Back to the weekend:
After (Wicked) left me wondering when I would be able to find someone like him locally, I tried to encounter a few friends at the bar. I ended up catching a ride home from the guy from Thursday. He was nice about it, but distant. I wonder if I did something wrong. He had sent me an email about "trying to seem straight." I get frusterated by that bullshit. I never accuse anyone of "trying" to act gay. (although I have a few that I joke with about it... but they are close friends) Anyway... I'll still give him a call sometime this week. He seems like he's worth making another attempt.
Was in bed about 2am, and my 7am alarm came a bit early for my liking. Jumped in the car with my new roommate (im gonna have to come up with a pseudonym for her soon) and her friend. I had met the friend before when the Roomie had come to look at the apartment, and I thought he was a sweetheart. Once again, I need to get my gaydar checked: he's straight. Well, that was pretty much the only dissappointment of the entire weekend from there on in...
We drove to Eagle Bend, MN (some 2 hours north-west) and started to meet the bikers at the school. Just to recap in case I missed it: this was a motorcycle tour to benefit Camp Heartland put together by an incedible local couple. Camp Heartland is a camping program for children with HIV/AIDS.
After mingling with some of the riders (getting the first comment about how I should make sure not to get Roomie pregnant) I was hooked up with a guy from the CMA to ride with. The CMA is the Christian Motorcyclist's Association. They are this huge fellowship of guys who look pretty roughneck, but evangelize for Christ, go to meetings, and dont drink. They were phenominally friendly with me. After being terrified on the back of the bike for a little while, I calmed down and actually found the riding to be very prayerful: just the wind in your ears, riding so fast as to leave the rest of the ride behind. I had a decent talk with my rider about that too... He talked about how Christ had restored his family. Pretty cool stuff coming from a motorcyclist.
We rode around the country side for about 4 hours (I got a tad sunburned), stopping at various watering holes along the way. There were about 130 riders, all riding to raise money for kids with HIV. Pretty damn cool. And the riding was amazing. It was just so freeing.
Overall the day and later the party that night shattered a ton of my preconceived notions. These were some of the nicest people ever. They welcomed the three of us city-folk in a way that I hadnt felt in a while. Quite honestly, the gay community is uber-judgmental: are you fat/skinny, built/stringy, rich/poor, hung/lacking... none of this shit meant anything to these people. While there were a very select few who harbored racial prejudices and I definitely didnt come out over the weekend, I am not even sure how much of a problem those things would be. One of the ladies we partied with at the end of the night mentioned that she thinks her son is bi ("and he takes giant shits, so i think he could take a dick..." --she was very drunk at this point) (this was the same lady who looked at me and Roomie and said, "That's so cool! You guys will be like Will & Grace, except you're not gay!"... yes... just like that...).
I did have a conversation (short as it was) with a guy I had noticed earlier with Iron Crosses on his bike, a confederate flag on his back, and then at closer inspection a nazi symbol on his collar. I approached quite gently, and just questioned him on his thoughts about those symbols. "Im a white racist," he said. REALLY? I couldnt tell! I started to question his premises for his beliefs, and he did indeed believe that slavery was appropriate and genocide was okay in some circumstances. But the interesting part was that he had these unshakable "facts" that were the basis for his beliefs: black people want to kill white people, they all want reparations, Jews have been taxing us to the ground since the middle ages, Latinos are taking away our jobs, (but not any of his... the bad economy did that.. which of course had to do with all the illegals on welfare). These unshakable ideas were not something I was even going to get into, so I agreed to (very much) disagree, and went and talked with the other people at this party. I must emphasize that this was only one person in about 200... We all have our crazies.
We partied at this incredible farm/solice area among the trees, where there were prizes and raffles and karaoke and motorcycle games... Roomie's friend got a hankerchief as a door prize. It was adorned with a screamin eagle, giant flag, and the acronym A.S.U... The three of us looked at it for about 30 seconds trying to figure out what that could stand for. I finally clued in... "Ummm... Dude, turn the hankerchief around."
Turns out that "A.S.U." becomes a fairly well known acronymn when reversed. :-)
It was a good weekend.
Musical Fodder for my Writing:"Satin in a Coffin" Modest Mouse,
Good News for People who Love Bad News
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