Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

Despite living in the Seattle area for over thirty years, I'd never made it out to Bremerton, the naval shipyard on the far side of Puget Sound. I'd been invited to a 4th of July BBQ given by the Purdy Persian, about whom I've written here before if not under that alias.

First of all, let me say that taking the ferry there was a picturesque mistake. I waited two hours for an on-time (!) ferry, and then I saw why Washington State Ferries wasn't running very often on this route even at the height of summer: the boat was half empty. Compare that to the Bainbridge Island ferry right next door, for which service twice as frequent looked full. Ferry fare: $20.90. Toll at the Tacoma Narrows Bridge: $5.25. And the drive back was one of the easiest I've ever done through Tacoma.

Ferry by the numbers:

Pro-Trump stickers: 1.
Pro-shroom legalization stickers: 1.
Scantily dressed teens applying sunscreen: 2.
Masks: I dunno, maybe 5?
Passengers: about 100.
Possible drag queens: 1.
Definite trans women: 1 – yours truly.

Bremerton seems like... a large town or small city on the west side of Puget Sound. If you've seen others, you've seen something a lot like Bremerton.

Oh: the owner of the shroom legalization sticker was at the BBQ, because of course she was. She recommends making a tea of them to prevent an upset stomach. And I learned that the home where we were having this BBQ belonged to another trans woman, which wasn't at all what I expected on the well-heeled outskirts of a military town. I'm sure there's a story in there somewhere, but I didn't try to find it out.

Why at that house when the Purdy Persian lives on my side of the sound? Because her fella – she's adorably in love – wanted to smoke some meat, etc. I have to admit, the smoked monster of a king salmon was pretty great.

But what wasn't great was that the Purdy Persian had read Irreparable Damage and taken it at face value. I haven't read it, but the word in the trans community is that it's yet another rehash of the "social contagion" myth about why kids want to transition, with a side order of a claim about lasting side effects from one puberty blocker. Having been on the other end of this, I told her it was a load of hooey.

I will, however, say that the Persian has excellent taste in bleepy music. It's how we met.

The Purdy Persian reminds me an awful lot of the Siberian Siren and other ex-Soviets I know: they all harbor a deep, reflexive, visceral distrust in the idea that a government can accomplish anything positive. That's understandable, but I also think that's manifestly wrong. As the PP admits, that makes them easy prey for American rightists. But... she's purdy. And she's Persian. I really should know better by now, shouldn't I?

BBQ with my son, Burners, and Goths. Booty-shaking to house music in the sun on the roof of the Monkey Loft. Fun thing: Ramiro Gutierrez, head dude of the Uniting Souls crew, brought his collection of hundreds of flyers for raves & club nights that he was involved in over the past 22 years. It was an amazing piece of history and nostalgia, and some of those flyers are wonderful works of design.

ETA: The Monkey Loft hosts yoga - "Yo-Yo Yoga", they call it - on early Thursday evenings. I'd forgotten about that, and since they were doing a day rave they had to change the time of the yoga. So I was surprised to see several people with yoga mats leaving as I arrived, one of whom was Diesel Bleeper, who explained the situation. This yoga-before-a-rave is something I've known to happen at several different venues over the years. As far as I know, none of these had organizers in common. It's just an Official Rave Culture Thing.

I even got to bed at a reasonable hour. Go me!

Went to chez leenerella & juryrigger for their fabulous 4th of July barbecue. The was so much fantastic food. And booze. And boozy food. That my PCC salad still in its deli container suffered in comparison. Clearly I need to raise my potluck game.

M'boy asked to be taken to Kirkland's 4th of July parade - part of being a campaign volunteer - and I took him with me to the BBQ afterward. Poor kid: he was the only one there anywhere near his age, so when he wanted to leave early, I couldn't find it in me to say no. I did sneak back to the BBQ while he crashed. I didn't wake him up to go to the public fireworks displays, and we're both OK with that.

I picked my son up from his second ever shift at PCC Kirkland* and hit lovely BBQs at chez theda & balzacq and, at the opposite end of Seattle, chez ack_yeahright. I'm proud of myself for keeping the eating and drinking moderate, and for making some attempt to engage my son with lawn projectiles. It was good to get my social on, and see ack_yeahright & hubby in their spiffy new abode.

After a disco nap, m'boy & I headed down to the fireworks. He didn't want to wait for the bus, so I had a teachable moment with him: on the 4th of July there is no parking within miles of Gas Works Park, which is the best point on land from which to watch the fireworks. OK, so we drove south across the Aurora Bridge and pretty easily found parking. The walkways across the bridge were closed, and the policeman there shooed us away from the sign. We went under the bridge to the sidewalk in front of Canlis, one of the most expensive restaurants in Seattle, and watch the fireworks (as well as we could above the trees) from there. Pretty nifty. Most interesting part: somebody, a lone blonde woman as near as I could tell, was watching from the roof of Canlis.

On the way home, we realized that I didn't have any of m'boy's preferred breakfast cereal on hand, so we bopped down to the fortuitously open Green Lake PCC. Who should I see there but Side Shave, the rather cute red-haired checker who I was pretty sure was queer? Well, now I'm absolutely certain she is. I was wearing my pride dress and cowboy boots, so we talked about going to Pride, the gazillion marches I went to, and going dancing in the summer when it's hot & sticky like Florida. It turns out that she's from Tampa, just a couple of hours down I-75 from Gainesville, FL, where I grew up. And she's 19 years younger than I am. Not that I would ever be foolish enough to ask out a checker at the supermarket that's by far closest to my place. Ahem.



*He moves... slowly and confusedly. This worries me. But I guess it's up to PCC to either stick with him or not.