We took the fast ferry to P-town on Sunday with Matt, his boyfriend Scott and our friend Jason visiting from St. Louis. (Jason had driven Pru, our dog out in my car this past Thurs.) We had a wonderful day trip down there. The 90 minute boat ride was nice in the morning air on the ocean. On arrival we had breakfast at a small quaint spot upstairs above one of the thousand stores that line the main street called Commercial. We did walk a bit up and down the street browsing the fine merchandise and strolling in and out of artisan shops and galleries. We then stocked up on water and some snacks and took the shuttle bus to the beach. Even with the ride we still had to walk about ½ a mile to the good part of the beach. We found a spot along side the hundreds of other gay men and some women lining the sands, some naked many not. The beaches here are rockier than I have ever seen and the water temperature is defiantly something to get use to. I did sprinkle a bit, but after a few hours we were off to the showers and back on the Shuttle bus to participate in the Sunday ritual of Tea Dance at the “Boat Slip” as they call this heavily attended dance club on the bay in the heart of P-town. The tea ends on the dot at 7pm and just in time for the mad dash to the ferry. Everyone must have been tired, drunk, or simply just worn out because, as a stream of people were leaving the bar down commercial street, a very well dressed and quite striking tall gorgeous drag queen on a pink beach cruiser bicycle riding up the street against the flow of the crowd said. “oooh, everyone looks so sssserious, what happen, did someone die at Tea?” I am not sure if everyone else thought it was as funny as our crowd quite did, but it was spot on funny. I know I was tired and sun drawn. So here is a photo of us on our way back to the boat. A friendly passerby took this photo of us, see the tower behind us while the sun is setting.. AWW, I love Provincetown.

It feels like a long time since I made a posting to my blog. I traveled back to St. Louis to spend time doing hair back in my old space and visit with good friends and also my father. The visit was very therapeutic and relaxing, a nice get-away from the daily grind of Boston. I often joked with clients that I only came back to feel loved, wanted and needed, but I think I honestly did come back for that very reason. I do like Boston, but sometimes it can get to someone who is new to the East Coast. I confirmed and established that I will return every 6-8 weeks to keep my clients looking great and my friends close. I think I was a bit nervous that I would really want to return to St. Louis, but I definitely had a few moments that I was glad I no longer lived in St. Louis. I do miss my clients, being busy, owning my own salon and basically being known for doing quality hair and small fundraising events in St. Louis. Time is the only thing that is keeping me from that here. I felt the same closeness from my good friends and some of the peripheral friends seemed more distant. St. Louis is fading already, but peoples lives go on in St. Louis as they do here. Even small simple things seem to fade when you are not around where you once fully understood and participated in. Like, the street names in St. Louis are still there, but don’t come as quick to me as they did when I lived there, it takes me just a few extra moments to recall where the street is when someone mentions it. Already roads are changing in St. Louis with the large scale reconstruction of the major highway 40. Living in the City of Boston doesn’t allow me to test out the local highways as much, but they are fun to drive on because many of them eventually end up in tunnels under the city.

Again I find myself too busy to update my blog and here it is a month later. October was a very busy month and every weekend was spent out of town. The first week was another St. Louis work trip and I got to see the hilarious movie Religilous with friends and also a fun relaxing Sunday with family. The second weekend was Devon and Jesse’s wonderful outdoor wedding and a spontaneous trip to P-town, in which we even took Pru down with us on the Fast Ferry. It was a crisp cool weekend and most of the businesses were having sales as the natives we winding down from the hectic season. We wore Pru out with the walks on the beach and up and down commercial street as well as ourselves with a bike ride through some of the trails. We even ran into some friends, which makes things so much better and fun. The weekend of the 17th I took off to Washington DC, to meet up with Alec (my son). We had a nice time just hanging out and Donna was so sweet to offer up her place to stay. It was nice to also see Alonzo (from the DZine days) and we all laughed quite a bit. At one portion at dinner, I had to leave the table because I was laughing so hard. We even took a short day trip to Mt. Vernon; George Washington’s home before heading back home via BWI. The last weekend in October was Jay’s birthday and we went to Jacksonville Florida for a family weekend to celebrate an early thanksgiving. The activities included a trivia night at a favorite restaurant, a rainy afternoon of shopping, bowling and a seafood dinner. We also took a day trip to St. Augustine, just south of Jax, and had lunch in this historic city after browsing the nick-knack tourist shops and one museum. I can tell you that I was happy to live in the North East after being in the conservative south for even that short weekend.

Halloween was again a great time in the South End, and we had a nice dinner at Sibling Rivalry after a long day at work. I know that next year, the salon HAS to be involved with this South End Halloween extravaganza. The streets are so crowded with trick-or-treaters and businesses stay open late to partake in this Holiday. I remember saying, as I did the previous year: “This is the only time of year Bostonians are friendly and inviting”.

OK, back to the Grind, and don’t forget to VOTE! Next time I write, I will be saying Barack Obama is our next president.