Saturday, September 20, 2003

Today is Gay Pride in Durham and my friend Terri and I are preparing to go. Last night we finally broke our lesbian curse and made it to a gay bar.

Let me explain. Terri and I have been trying to have some sort of gay fun since we met. Ahem. Well, what I mean is, we met in Houston and then went directly to small podunk towns in North Carolina, so it has always been hard to find gay bars or where the ladies are.

In Houston, we did go to pride, but the night ended with us searching fruitlessly and wandering the streets of Houston trying to find a bar to go to and we failed. In the end, the cab driver who took us home was shouting "Faggots!" out the window. (Failure number one).

In Austin, TX, on the Fourth of July we thought we had made it to a hip enough town to find "the gays". So we searched and searched. The first man we encountered and asked told us about a bagel shop where all of the "foreigners" came to dance the night away and a colony of millions of bats that were due to fly into the air at a specific time from under a bridge. But no gays. Then, after much walking and blisters, we found a gay bar where three sad gay men forlornly watched low-budget fireworks explode in the sky from a patio. There were zero ladies. (Failure number two).

In Wilmington N.C., Terri and I thought we had it made. Wilmington is a cute little town with lots of gay people. They seemed to be everywhere and when we saw that several stores had Wonderwoman action figures (I mean, come on!), we knew we had arrived! So we went searching- again. This time, the bar was obvious enough, but when we tried to get in a very snooty gay man told us that we needed to find a gay man to help us get in. In North Carolina, many bars require membership and we were not members. In the end, we abandoned the whole project and went back to the straight oyster bar to pick up my roomate.

But last night, in Chapel Hill during pride of all times, what could go wrong, right? Well, here is the deal. Terri and I industriously got our handy mapquest directions before heading out all spiffy to find the girl bar. We did everything we were supposed to do. So imagine our chagrin, two hours later, as we are driving aimlessly around Durham in the worst neighborhood I have seen in awhile, about to run out of gas. We drove and drove and drove. It was ridiculous. Apparently, in North Carolina, they like to keep the queers in weird, dark, industrial parks with no lighting and messed up street signs. Yikes.

But today will be better! Oh yes! Actually, I think it should. Pride is being held at Duke University, so it should be easy enough to find. And I am thinking there will probably be gay people, too.

Wish us good gay charma. ¶ 6:39 AM