I got a haircut and color from Hair Ole on 18th Street for the upcoming Atlantis cruise. Since I am not working I figured I could go all out and do the bleach-tipped fauzhawk look I have wanted to try. I know, yesterday, but please let me have some fun while I catch up on trends.
Today is my day to fill out my absentee ballot for the upcoming Super-Tuesday primary election. I’ll support Hillary, as I am leery of Obama on gay issues since he found fit to pal around with a homophobic preacher to pander to the religious crowd.
Meanwhile Sirius OutQ radio is hosting what they bill as the first ever LGBTQ presidential caucus today, during Michelangelo Signorile’s call in show. However neither Hillary nor Obama will be on this, strictly campaign reps. This kind of setup bothers me because the campaign reps can pander as much as they like for now while the candidates can later distance themselves if anything too specific is promised. I’ll catch the highlights on the internet later.
My partner and I are about to embark on a vacation in the western Caribbean, on an Atlantis all-gay cruise. If you’re familiar with Atlantis you will understand that we’ll need a vacation when we return. If you’re not familiar with Atlantis let it suffice to say that this is not you’re great-aunt and uncle’s cruise. I’ve never been on a regular (i.e. straight) cruise. But unless that crowd is up partying all night poolside to world-class DJs, and making use of a totally different connotation of cruise, it can’t be the same.
Today I am channeling a crazed-Jane-Curtain-cokehead-grocery-bag-organizing persona as I get ready for this alleged vacation. I spent three hours in the fog-shrouded suburb of Daly City shopping at Target for door-decor. Now door decorating is one of the traditions of the gay cruise. (Does this happen on straight cruises?) Many cruise-goers strew their cabin doors with pictures, tchotchkes, bric-a-brac and anything that will creatively let passerby know something about them, or provide a quick jolt of entertainment as someone passes by. By no means does everyone participate in this but an amazing number do, especially given the amount of thought, shopping, crafting and packing that goes into a lot of these efforts. I had three qualities I wanted for our door – pictures of us and San Francisco, a message board, and something that would change each day. So I prepared a packing list for the door that included prints of both of us, postcards of San Francisco which I cut up into recognizable pieces such as cable car, Golden Gate bridge, a mini whiteboard, and lots of adhesives and velcro to stick things on the door.
We’ll be traveling with friends from San Francisco on the flight to Miami where we overnight before boarding the ship Saturday afternoon. We’ll be meeting up with another group from North Carolina on the ship. And we’ll certainly run into many people we know from San Francisco and around the country, since there are about 3600 people on this cruise.
Queeristan - everywhere you are 