Carfax Estate Nanny

I spent yesterday in bed with mucus, aches, and reading material to keep me company. The irony here is that the only crowds I was around for the whole Fourth of July weekend were at Uwajimaya, and I wasn't there that long. I did go to Lambert House on Monday, and given how stuffy it was in the carriage house at St. Mark's, I'd put my money on that as the source of the ick.

Finished Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. Pretty good characters. Action and plot complicated to the point of frenzy. It doesn't have what The Expanse has: the thing that makes me want to buy the next book right away. But I wasn't in the mood to read something challenging; see "sick" above.

Oh yeah: Good Sister texted & called me while I was in bed to give me the play-by-play on all the hot, hot real estate action. (Did I just make a sexual allusion involving real estate agents? That's so not my kink.) It's looking to me as if this might actually happen in the next few weeks, but you know what they say: never count your chickens before they rip your lips off.

Good Sister texted me a few hours ago to tell me that the house I grew up in is back in the online listings. There are an even hundred photos of it, including several shots from a drone. It's a little the worse for wear since the five of us moved in in 1974, but the updates since then are mostly for the better in terms of salability. To quote GS, "Sell, baby, sell."

I haven't lived in that house year round in forty years. I found myself mentally reconstructing what each room looked like in the seventies and eighties. If only the walls could tell what they've seen and heard: my sisters' dramatic teen angst, my furtive gender explorations, my mother's drunkenness, my father swearing as he hurt himself during house and garden projects. But also music echoing off the floors as one of us practiced; the dinner table conversations that so often seemed to degenerate into something, well, degenerate; all the plants that I didn't know were exotic and the Florida critters right outside the doors.

Could it have been better? In that time and place, with my parents and sisters, probably not. And it sure as hell could have been worse.

I hope it becomes a good home again for somebody soon, and not just because of the money.

Remember my fellow trans facilitator A-the-lady? Well, she's out of commission for a few weeks due to a horrendous bike accident on the way to Pride involving the accursed streetcar tracks and, of course, vehicular traffic. Unlike me in my two accidents in the last year, she didn't ask for trouble; she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Mayunn, cyclists shouldn't need to be braver than the troops just to get around.

Saturday afternoon SFDs: short pink sparkly circle skirt, Camp Beaverton ("I ♥ graphic-of-beaver") tank top, but sensible hippie sandals because I'd trashed my ankles the previous evening. Oh yeah, I wore a whole lot of SPF 50 and packed a picnic lunch as well.

Went to the Broadway street fair as one does. Bought a book from the queer bookstore that is, ironically enough, within walking distance of my house. Spent too much money on a big pendant of a biblically accurate angel in Pride colors. Saw:

• Fellow Lambert House trans facilitator A-the-dude (A-the-lady is the one I've spent way more time with).
• vantablack from Mastodon. She doesn't live in Cal Anderson Park, but I've seen her there about half a dozen times.
• E, a more or less elder goth who lives near Broadway. I'm pretty sure she used to have an LJ, but damned if I can remember her old username.
• K and L, gement's little sisters! K has a storied history as a Burner and organizer of (ahem) parties to which I often wore latex, whereupon she had to remind me not to hug her because she's severely allergic to it. ("K!" "Noooo!!")

Seriously, Broadway on Pride Saturday is my happy place. So much queerness and peeps.

Went home. Ate leftovers. Turned around twice. Wriggled into my new latex LBD for...

Saturday evening: the Hot Flash Inferno night at Neighbours. As the name suggests, it's aimed at queer ladies of a certain age, two of whom independently invited me to go. I'm not fool enough to fight the universe, so of course I was the first one there by a wide margin. (The other four of us either have ADHD or live way the hell out in the suburbs.) In attendance: cupcake_goth's pal T, looking very dapper; Funny Lady; and the Siberian Siren and her lovely wife! I expressed my relief that the SS has finally found Ms. Right. As badly as I'd like to follow suit, I can't claim to have had breakups anything like the Siren's.

Said a brief howdy to one of the latex gang, who were showing up right after Hot Flash ended. Then Funny Lady suggested that we hit the Merc, which we did. Sometime around midnight we called it a night. I got ramen at Betsutenjin, where the staff have started to recognize me, and caught the last train northbound. Much win.

Pride Sunday: slept until 0900. Wore my customary Pride outfit*. (Mental note: get spirit gum for my reusable pasties. Toupee tape doesn't cut it.) Went to the parade to find Ken Shulman, director of Lambert House, because he had what I thought might be urgent business. He wasn't with the LH parade contingent, at least not at that time, so I headed toward the Seattle Center just in time to see the parade start.

You know what that means: the dykes on bikes. No, I didn't try to join them this year because see above. But the sound of a few dozen motorcyclces revving in the concrete canyons of downtown Seattle is impressive, to say the least, and I find it moving.

So I made it to the Seattle center, wandered around, ate & drank, and eventually ran into Ken. And our IT guy on the board of directors. And two or three of the yoof from Lambert House. I've mentioned here before that there's no such thing as a brief conversation involving Ken Shulman, and luckily, we were in the shade. Plus, Ken & Ray imparted much-needed info to me so I can do my database monkey thing. Oh yeah, lots of excellent queer eye candy in full sunlight.

Went home. Napped. Put stuff away.

It was all too brief. I wish I could do all the things and see all the people, but even when I was half the age I am now with seemingly limitless energy, there simply isn't time.



*Black Stetson, black leather harness from Apatico, Pride stripe nipple pasties, skirt belt from Chrysalis, black leather thong, knee-high Pride socks, white Docs that K in SF gave me, Pride stripe accessories. You know, the usual.