After being in a 2 year lesbian "relationship", with only a handful of people knowing, and me still pretty much in confusion stage, (note: Not Denial, that is something entirely different) I moved to San Francisco. My mom and I took an easy two days to drive down from Seattle. We took in a very beautiful sunset, and a book titled The Commitment. Written by hilarious Dan Savage. It is about Dan, his partner, his child and them flirting with the idea of marriage.
I'm not sure if I thought reading this book would somehow make my mom realize I was gay. I wasn't ready to tell her, but rather, was giving her every reason to ask me. About a week before this drive a good friend of mine had come out. Publicly that is. He is one of my good childhood and highschool friends. He's my same age, and like me, has three younger siblings. We lived about a mile down the road from one another. We've spent hundreds of dollars renting movies together. We've spent many a night sleepingover at one another's houses. We used to pick out eachother's clothes for the day before. When I used to try and pull my pants down a bit more he would snap at me and say "You're a girl, you're supposed to have hips. Pull your pants up!" Oh, and his dad was my pediatrition. We were close.
My mom called his mother, her friend, when she found out he was gay. For support I suppose. They both seemed fine with it. This was 'the go' I could have taken advantage of. The segway into, "Hey mom, guess what, me too!" Instead I didn't say anything, and let the easy in go on by.
So we moved down to San Francisco. Well the bay area actually. We moved in with a friend until I got my two feet on the ground and was able to move into the city. I got off to a quick start, getting three jobs in two days. I'm not sure whether it was to cure my boredom, the fact that I didn't know anyone, or that I was trying to stay busy getting over the love of my life. My day started at 4am setting out pastries at Starbucks. After taking cash from the very attractive, thin, rich suburbanites I headed half a mile down the road to a very delicous and nice restaurant. I was the lunch server, hostess, bartender, etc. I wasn't a very good bartender, but I was a damn good flirt. My best day there a very kind older couple gave me a $100 tip. Getting out around 3:30 I would head home to catch a bit of Ellen. Around 5 I was expected at my evening gig. That place was great. Attractive wait staff, reliable customers, and a young owner who cooked damn good food. My nights were spent hanging out with mom, catching a tv movie and getting to bed early. Just to do it all over again the next day.
About a month in I started to get restless. I needed to explore. I needed to get in the depth of things. I needed to find out for sure. I needed, to be a lesbian. Google let me down with the harsh reality that there was only one gay bar in this damn town. One gay bar in this whole city when half an hour away and right over the bridge the streets were crawling with them!!! In my agony I went searching for this bar one night. I drove up and down the street, and nothing. No sign of short haired women, or metro men. Nothing.
Days, and weeks, and months later I did move into the city. I was set free to explore and experience what I have found to be a drama filled lesbian scene. At least in this city. This exploration has been a good one though and has led to me meeting most of my friends. Friends who are great, caring, fun, adventerous people. A few of us took a trip to Tahoe awhile back, and on our way home had to drive through that one gay bar city. In a sequence of events involving the Showtime series The L Word, we ended up at this bar. The 1220. It is no wonder I never found it the first time. The damn place has no sign or address to be found. Am I just supposed to know it's there? Is it invite only? It really is just one door, hidden behind a 7/11 and some bushes. Well, actually connected to the 7/11. Hell, it could seriously be the storage closet to the 7/11. No pun intended.
There are many details about this place I would love to share, and in all honesty it has become one if my most favorite bars. Those secrets are for me though, you can find out for yourself.