My gay husband Cris and I would like to move to Alaska.  Our friend Kamil would like to come with us.  This concerns Brian, my other gay husband, who actually is the partner to Cris.  I personally think that moving to Alaska is just a dream that I can only turn to in my darkest of moments and times of hope.  I will explain a little more about our Alaskan plans, but first I should probably briefly describe all of the places I’ve lived.  It’s sort of eclectic.

I was born in Mountain View, California before Mountain View was cool for being home to multiple Silicon Valley start ups.  I’m actually pretty sure it wasn’t cool at all way back in the day — because when I was 6 weeks old, my parents bought a log cabin (no joke) in Woodside, California — which was also WAY before Woodside became famous for housing Silicon Valley celebs like Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison,  and Nolan Bushnell (the inventor of Atari and Pong, to those of you too young to know).  When my parents moved to Woodside, it was a mix between Hell’s Angels and well, California hippy weirdos.  We literally did move into a LOG cabin made of Redwood trees.  To get to our neighborhood, you had to pass the Hell’s Angels bar called the Peanut Farm.  At the time, the only famous people that lived in Woodside were bikers, hippies, and people like Neil Young.   Gradually, as the tech industry invaded the Bay Area, Woodside has morphed into more of a yuppy type fancy place.  My parents eventually moved us out of the log cabin and into a “normal” ranch style home on the other side of town.  It’s pretty, and I think maybe my habit of not wanting to leave my apartment stems from my father’s own tendencies of never leaving our yard and home.  For good reasons.  It’s really pleasant.

After Woodside, I moved to Middlebury, Vermont — where I went to college.  What the heck was I thinking?  I am so not a country girl.  And Middlebury is way in the bum fuck.  That being said, I had a good college experience and made many great friends who are still in my life to this day.  No regrets in the slightest.

While I was at Middlebury, I briefly spent a summer working on a dude ranch in Montana.  After reading about me, would you ever think I would work on a ranch in Montana cooking and cleaning for spoiled assholes who went to this amazingly beautiful place on Flathead Lake?  (One of the largest fresh water lakes in the west.)  So yes, I lived in Bigfork, Montana for a summer, slaving away with a bunch of cool people, drinking booze, bitching, riding horses, tanning my ass off.  I learned a lot. Honestly, that’s where I learned how to clean a bathroom — I had never had to before.  (Please don’t judge my genteel upbringing.)

While I was at Middlebury, I also did what most students there do, and studied a language.  Mine was Japanese.  Again, what the fuck was I thinking?  I hated it.  But because I often tortured myself as a student, I forced myself to take the impossible language for two long fucking hours a day, I sucked at it, and then I pushed myself to move to Japan my junior year.  WHY?????????  I really did hate the entire experience.  And nobody but me made me do it.  When I was in Japan, I lived near Osaka with an odd family who was probably tied to the Japanese mob.  I can’t wait to tell you some stories from that experience.  But right now, let’s focus on my places of residence.

When I returned to Middlebury after the harrowing experience in Japan, I graduated — with no fucking clue what I wanted to do.  So I decided to move to Washington D.C. with a bunch of other Midd grads who also had no fucking clue what they wanted to do.   In DC, I spent two years hopping around different residences, working for the equivalent of NO $$$ at a non-profit theater, and then finally my mother gave me the grad school ultimatum, and I decided to move on……

To New York City.  Thank god my mother forced me to wake up from my D.C. slumber— I finally made it to New York City — a place where I truly feel at home.  In New York, I’ve made a pretty amazing life for myself (sans Fucker the psychopath of course)…. There was a brief stint back in San Francisco where I lived for about 18 months and had another amazing job– but that city wasn’t for me either. I am a New Yorker at heart.

Knowing this, I’m guessing you’re wondering why I dream of moving to Alaska? Well — first off, I would just be fine if I spent the rest of my life with some good friends like Cris and Kamil — or anyone else interested in moving north with us.  Second, all we plan on doing is buying a pair of snow pants three sizes too big, sidling up to a dive bar, and drinking all day and night.  How does that not sound amazing????????????  There are plenty of men in Alaska — I suppose if I really wanted to spend some time with a straight companion, it would be easy to find one there.  It’s like the television show Northern Exposure, only WAY better.

Alas — Brian would be terribly upset if Cris and I left him.  And sadly, Cris and I cannot afford to go and sit at a bar all day. And we couldn’t bear to be away from Brian — and he has insisted that he has no interest in Alaska even though we have researched and found websites that sell big snow pants.

Still — we can hope.  We can dream.  Alaska is on my mind, the same way that Georgia is on Ray’s…..  Maybe my next cat will be named Ray….