Serving Drinks in Peulla, Chile

We took the Andean lake crossing to get from San Carlos de Bariloche to Puerto Montt, Chile. It involved three boats and two buses, and we chose to stay overnight at the mid-way point in Peulla, Chile. Peulla has a population of 152 people and the complete list of buildings include the customs office, school, the hydroelectric turbine building, and towering above all else are the massive old hotel and the even more massive new hotel, the Hotel Natura.

Peulla overlooks a many-acre marsh at the end of the lake, and is sandwiched between two mountains that jut suddenly from the rainforest below up into the clouds. We never actually saw the top of the mountains because they're just that tall. It's quite dramatic. The pictures we have are beautiful, but quaint by comparison to standing looking at it.

There is no shopping, nightlife, or anything else in Peulla, and the transit schedules are carefully designed so that you'll have many, many hours to kill before you depart. What to do with all that time? Fortunately, Peulla is run by a tour company. Guillermo paused with facetious excitement at the notion of TV in your room, or Internet in the hotel lobby. He thought a self-guided walk was a nice idea, but clearly the superior way to while your time in Peulla was one or more from the menu of attractively-priced excursions conveniently timed to avoid conflict with your departure the next afternoon.

But in case you didn't like any of those options, you could always run from the biting flies.

Included at no extra cost, Peulla offers an exercise program to ensure that when you do leave the Hotel Natura, you will return at a full run. Every time the sun comes out, the 1.5 inch orange horseflies come droning through the air like helicopters looking for blood. And they are not easily deterred. Insect repellants are pointless. Swatting at them turns it into sport. And smacking them with anything less than all your might doesn't harm them in the slightest. First one arrives, strafing and diving, then a whole family of bloodthirsty idling chainsaws the size of the smallest hummingbird is swirling around you looking for a place to land. And drink.

Within a couple of hours, tourists like ourselves who'd tried to go on a walk and been driven back indoors sat around in the lobbies and lounges of the hotel looking at each other with blank, fly-bitten stares. Personal anecdotes of our shared horror of the horseflies galvanized us, and became conversation starters. Joanna from South Africa was horrified to be trapped indoors without champagne or ice on her anniversary. Michael from Canada had one get under his hat. Lee from Canada had been bitten on the ankle and even skipped a pre-paid outdoor excursion in fear for her precious vital fluids.

The locals, no strangers to the daylight onslaught, were full of good humor and broken English sympathy at first. But while they were not new to the winged menace, they were also too familiar with the complaints of tourists for their own tastes. The obvious comparisons to Hitchcock were apparently so cliche that by the time the third English-only tourist made reference to 'The Birds' in 15 minutes, they could no longer suppress the eye roll. "Oh, please," it seemed to say, "Hitchcock? Really? That's the best you can do?"

Peulla was wonderful in all other respects. The views were amazing, and once evening started to bring temperatures down the flies settled in for the night, savoring the taste of fresh blood on their proboscides. We both fearfully sniffed the air and once we were certain all danger was past, we left the hotel under the cover of an early dusk. We spotted five waterfalls, at least a dozen native plants we consider to be exotic, and took lots of pictures without anyone in them. Given the extreme remoteness and the short supplies they had on hand, Hotel Natura's staff managed to prepare excellent cuisine.

The pictures will tell the tale of our night and day in Peulla, but we will always remember it for its predators. Peulla. Come for the vistas. Stay for the excursions. And run for your life.

A Compassionate End

From the moment Head Chef and I decided to raise birds for meat, we knew it would mean killing them. Yes, the joy of holding day-old chicks in your hands and raising scruffy young birds into beautiful specimens is a big part of the fun. But the killing was a part of the process. Part of these birds' life cycles.

So we did a lot of reading on compassionate butchering techniques for the backyard flock. And we gasped at the horror of factory farm techniques that often enough entail dismembering live animals. Not dead or unconscious birds, but fully awake, screaming creatures, being plucked and quartered for the American table.

We knew we could do better in our sleep. We could do better than that accidentally. So we raised our birds with attention and care, and planned for their respectful, quiet end.

We think they have had marvelous lives. They receive as much good quality feed as they can eat, table scraps, and as much roughage as they can forage on the three acre yard we have enclosed around the house. We shoo them from the flower garden whenever they start to dig, but they've had their way with it anyway. They obviously love the soft moist soil and the insects that live beneath the surface. The flock of turkeys and chickens runs to us when the see us, so we think they're happy with us, and by extension, their lives.

But Thanksgiving is coming, and that means it's time. Time for two turkeys and a guinea hen.

So yesterday we set up the ladder, a table, and filled the turkey fryer with water. The water approached 150 degrees so we went to the coop and selected a turkey hen.

The birds were all locked up to prevent roaming, as it wouldn't be appropriate to have them pecking around as we sealed the fate of their peers. And within, we wrapped Hurty Gerty within an old bath towel and covered her eyes.

Gerty was a broad breasted bronze turkey, another of those unthinkable abominations we humans have bred from something wild and noble. Wild turkeys are quick, agile, and such good flyers they can leap 20 feet vertically into a tree, or fly for hundreds of meters across the treetops. But broad breasteds have a unique genetic mutation that causes their breast muscles to overdevelop. They become so large that they waddle awkwardly when they walk and are completely incapable of flight. But their instinct-driven brains don't know that. So they manage to get to high perches they can't get down from. Then believing they can fly, they plummet to the ground like bowling balls with pointlessly flapping wings.

And this is how Hurty Gerty got her name. One night she managed to hop from limb to limb up to a reasonably high branch in a pine. The following morning, she spread her useless wings and fell to earth, tumbling across the ground like a snowboarder who's just edged in at 35 miles per hour. By the time she stopped rolling, she had damaged one leg. Gerty was now hurty. She refused to move on her own for days. We lifted her and moved her to the food, then the water, and watched her carefully. But she was improving. Eventually, she walked on her own, but never without a slight limp in each burdoned step.

So yesterday, with her eyes covered, Gerty fell calm. She stopped struggling in Head Chef's arms, and just sat silent. This was what we expected and were surprised none of our research had suggested. Most birds have terrible night vision, and so moving about at night is a bad idea. In fact, if you're a bird, remaining calm and quiet is the best bet for survival whenever it's dark. So barnyard fowl benefit from this same effect. Cover their eyes or make it dark, and they feel calm and stop moving.

We felt that making use of this instinct was a critical step in the compassionate experience we wanted to be these birds' last minutes. The bird would be calm and quiet, making it less stressful for everyone. They would be cooperative in their last moments, and they would not become alarmed, struggle, or call out.

And we were more than satisfied with the results. We tied Gerty's feet together, and cradling her massive weight within the towel, we slipped the hook between the ropes we'd strung from the ladder. She was relaxed, and her breathing was slow. We thanked her for being a good companion and for making this so easy on us. Head Chef pulled out the knife and made one quick and decisive cut across the neck, and I released her weight so that she hung by her feet.

Head Chef was moved. He was flushed and we stepped away for a few seconds and I hugged him. He breathed heavily a few times. It was tough to take a life, but we said nothing. This was the food chain in action, and we were trying to be responsible participants in that process.

Gerty lost consciousness within a minute, and as she hung bleeding, she never called out or struggled at all. Within three minutes her breathing stopped and her brain was dead, and we removed her body from between the ladder and began the process of dressing her for the holiday.

The process was not nearly as yucky as we expected. Head Chef removed the head and we dipped the body into the hot water and counted to 25, then moved it to the table and began plucking. The feathers came out in generous handfuls. We discovered that a 25 second bath had been too much, and some of the skin was fragile as result. But we managed to deal with the repercussions without tearing the skin.

Then Head Chef cut around the vent without severing the intestines, and reached up into the body cavity, removing the package of organs without any trouble at all. We rinsed and tidied the body one more time, soaked it in a cold water bath, and bagged it. It looked exactly like a thawed bird from Safeway. A 25 pound bird. It was amazing. And the process had taken us just under an hour.

Gerty and an unnamed sister of hers now sit in the freezer. One will be shipped to Head Chef's mother for her own holiday, and we will enjoy Gerty here at our home with family and friends.

It is odd to have meat that has a name, but it also seems OK. Hurty Gerty had been dealt an unfortunate card upon conception. She would be a monstrosity, and butchered before her first year. But we feel grateful that we got to hold her as a chick, raise her into an impressive bird, nurse her wounded leg back to function, and say thanks before taking her life ourselves.

It's been rewarding, humbling, and empowering to know her. Thanks, Gerty.

Subversives With Lawyers

Subvert the will of the people?

If the people are wrong, then I would argue that it is not only right to subvert the will of the people, it is our duty.

When a majority places their own interests above the interests of a minority at the expense of the minority, that's called tyranny of the majority. Hurting people just because you don't like them is wrong.

Third graders know that. Third graders would not have voted for Proposition 8.

But a slim margin of Californians voted tyrannically.

So will we attempt to subvert their will? Most definitely. Utah Phillips has said, "Freedom is something that you assume, then you wait for somebody to try to take it away from you. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free."

We will be free.

The Crazy Hobo and The Mule

Our story begins with a neighbor.  But not your typical pleasant-but-not-overtly-friendly sort of neighbor. No, this starts with a stupid neighbor that came fully equipped with a vicious sense of entitlement. No extra parts to buy!

Trust me when I say he's stupid. I do not label people 'stupid' lightly, but when I say he is not intelligent, it's because I truly believe he lies along the Simon-Binet IQ scale in the region of 'moron'. But my evidence for that is another entry entirely, and I digress.

We had just moved into the neighborhood and the first time we shook hands he had advice for us. To paraphrase, 'You're my bitches until I say otherwise.'

That came as a surprise. Head Chef and I are not the servile sort. And upon our first meeting, it seemed unlikely he'd already know whether or not to expect us to behave obsequiously.

But to prove that we were, in fact, his playthings, Neighborstopheles decided he was going to start tampering with the water to our house. As it pleased his whim, he would turn off the main valve to the house at its source, well out of view from our home.

We'd find the water off and hike up the hill to turn it back on. Three to five times a week. Sometimes more than once per day.

When we asked him to stop, he ignored us. He didn't say 'no,' or leave a note explaining why he would not stop. There was just emptiness, like a void. It was as though we were sending emails and leaving notes for our imaginary friend.

We were nothing if not patient. But after three months of tampering with our water, he made a fateful error. One day, Neighborstopheles disconnected our water line altogether, damaging some of the piping in the process. And with that simple act of annoying, passive-aggressive tampering, 'Stophels set in motion a series of events that might well become the subject of the heroic songs of future folklore.

I flew into a rare rage. I was working alone to repair the damage to the water piping, and my blood adrenaline and testosterone levels were at saturation. My brain stem was taking over, transforming me for battle, and I was surging toward the embodiment of righteous anger, revenge, and harm. I muttered to myself staccato bursts of hate for my unrepentant foe.

And at the point in my anger arc at which I become most deadly, he came down the road. In thirty-six years, only seven people had ever witnessed my fury at it's height, but 'Stophers would become the eighth that day. 'Stophs drove a mule - a sort of cross between a dune buggy, a four-wheeler, and a mini truck - and when I stepped into the road, I spread my arms into the broad gesture of a man saying, "bring it on, son."

'Stophs had no intention of direct confrontation, and I no doubt radiated physical threat. Faced with the choice to stop or try to pass by, he chose for escape. But rather than try to avoid me, he drove straight in my direction as though to hit me. So I jumped back to avoid the little buggy truck and then sprang onto the side of his vehicle, clinging to the frame tubing.

He panicked and began to speed up and swerve. To knock me free of the mule, he ran the right side through brush and made for trees. But I held fast and yelled threateningly at him, bellowing demands that the tampering stop or he would suffer consequences.

Finally he began to speed into a hairpin turn. I knew my car was parked on the other side and I felt the mule's tires slip on the road beneath us. I judged that he might be losing control, and rather than have the vehicle tip over on me or hit my car, I jumped free.

Moments later a friend's car came up the road and slowed to where I stood. She rolled down the window and peered out at me with a perplexed grin. She said nothing for a moment, assessing me.

"You jumped on Neighborstopeles' mule? " she asked incredulously. I admitted that yes, I had. My heart was still racing from the adrenaline that fueled the encounter.

"I was fixing my makeup in the mirror and almost hit him. He told me I should be careful; some crazy hobo with a white car jumped on his mule up the road." She paused again and looked at me like she'd just discovered some dirty and pleasant secret about me, and she really liked it.

I thought I had misunderstood her. "Hobo?" I repeated back to her.

She grinned and thought for a second and then shook her head, saying, "Maybe he meant crazy homo..."

Or maybe he did say 'crazy hobo.' Whichever it was, jumping on his mule seems to have done the trick. We've had water at the tap ever since.

Vegas On The Drive Loop

I had a boyfriend many years ago who was incapable of driving past a reservation without stopping for a few pulls on the big money slots. If we didn't stop, he got edgy like a smoker on a long flight. But I always thought he had many other better ways to spend all that money, and I think I've found one he might even enjoy.

I was never a gambling man myself. Oh sure, I could understand playing nickel slots for a couple of hours. I could see spending fifty dollars and calling that the price of entertainment. But hundred dollar slots? Thousands of dollars gone over the course of a single evening?

No way, that's not my idea of fun. That's what I call stress. Just the simple knowledge that I could be spending that money doing something useful or more lasting is enough to ruin the fun. But then, add in the pressure. Given the much higher stakes, I am painfully aware of the importance of winning back what I am losing.

Out here we have casinos too, but we have no municipal water source. Instead, we buy our drinking water in town and we rely on surface springs that run all year, water tankers that come up every few weeks, and wells. But year-round springs are rare and the endless parade of tankers can become expensive over time so a well, if you can get a productive one, is a wise investment. Since my spring gets thin each summer and access to it is shared with fiercely competitive neighbors who wish to usurp my water rights, a well seemed imperative.

But well drilling is just like gambling. There might be water a few feet down, but you'll never know unless you drop some cash into the hole and see if it floats back to the top.

We've been drilling a well for weeks now. And we definitely have water on our property. Each time we put the drill down into the soil, we have water bubbling up after a few dozen feet. But oh, the complications.

At the first location there was the dreaded black sand that you can drill through but then collapses and settles into an impermeable concrete layer, ruining the well after you've nearly finished it. The eighty foot shaft filled with water by itself to only fifteen feet from the surface, but we couldn't get the water out. So we moved to a new location.

Then there was the diamond vein that couldn't be drilled through at all. So we moved to a new location.

And then, most recently, we set up the rig on the drive loop. It seemed like a good spot. And sure enough, we drilled to only thirty feet and signs of water started trickling in. But there were problems. The rig was vibrating off its footings, causing the drill stems to flex inside the drill shaft and destabilizing the well as it went.

And then, after correcting the drill's positioning twice, the drill bit and ten feet of drill stem separated from the rest of the machine forty feet down. And as we prepared to give up on the location and abandon the equipment at the bottom of the well shaft, the water level rose four feet in an hour. More water we couldn't have.

So we're going to throw the dice again in a new location. And as we prepare to grind away eighty or one hundred more feet of rock, I cannot help but be reminded that I am no fan of gambling. Especially when the stakes are high.

Skunk Incursions

As a test of whether predators could get into our new henhouse, we laid bait inside and locked it up. Our chicks are still young and a few weeks from being ready to be outside on their own, so this seemed a reasonable precaution.

Sure enough, about three days later we discovered part of the bait had been taken.  And there was some digging inside the coop, too.  But the animal that had been digging had been trying to get out, not in.  Weird.

So then a few days later we checked again, and this time the animal had practically trenched out the entire building trying to get out.  It had been really, really trapped.  But it appeared it had escaped by digging about two feet under some buried wire, so I took a couple of hours to repair and reinforce the entire building perimeter and extend the underground wire where it had exited.  Finished with my reparative duties, I rebaited, and locked the coop.

A day later, Spooty Dog went out for her morning constitutional and patrol, and started barking so incessantly that we went to investigate.  Skunk in the henhouse!  Spooty Dog had antagonized it from outside the coop to such a degree that it had sprayed everywhere.  Thankfully, it had mostly missed her, but of course she did get a dose of it.

Since there was no evidence that the skunk had actually gotten in, only that it was having a devil of a time getting out, we figured we had trapped this animal in when we first locked the coop up.  It hung out, ate the bait, escaped, and went back in only to be trapped a second time when I fixed its new exit/entrance.

But by this point, that didn't matter. The henhouse smelled like a skunk bomb,  our chickens in the house would need the coop soon, and this animal just wouldn't leave.  It was under the henhouse stamping it's little feet and preparing to spray us over and over. We did everything we could to try to shoo it out from under the building, but it wouldn't leave.  And it was impertinent about it.  It flaunted its ability to stand its ground, and it teased us.

Well I'd never seen him do anything like it before, but Head Chef just kinda snapped.  It don't know, maybe it was 'mountain fever', or the skunk's attitude and Spooty Dog's barking, or all of us standing around getting nothing resolved. Head Chef just muttered a few curses and got kinda white in the face and scrambled under the henhouse after the skunk.  I was in awe for a second and then yelled after him - what was he thinking!?  But he rushed it on all fours and grabbed it like a naughty cat even though he was retching from the stench, and pulled it out from under the coop with his bare hands.  It was scrambling and scratching to try to get free, making these freaky little chirping noises, and spraying wildly.  Head Chef was hit, and the yellow stuff was dripping down his shirt in oily globs like warm butter-flavored Crisco.

He got to his feet and I guess this was the point that reason came back to him.  Still holding the skunk, he looked down at himself and at the skunk, and vomited piteously.  He dropped the skunk, who ran off away from the henhouse and us.  Head Chef hurriedly stumbled toward the house while trying to get out of his clothes and yelling about how it burned.  I had ahold of Spooty Dog, and together we rushed ahead and turned on the outdoor shower. I grabbed the skunk remedy makings we keep stashed - some baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, and dish soap -and provided them to the shaking and now somewhat panicky Head Chef.

He showered for probably 45 minutes and then did it again three more times.  Even then he swears he can smell it and it's ruined the taste of food for the past three days.  I guess he got some up his nose?  To avoid laughing at him, I have to call on all my self discipline when I watch him try to wash out the inside of his nose ...

Head Chef vacillates between claiming he's a real man for grabbing a skunk with his bare hands, and between seeming pretty embarrassed for behaving like a crazy, feral mountain man.  Although he can kinda laugh about it already,  I am forbidden from laughing or I get in trouble.

I'll get to do that later, I guess.

Epiphanies at The Mall

Head Chef and I have been so busy moving out, moving in, shuffling around, driving both to and fro, and just generally finding things to occupy us outside the common current of human civilization that we've become a little more authentic.

Authentic? Oh, that sounds euphemistic, and I suppose that's a fair criticism. But while not completely unkempt, we're definitely a bit less kempt. You might say we've allowed our appearance to get a bit rugged, without going so far as to call us feral.

My mustache has gotten rather long and my neck goes well more than a week without shaving, granting me a wilderness creature affect that is actually quite fetching if I may say so myself. I bathe daily, but I might pull on yesterday's shirt because it's not visibly dirty and isn't malodorous yet. And Head Chef is no more or less relaxed in this way than I am. His normally smooth pate may get a bit of shadow, then a week's worth of stubble before we assault it with the razor again.

And so forth. But this is not terribly shocking in what passes for public in these parts. Rural California cares not for the well-heeled gentleman. No sir. So there's no need.

But the other day, we found ourselves in need to visit a mall. Yes, a mall in a real city. Imagine our horror. Just a day or two after Christmas, we pushed ourselves into a mall and strolled along amongst tightly primped teens, cute couples on second dates, and businessmen on their lunch break.

Smartly dressed in our dingy jeans, yesterday's thermal tops, and Wal-Mart's most bleeding edge $20 fashion footwear, we walked about, shopping for a French press. You'd be surprised how hard they are to find these days, and so we hit store after store. As our hunt wore on, we brushed ladies who were wearing perfume of all things. And men with not just a haircut, but a hair style.

At some point throughout this experience, my discomfort grew to a tangible level, and I realized that I was not of this world. In the span of a mere two months, I had moved from the above-the-bed realm of children and pleasant dreams to the under-the-bed, hiding-in-the-closet realm of monsters. And I announced my discovery to Head Chef.

"We're monsters." I carefully measured my delivery to indicate a statement of fact.

"We are?" he said as one who's just been told an obvious truth but cannot believe he hadn't come upon it himself.

"Oh yes. Don't you feel it?" I asked.

"I do! But I'm experiencing it more like being an alien dropped into the shopping mall. Disturbing." He shuddered for effect, then assumed a stiff-legged alien walk and posture for a few strides. Just enough to make us both laugh through our beards, but not enough to make us stand out any more than we already did.

For myself, I think I'll stick with the monsters. Although Head Chef would look adorable in antennae.

Moving On Out

So I’ve been pretty quiet lately, and I hope you haven’t been shocked. Oh, it’s OK, we’re friends, we can talk. I know how easily you’re upset by my silence, and how you start to imagine scenarios. You worry. It may even be a little bit twisted, but I kindof appreciate that, you know? Like, you care enough to be concerned, and that’s actually pretty special.

But no, nothing’s wrong. In fact, aside from the fact that we can’t use our kitchen any more, everything is quite fine.

See, the house is on the market. As in to sell. And we’ve made it positively glisten, but the road to this point was arduous and tiring. And frankly, we just didn’t want to talk too much about it because we weren’t really sure what the goal was, or if we’d still like our goal when we reached it. So yes, we were always working on the house, but we weren’t working on the house. Not like this. It consumed us. It was the only thing we did.

When all you do is make widgets, it’s hard to talk about gadgets, you know? So if you’re working on widgets with secret properties, you don’t say much.

But it’s done now. And now it’s just a matter of keeping it sparklingly clean and not cooking in the kitchen until the right person walks in and just loves it. And then when they do, that’s when the next adventure starts. Because we really are leaving after that person finds this house. And we’re going back to the mainland, to start all over again.

What grand adventures await? Well, we’re not really sure. How fascinating is that? One thing we do know, though, is that Internet access may be rare. So if you thought I was quiet before, just wait a month or two. Because we're going to be turning up the volume on ssssshhhhhhh........

Cue the crickets.

Ceiling Fan Attacks Twin

As a dutiful homo-ner (translation: gay owner of a home), I recognize and perform according to my duty to work on my abode. And so with Head Chef laboring over the power tools, I do the more menial tasks that must be done even though they require a bit more patience and perhaps a little less emotional return for the effort.

And despite the fact that it was he, not I, who operated the power tools, I still found my way to the hospital with a gushing head wound.

See, the ceiling fan attacked me in cold blood. I was innocently patching pukas in the ceiling and the wicked thing reached out and lacerated the back of my head. The impact resonated with a huge “WHAM!” through my head. I fell to the bed I stood on, and heard Head Chef turn off the power tools outside in the garage.

“Are you OK?” he called in. I got up from the bed and put my hand to the back of my head for the blood check. Sure enough, my hand was covered in beautiful red.

“I’m bleeding,” I responded as he came into the house and I went out into the hallway. Although the pain was subsiding quickly, he reported that the cut was an inch or more long, apparently deep, and covered in dust bunnies that had collected on the fan blades since their last cleaning.

So after some convincing, he took me to Kuakini hospital for cleaning, stitches, and a fashionable bandage.

And it was there that it happened again. The admitting nurse asked me my name. She asked me my occupation. She wanted to know if I had any other injury or had fallen to the floor. And she wondered if Head Chef and I were twins.

No? Perhaps brothers? Cousins? Step in-laws thrice removed? I held a cool, damp rag to my head with my right hand, and it was significantly streaked with blood. I looked over at Head Chef and rolled my eyes. Clearly, all bearded, bald men are related.

It was the first time I had ever been irritated by the question. Up to this point over the past nine years, I was fine with it. It even amused me. “Brothers! Ha! More like kissing cousins,” I always wanted to answer. But in this context, the nurse’s question wasn’t amusing at all. It was tedious.

And it was stupid and obvious that we are not brothers. I’m taller, more fair, with narrow shoulders and a gigantic head. I look English/French. Head Chef is shorter, darker, with broad shoulders and a decidedly Czech look to him, and yet again, “Are you brothers?” You should see the family get-togethers.

The bad news was that I needed stitches and a tetanus booster. I braved both, and brother Chef smirked at my discomfort and embarrassment. I was stoic in the face of hypodermics and self-effacing for foolishly standing up into a ceiling fan on high.

My twin (he has teeth and a spinal column) and I left the hospital and returned home to find the fan still spinning. With my head dressed in bandages, I stood there menacing it from the room’s doorway, “spin all you want, but I’ll get you in the end.”

Channel Crossing

Head Chef and I are best when we’re racing toward some distant point. We hop in our canoe - our wa`a - and we paddle toward the same spot on the horizon. That’s when we’re at our best.

Sometimes he steers and sometimes he paddles along with me, putting his lower back into it because he knows where he’s going in his heart. He steers because he sees our destination with something that I don’t. I think he feels it like I feel musical notes. Part vision, like a bird who actually sees magnetic North as a visible spot, and part tactile sensation. Like an ice cube rubbed across your back – shocking at first, but exhilarating and full of contrast that wakes up your senses and leaves you smiling and laughing.

Because I am strong in that way, I paddle. I stroke, stroke, stroke, putting my energy into the water and moving our boat along. And I watch. I watch the water beneath us moving past, noting how our movement across its surface leaves such a small wake. I watch the landmarks on the shore as they approach and move past. I make small adjustments to the depth or strength of each stroke to keep us pointed toward his destination.

When I stop to rest, I am the one who checks the stars for our bearings. Head Chef has no need for such things because our destination is part of him and he trusts that. But I need to observe that we are on course using facts and equations. So I check my data and reassure myself that the route he’s chosen is best. And it is, most times.

So we paddle on, making minor corrections and crossing that next channel. And we’re crossing the water in the same direction. Each does his part and we synchronize our strokes. Together, we’ll get there. That next island, wherever it is. Because this is how we’re best.

Explanation For A Friend

Some months ago my GoB needed an explanation for lipstick in his old jacket pocket. He could not remember where the lipstick came from, and asked for possible sources. I replied. Browsing through his old posts I rediscovered my reply, was amused, and thought I'd share it. It goes a little something like this:

"Your name was Kazimir Svobodnik, and you were on the westbound train in Munich with your lover and fellow spy, the ravishing but deadly Liesl Eberstark. Leisl had just emerged from deep cover as a double-agent with a splinter group of former KGB who had entered into a dangerous game as arms traders. Liesl had stolen blueprints for a heavily-guarded missile technology and a kilo of weapons-grade isotopes, which she now kept inside her makeup case under her seat.

Suddenly, shots were fired in the car behind yours. Without looking back, you and Leisl lunged from your seats and ran for the next car, pulling your weapons from inside your dress jackets.

As you burst through the doors to the next car, a startled woman screamed, and then began to panic when she saw the weapons you both held. Having no time to quiet the innocent, Leisl gracefully shot the woman and her two companions in the forehead, silencing them and leaving the two of you alone in the train car.

Croutched behind the door listening for your pursuers, you and Leisl locked eyes. You'd been here before, and she was a powerful ally. Moments like these made you love her ever more powerfully. You needed her flesh, right then and there, and she mocked you with her eyes when she spied the erection in your heavy woolen trousers.

'Oh, darling,' she whispered. And that was all. She looked up to the window in the door as a sound came from the previous train car, and your eyes followed the direction of the sound, as well.

Suddenly you felt a mist in your face, and looked to see Leisl screwing the fake bottom back into her lipstick.

'I'll miss you, Kaz,' she whispered.

At once, the horror of your situation was apparent. Leisl had obtained the banned Soviet memory-eradication spray, and had used it on you. She was going to keep the isotopes for herself. You had only seconds, and your consciousness was fading already. There was no time for your anger or betrayal.

'I love you, Leisl. For now,' you muttered, and watched as she carelessly tipped the lipstick container off her fingertips and into your jacket pocket. She gave you a regretful look, stood, and ran through to the next car. You watched her, knowing that as your consciousness left you, so did your identity.

The next thing you knew, you were a homosexual computer programmer living in San Francisco."

Takedown

We were late for a lunch meeting so we were hurriedly walking to the restaurant through the historic part of downtown Honolulu. On our left we passed the Kawaiaha`o Church and a Japanese wedding party descending down its steps.

We rushed down the empty sidewalk, mindlessly navigating around a bus stop or other obstacle and talking about Churches and my buddies’ marriage-minded girlfriends. As we did, we glanced over our shoulders periodically to watch the bride bask at the top of the stairs like Makapu`u Lighthouse shining amongst a night of dark Japanese suits.

We approached two elderly women standing on the edge of the sidewalk waiting to cross, but they stood still and were well out of our path. I glanced over to the Church again as we talked about its popularity with the Japanese.

And then I was tested.

The more elderly of the two women was once a powerful but evil master of sciences and Kung Fu, and she used these tools to achieve her sinister ends. Using complex calculations based on her vast knowledge of physics and informed by her studies of Cheetah style martial arts, she timed her attack perfectly. While my head was turned to see the bride giggle and sway, Auntie launched herself into my path in an attempt to undo me for the last time.

But devious Auntie Cheetah was no match for my years of training at Shaolin Locomotive Monastery.

I never saw her coming and I barreled into her like a steam engine hits a cow. All I knew was that I had struck something with my chest that shouldn’t ought to have been there. I came to an abrupt halt, but Auntie absorbed my kinetic energy and began to crumple downward and toward the Church in a desperately pleading sort of slow-mo. Foolish mortal. As though the Church could save her now.

I stood in shock, almost completely unable to react, as my 70 year old nemesis collapsed. My friends, who had seen her leap at me but had no time to warn me, tried to slow her fall, but it was no use. No mere Grandma can stand after being struck by a man in Locomotive Stance.

We helped her up from the concrete and immediately began to abase ourselves. Auntie’s sidewalk companion yelled accusations of premeditated assault and attempted foul play. Finally, after everyone was confirmed uninjured and we promised for the fourteenth time that it was an accident, we were allowed to leave.

But I’m keeping my eye out for Grandma. She may be frail, but she is wise, vengeful, and she has powerful allies. Thank goodness for Locomotive Stance.

Quitting Day

I almost didn’t quit today.

I didn’t get the offer letter I was expecting over the weekend, and so I was prepared not to quit. But I had some business to do, and when I returned to my desk, it was waiting there. The offer. Huzzah!

It was a brief apologetic email and a series of documents that, to be honest, were practically irrelevant. My decision had been made months earlier. But I read them anyway, and they didn’t ask for my first born. So the deal was done. Now all I had to do was quit.

But I had no time for quitting. I had things that needed to be done, and then suddenly my office’s managing partner (picture your small company’s President or CEO) asked my manager and me to lunch. There was no time to quit before lunch; it would simply have to wait.

We went to a wonderful restaurant, but there was a heart audibly beating beneath the floorboards. I knew I had something to say, but another manager had come along and so even though the two men I needed to quit with were there, there was this obstacle. The obstacle told stories and we laughed, but I did not laugh inside. Only my veneer laughed.

And then the phone rang. It was a knowing ring. It started as a vibration in my pocket that was so determined it would not be ignored that it finally resorted to becoming audible. And just as knowing as the ring was, so too was the departmental partner on the other end of the line. He started with his clever salesman’s voice, “So, hehe, I’ve been hearing some rumors, hehe, and I wanted to find out from the, hehe – you know – the horses mouth.”

How could he know!? How could have cracked into my secret quitting world? But right he was. And so he was the first to hear me quit. And quit I did. Firmly, assuredly. Grateful for his kind words and attempts to dissuade me, but confident of my decision and its correctitude.

And then I sat back down and finished lunch. Chinese. Delicious.

But no sooner did I step back into the office than my engagement partner called. He too had broken the code. And he too was flattering and attempted to dissuade me, but he was also bizarrely worried that I had quit over him. Ummm… no.

I was shaken. I had been ambushed twice by my own resignation and I had not even officially given it! The adrenal roller coaster had been quite a ride up to this point.

Clearly, the gig was up, and it was time to write my letter and hand it to my manager. I edited something simple and decent from a website containing samples, and he was considerate but disappointed. My office’s managing partner, too, was disappointed and curious and so I tried to be honest and helpful. I truly felt bad for the inconvenience of leaving them right before busy season.

But someone… she had to pay for my day. My friend the audit manager had clearly played a part in the day’s drama. But she was weak. When I confronted her she broke down quickly and admitted that she had tricked my new employers into telling her my plans. She then ratted on me to her partner, who told my partners, who in turn called me and made my day very very interesting.

Very interesting indeed. What a day of quitting. What exciting new beginnings.

What I Did On My Bi-Annual Vacation

What I did on my bi-annual vacation
By The Pastry Chef

This biennium, Head Chef and I went to Russian River to the little town of Guerneville to participate in Lazy Bear Weekend, and it was fun. We shared a house with a friend I’d only met once before, and he was really nice. And his friends who shared the house with us were super guys, and Head Chef and I really liked them a lot.

OK, OK, this isn’t a back-to-school essay, but seriously, I kinda feel that way about the trip. It was wonderful and I did make – or at least better secure – three to six people whom I’ll call friends. In fact, I’ll even call them.

But now that it’s passed, it’s almost like a back-to-school essay. Or someone else’s memory. Like a story someone told so vividly that it’s as though I were there myself. And of course, I was, but I already feel distant from the experience.

I think Lazy Bear was better this year than it was in 2003. I spent a lot more time sober, and a lot more time resting and eating, and I think that these things are good. I also spent a moderate amount of time indulging in excess. As I am an advocate of excess in moderation, I approve of my behavior.

Others were not so lucky. Head Chef got a case of perhaps-almost-alcohol-poisoning and fell down went boom on his little head. While the physical wounds to his ear and brow have healed, the night stand he bludgeoned with his skull will doubtlessly carry emotional scars for years. I don’t know where furniture seeks therapy, but I hope it gets the best care available.

And so now I have returned to my workaday work each day, and I’m already looking forward to 2008. Perhaps that year I will spend more quality time with the friends I had before I arrived, for that is my only regret.

Well, not my only regret. Try as I might, I couldn’t snap my fingers to summon everyone I love to that one place at that particular time.

But for that, I need to apply for additional super human powers.

Islands of Sun

This Sunday was much like the previous, but sunnier. I was never cold in my short sleeves and I was warmed by friends I’d known for between 15 years and 20 minutes.

San Francisco is a lot like Honolulu in more ways than one would think. Pay no mind to the allegations that San Francisco is attached to some larger body of land, it is an island. It’s true, even if you insist it is an island of its own choosing. And just as any place that is disconnected from the larger world around it, San Francisco is unique. Its geology, architecture, politics, art, history, and current residents reflect and perpetuate its uniqueness.

Like islands are, it’s dirty, too. But all the dirt and grit doesn’t really bother me, as there’s so much other beauty.

On the way up the first significant slope to the God of Biscuit’s house, we passed another house of god where an authentic supposed miracle occurred. But I would never have noticed the church itself, because I was always caught up in the brilliant Christmas-red swaths of fabric looping and draping from the limbs of the giant tree out front.

So sayeth the GoB, a silhouetted image of the virgin Mary appeared in a weathered sign at the little Catholic house. We mused that Mary’s silhouette looked a lot like the shadowy image of the Emperor of the Galactic Trade Federation. And we noted with mock suspicion that we’ve never seen them together... I’m not saying they’re the same person, but of course, no one’s saying they’re not, either.

We drove right past the site of the "miracle" for our current version of church: Beer bust with the bears. Not really bears ourselves, we still find the easiest company with the hirsute jolly men. I nursed a beer or two while they indulged, smooched, and groped. I held hands with men so familiar that I could call them family, and laughed louder than was probably even appropriate. I was assaulted by cigar smoke from one side and pakalolo from another and rather than cringe or crave, I just basked in it all.

I left feeling full. Reinvigorated. Connected.

Head Chef will join me for more of this next weekend, and I cannot wait. The island of San Francisco is holding its gay pride celebration then, and it sounds like the Pink Saturday block party is the biggest attraction of all.

The forecast is for sun. I’m going to hold my Chef’s hand amidst thousands of other island people and just bask and bask.

Today's Choices

It’s always been my feeling that every day we make all our decisions all over again. Decisions we don’t even consciously consider, but that we could make in a different way. By not changing our minds, we choose to continue our current path.

Such is life. I continue to choose not to quit my job, leave my beloved Head Chef, or go on a murderous rampage. I may consider all or none of these things consciously every single day, but the choice is made by not choosing to change course.

And so it is with being here in Hawai`i. Some days, I consciously reconsider the choice I made to come here, and carefully weigh the possibility of changing my mind. Because living in Paradise is not without its taxes.

By taxes I simply mean those tradeoffs that are made to be here. The well-run city in exchange for the good weather. The friends I could see daily in exchange for the good weather. The cushy job I had, the big beautiful old house, the crunchy culture and the ability to travel in exchange for the good weather.

And I do kid, of course. Hawai`i is magical in so many ways, and good weather is only a part of it. Beaches, lively beach towns, and Waikiki at night are glorious. And there are other things, too. Hula is extraordinary and beautiful. Hawaiian music doesn’t sound as good anywhere else. I eat sushi now, and it was caught that same day. I’ve never grown houseplants in my yard and watched them mature into trees before. And a new batch of eager untanned faces ready for fun shows up every week just ready to make new friends.

But sometimes these gains are small consolation for the losses I had to incur to access them.

When I think about these trade-offs, or I’m putting in another 60-hour work week and feel ready to officially regret my choice to live here, my thoughts settle on recurring themes. Am I ready to admit to myself and to those who said I shouldn’t move that I made a mistake? Am I just being impatient, or should I stick it out and work to make it better?

So far, I have chosen to stay - to work toward making this experiment a success. To not run from the uncomfortable parts of this move because even though it’s now two years in the past, it’s still rather fresh. I am not ready to accept that this was a mistake.

Yes, yes, emphatically YES I miss home. Nothing is more telling than the fact that it is still home to me, and not this string of lovely warm islands. But I am not ready to give up, and I am hopeful that this will be home some day if I am just patient and diligent.

Shattered Fantasy

Head Chef and I play a video game called World of Warcraft, and it is a lot of fun. We play online simultaneously with hundreds and even thousands of other players from across North America and Australia, helping each other complete difficult tasks, defeat monster(ous) foes, and earn powerful weapons and abilities.

It’s all very exciting, time-consuming, and carefully designed to be as addicting as possible. At that, it’s very successful.

But recently, a spectre has appeared in game that crosses into the real world.

Head Chef and I have always appreciated the fact that Blizzard, the company that publishes World of Warcraft, has a firm policy against using the word “gay” in an insulting or derogatory manner in the game. Occasionally, we’ve actually reported other players who were abusive to gays, and it was nice to know that Blizzard was protecting us so we could play free of harassment.

But lately, Blizzard’s had a change of heart. A new policy was recently introduced after a woman announced in the game that her guild – a group of other players that are allied with one another – was looking for more members. The guild was “LGBT friendly.” Someone complained, and the woman was issued a warning by Blizzard. ‘You can’t say LGBT in game’ they said, in essence.

What followed was uproar. After a protracted silence, Blizzard made their policy more clear. Mention of sensitive topics, they said, was forbidden in game chat. Since gays and lesbians are a sensitive topic, they, like Christianity and Neoconservatism, were a prohibited topic.

But Blizzard was still vague enough in their description of the new policy to leave a lot of people wondering. ‘So is it OK to talk about heterosexuality, wives, or marriages,’ people have wondered. The verdict is still not in.

But something has happened – or at least is alleged to have happened – that may turn the question on its head. A player asked a Game Master if his two friends – a heterosexual couple that both play female characters – could have a marriage ceremony in the game. The answer was no. And more troubling still was that the answer was no because they were both playing female characters. The wedding, however, would be fine if they were playing opposite-sex characters.

This is a significant disappointment. If this account is true, it means that players are forbidden from creating the appearance that they are homosexual, or creating characters that they portray as homosexual for fear of being reported, warned, or even permanently banned from the game. But this rule does not apply to heterosexual players or players who play characters they portray as heterosexual.

Blizzard is based in California, and California law prohibits businesses from discriminating against gays and lesbians. Already, there is talk of letters from lawyers and articles in mainstream gay press.

Ostensibly, Blizzard is to doing this to maintain the purity of the fantasy fiction they’ve created in the World of Warcraft. But while Blizzard isn’t asking heterosexuals to portray themselves as anyone other than who they are in the World, they’ve seemingly instituted a new requirement that LGBT people must.

And that requirement utterly obliterates the fantasy.

Almost Ready

Chained to my desk, as I am, performing mindless tasks for hours, my mind drifts. And it's been drifting back to Brokeback Mountain over and over again.

It is wonderful that the film has become a commercial success. It is wonderful that the film has achieved critical acclaim. It is wonderful that the film has won Golden Globes and is a contender for an oscar. How wonderful.

But for those who haven't seen it, I can't tell you that the film, itself, is wonderful. It is pleading, desperate, lonely, sad, and tragic. It is very subtle and superbly executed. And it is haunting. As a gay man I can identify with both men, as I have known them in real life and I have known them through the stories of friends, and I have known them in my own fears.

It has been over three weeks since I saw the film. I cried then, and I still have to hold back when I think of it. I forget that Ennis and Jack are fictional, and I want to reach out to make things better - to rip open time and set things right.

But that's not the point of the story, either. It is about love. How wonderful it is to have, and how it rips us apart to deny.

I can't bring myself to see it again. But I will. And I'm almost ready.

Untimely Offers

A few too many years ago when I was in college, I wore my hair very long. It poured off my head in long, gently coiling blond tresses that were the envy of coeds everywhere. My hair also bought me entry into the seedy underworld of Hippy Long-Hairs. I never ever shaved by youthful beard, instead just trimming to the shortest length possible. And I padded about campus in my Birkenstocks, with a tie-died shirt and ratty jeans. But I was not a hippy.

I was trying, see, and I was even fooling people. But the key to uncovering my deception was in that same hair I wore like a Subversive’s Badge: it was meticulously managed. I spent incredible amounts of money on the proper salon shampoos, and picked (never brushed!) it out daily.

But some people didn’t see through my simple facade, and I got offers for all sorts of drugs on the street. Naturally, in my Birks and tie-dyes, I looked like someone who would want them, but I always declined.

When I wanted any of what they were selling, I went to someone I knew and trusted.

Years later, I was mid-morning napping at home on a sunny weekday when a pretty young blond woman knocked at the door. I had pulled on some shorts but wore nothing else, and my hair by this point was no more than an inch and a half long anywhere on my head. When I opened the door, she asked to use the phone for a cab, so I let her in, listened to her call – clearly with a cab company – and prepared to escort her back outside.

She hesitated, and wanted to know if I “dated.” Not being part of the “dating” scene, I was naïve and said I wasn’t sure what she was asking. Suffice it to say, she wanted to perform a service in return for money. Before I finally ejected her from the house, she told me she was high on a number of drugs, showed me her breasts (they looked OK), and tried to convince me that I should “date” her just this once because, hey, she slept with women sometimes, too.

She really was very lovely, though. When it comes to women, I have to admit she was my type. Still, if I’d wanted some of what she was selling, I had female friends I knew and trusted that I probably could have turned to.

But that story’s now an anecdote from several years ago.

Yesterday, I stood waiting in the financial district for Head Chef to pick me up from work. Dressed in an untucked aloha shirt wrinkled from 12 hours at the office and my hair now no more than a quarter of an inch long, I slumped against a planter and played Tetris on my cell phone.

People came and went through the darkness and most of them looked like me to some degree. Just off work, they were dressed for business, but loosened, disheveled, and relaxed but hastening to get home before bedtime. My blocks fell into neat little rows, disappearing as they should until something unexpected happened.

“Wanna blowjob,” he mumbled as he shuffled passed. I was taken by surprise, and looked up at the man that had just passed me, then looked around, then back to him. He looked over his shoulder at me and lingered as he prepared to cross the street, and I stared back in shock. He had a 45 year old Anglo Rasta look to him, a couple of dreads in his hair and a beard a few days old. He looked away and crossed the street.

No, no, I was sure he had offered fellacio, this was not one of my moments of hearing the wrong thing. And so I looked at myself through the eye of a third person, and wondered what about me now - bearded, disheveled in my business aloha - had made this man think I’d want what he offered. I could think of nothing. No pink triangles, no limp wrist, and no look of desperation. I was just a man at the end of a long day playing Tetris.

Maybe there’s a correlation between Tetris and paying for BJs, but I doubt it.

A few minutes later, someone I know and trust showed up and I got in the car and kissed him hello as he pulled away from the curb. I told him the story of what had just happened, and Head Chef laughed out loud at the incident. “Only you,” he assured me. “That could only happen to you.”

I doubt that. And yet, I do get some unusual offers.

Potter Schmotter

I am desperate to see Brokeback Mountain.

It’s just a movie, and it’s certainly not my story. And yet, it can’t help but be my story.

I have read everything I can find about the film, watched the trailer a dozen times, and I actually check rottentomatoes on a daily basis, looking for affirmation. "Yes it is a good film," I want to hear them say.

Please, let it be a good film.

See, I believe in this movie. Not just because Ang Lee has directed the other most beautiful film ever, but because when I read "Love Is A Force Of Nature" in that context the hair on my neck stands up, and I can tell that even my skin agrees. Ignoring the toil and sacrifice that relationships take, love is the thing.

It’s the thing that matters, that leaves its aura like a residue on mountain paths, in buildings, songs, and on yesterday’s shirt. Have you ever felt it in a place you've never been before? That the place had been blessed by love?

There are three things I need from Brokeback Mountain. I need to it be the story it is purported to be; a love between two men that is beautiful and complex and tragic, as love often is. I need it to make me feel. To make me cry the way movies are supposed to when you relate to the characters. And I need it to show the world – or at least the willing – that I'm not so different or aberrant after all.

I read a hopeful review that said this film is so powerful that it could change our national dialogue about what it is to be gay. And I longed for it to be true.

But I worry that, in the public's eye, no amount of Ang Lee's mastery can legitimize this as anything other than a gay film. The most I can hope is that it’s a sleeper hit – critically acclaimed to such a degree that cinema buffs see it even if they’re uneasy about the subject matter. That women go to see it, as the studio is hoping, and maybe they see themselves in one of these men, loving someone impossible.

Maybe they feel that ache in their chest, the ache they remember as a longing for someone they cannot have. Maybe, in this way, they relate. Because that could change everything.

But I'm not counting on it.