Writing With Janell

Openhouse has started a writers' group led by Janell Moon, an author, college writing instructor, and hypnotherapist. Here's what I wrote:

It was fun running into Mickey at the entrance to the LGBT Center, and recognizing three of the five women in the writing group (4 of 6 if you include the leader), so I feel a hint of belonging.

In two weeks, I'll have this writing group on Monday and the 24th Street one on Tuesday, which makes me feel positively wealthy. It almost makes me want to undertake a writing project of some sort, with that amount of support.

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Women of the Castro

Too many of the women I see in the Castro appear to be straight -- e.g., arm in adoring arm with a man. Many women of the City have been priced into the East Bay. Those who are left seem to be towards both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. But it could be that my economic judgment is as poor as my gaydar. What kind of person do I appear to be, when I shuffle around the Castro?

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My mother, brother, cousin, and I spent the whole night reciting poetry in the Disneyland Hotel room. (Mr. Disney would want you to pick up your lamb chop to eat it.) Our voices were hoarse in the morning, spent with the energy of our recitals, but we stood in enough lines to rest up for the rides.

What would a list of the pieces we'd memorized show about teachers' tastes in poetry over two generations and on both coasts? Did Sir Launfal have his vision on Main Street, U.S.A.?

Everything in Disneyland is part of the show. We played our roles in the production with the last of our speaking voices.

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The man who held my hand while we bought a building in San Francisco had learned real estate at his mother's knee, long before I met him in the Bay Area Lutheran Chorale. All six foot, five inches of him were immersed in the beauty of the music and the Spirit of the Divine. When we dined together, he picked up the tab gracefully and often. He doted on Victorian architecture, knowing his Stick from Edwardian from Romeo.

Handsome enough to have a partner whenever he wanted one, which was all the time; his nest of a home gave him strength. A devout country western dancer, with well-broken in boots, he naturally held his 60th birthday party at the Sundance Saloon.