Monday, June 23, 20082:53 PM - OHOP in the boonies: Oakdale House of Prayer?Bigpost!Okay, so a lot has happened this week. First, I went to Yosemite with some friends. We left super early Friday morning from San Jose in two cars, embarking on a successful journey to... Confidence, California, where we saw the other car in our caravan turning around at the Confidence Inn. We sailed past, mocking them for their small bladders, and drove on to a place we called "Overconfidence, California" once we realized we'd been taking the wrong route and had driven an hour out of our way. teehee. Yosemite was beautiful, although the altitude and windy roads made both AJ and I a bit nauseous at different points. We set up camp, ate (do NOT drive to Confidence, California and put all of the food in the other car) and immediately hiked to some big trees.  That night, I woke up at about 3:30 and headed to the facilities with my shiny new purple flashlight. I came back to my tent, sat in a camping chair that some friends had lent us for the trip, and took off my sneakers. I started to unzip my tent, when the chair collapsed underneath me. I didn't know what to do, so I burst out laughing. Judy's voice came sleepily from the other tent... "Are you okay?" I didn't know what to say, so I crawled into the tent and went to sleep. The next morning, there was a pile of rubble, where the metal had buckled and canvas ripped. Bears indeed. That day we biked around in Yosemite Valley, which was awesome. We did our entire day's worth of planned activities before lunch, so the afternoon on bikes was very spontaneous. We are not going to talk about the flies in the bathroom who buzzed so loud it sounded like a malicious hive. I turned around and walked right back out. Our camp was by a river, and it was really beautiful and peaceful. Except for the part when the neighboring camp came by asking for a shovel so that they could kill the rattlesnake they found in the river. Luckily I was away on a strawberry ice cream run, so when I heard the news when we got back to camp, I immediately sat down and ate the whole thing. I'm extremely snake-phobic. Luckily, I am also extremely strawberry-philic, and by the time the ice cream was gone, no one was talking about the snake any more. Yay! It was a really great time, and I'm still waiting on more photos, and we didn't even drive through Confidence, California on the way home. Last night, I went to see All My Life at the Frameline film festival. My friend Mazen played the lead, and I promised him I would go. It's a really neat independent film about several gay characters in Cairo and the people in their lives, shot both in San Francisco and guerilla-style in Egypt. I did not pre-order my ticket, and I stood with about 5 other people in the "rush" line after they had sent all of the non-ticketholders home, and a last minute minor miracle changed the story from "You're welcome to stand out in the cold, but I suggest you go stay warm," to "We have 6 seats. Go in." Yay! The film itself was really worth seeing, and the Q&A afterwards was really moving. At one point, the director talked about how oppressing gay people in Egypt is linked to oppressing women and oppressing ethnic minorities, and that it's all the same phenomenon. That totally applies beyond just Egypt, which is why I am saddened to see racism in the gay community or homophobia among ethnic minorities or even gays and lesbians harrassing each other instead of having each other's backs. I'm really tired of the mentality of "ingratiating yourself to the oppressor by kicking someone else." Never works. I really hope they show this film again. They turned away at least 100 people in the "hoping to buy tickets" line, so hopefully they will show it at the Center or somewhere locally soon. Anyway, it was a great birthday week for me! As always, my birthday tends to extend a couple of weeks in each direction, so feel free to throw confetti accordingly. Mwah! Thursday, June 12, 20085:18 PM - can't sleep, bear'll eat mecobbler!!Heading to Yosemite this weekend... be gentle, it's my first time! I'm sure there will be photographs. It's hilarious to me how much I run around in digital forests and other "natural" environments, but I don't know the first thing about being out in nature. Fun times! Rule #1: do not run off alone to read my bible. |
