pretty! What is it?” Nooo!

Okay, just a few lines from the book.
On making love with someone with whom a common language is not shared: “We will attempt to tell stories to each other using just one word.” Too rich, but sweet. My teeth ache in a good way.
Also on sex: “There is no narrative in sex, in good sex that is.” And I like it that she doesn’t try to force such a narrative.

Tonight: Boy Meets Boy finale. I’m terrified that Franklin will be the straight one, and that will be too horrible. It has to be Trying-to-Have-Gay-Hair Pompous Ass Wes, it just HAS to be. I can hardly wait.