Damn It, Janet...

Good Afternoon, Fellow Humans;

Well, I said I was going to post some more autobiographical information, so here goes...

I moved from Bozeman, Montana to Seattle in September 1985 to attend the University of Washington (UW). I had been in Bozeman for about a year, after graduating from high school in Syracuse NY while living with my Dad. I had an Air Force ROTC scholarship to go to Boston University, but came flying (shrieking!) out of the closet during the spring of my senior year of HS and just couldn't see myself going back into the closet for 8 years, would have been impossible for me. I was a bold brat, let me tell you. My mom lived in Bozeman, and Dad (really my stepmonster {mirror, mirror, on the wall --- yeah, for real}) wanted me out of his house. So, I went to live with Mom for that year.

It was quite a year. You wouldn't believe how much queerness lurked beneath the surface in Montana during the mid 1980's! I had some of the wildest times of my life there. Fell in w/a bunch of punk fags and dykes and kind of terrorized the town. Once incident I want to relate is this; I moved w/my boyfriend Michael (there were a series of Michaels) from Bozeman to Helena in I think November of 84. On New Years Eve (84 into 85), we went to a local house party and I met ... Brian and Brian. These were two HS seniors who where hanging out w/the slightly older gay crowd in Helena (I was 18, I think they were 17). Well, Micheal and I took them home. Brian, Brian and I were in our room just talking, giggling like the teeny-boppers we were. We heard this CRASH from the front room! Went to it, and saw the dining area window broken. Looked out the window, and saw Michael 4 floors down on the street and ambulances coming. Aside: M and I lived on the 4th floor of the old Placer Hotel on Last Chance Gulch in downtown Helena (yup, that's the name of the street). The Ambulance took M away and the police took me and the Brians in for questioning. Apparently, someone said it looked like M had been pushed out the window! The cops questioned us all separately, and let us go. Thank God!

Anyway, Michael survived. He landed on the roof of a pick-up, then bounced on the hood, then landed on the pavement. This saved his life. He was hospitalized for months and needed a cane when he got out. I moved back home to Bozeman after this incident. We stayed friends and I helped him settle back into a place in Bozeman with a couple we were friends with. Last saw him years later in Florida in 1991. Hope he's okay! The Brians and I became friends and I visited them both a few times in Missoula where they moved after graduating. The would later end up in Seattle where we continued the party. More on that another time.

So, I moved to Seattle. I quickly fell in with a group of, hmmm, I guess you'd call them 'new wavers' and 'mods'? I went more for the mod look, skinny legged olive drab pants and black turtlenecks w/pea coats riding scooters, that kind of thing. I joined them going out every weekend (and sometimes during the week) to Skoochies and City Beat, two underage clubs at that time in Seattle. Many of my new friends were recent denizens of  'The Monastery', which I linked to an article about Wed. of this week I think. It closed just before I moved to Seattle, and though I was upset about it, it may have been for the best (for me). This place was housed in an old church and was officially a church or religious sanctuary. As I mentioned, it is mythic in Seattle's history among the disco/dance club crowd. Club life in Seattle was different, it truly felt like an extended family and it has colored my life in many ways. As my friend Jim Palmer said on a talk show about the closing of the Monastery, "We chose our family, and we are the world" or something close.

Hmmm, so much to say. I want to tell one more story today. I met a young woman named Janet at I believe City Beat, when I was 19 or 20; sometime in early 1987 I think. May have been somewhere else, I got a good fake ID and started going to Tugs in Belltown about this time. Janet had this amazing apartment near Volunteer Park. It was in a 20's building, as so many are in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. It had rough textured plaster walls, beautiful tile work and light fixtures, and a lovely fireplace. The colors were all pretty pastels and she had an awesome collection of mid-century furniture. In front of the fireplace, she had a life sized statue of Jesus painted in pastels in the Mexican style, with his arms outstretched as if blessing a crowd. On either side of the Jesus were gold cages, each with a dove (or a pair of doves) in the gilt cages. On each of Jesus's hands were tinkerbelle fairy dolls hanging from the fingers. This gave the room an intense if rather odd ambiance.

Janet and I 'hung out' often for several months, into summer. I was life-guarding for the city that summer at Madrona Park on Lake Washington. Janet and I had - an encounter - during this time. I think that same day we went to the park and I took a few photos of her. I still have them, one of which I stuck in my Dad's bible years ago and it is still there. I never heard from her again after this day. It's so odd.  I ended up leaving Seattle a couple months later.

That's it for now...

Peace, Love, and Joy 2 ALL!
RtTBt
OmegaMan