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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 19, 2007)
■lì lust,out OCTOBER 19 2007 eatingiout eatingiout eatingiout eatingiout eatingiout eatingjout Great Expectations The extra baggage of gay travel e slide into the same side of restau HOME AWAY FROM HOME PORTLAND’S EASTSIDE DINING & SPIRITS Featuring music and videos on flat screen plasma monitors Come for the coffee, Stay for the breakfast, Leave when the mimosa glass is empty. BAR SPECIALS: Monday & Tuesday: the wait staff gives us a smile. We have no problem answering together about our cuddly stay-at- home evening plans to the inquiring New Seasons checker. The hospitals “get” that we’re family, and the loan officers don’t bat an eye. We’re here and queer in Portland, and we’d like to take that senti >5.00 3560 N Mississippi Ave Portland, OR 97227 503-445-6690 Wednesday: www.muddyscoffeehouse.com Half Pound Burger with Fries or Tater Tots W rant booths with our sweeties, and ment everywhere we go. Some of us, however, might find travel outside our bubble of relative openness to Out of My Mind be a slap in the face. BY MALKA GEFFEN When 1 brought the wife (then new girlfriend) Chicken or Beef Tacos with Tater Tots to meet my family, 1 wanted her to experience the >6.00 wonder 1 felt at all the fabulous offerings of my time to take a small hut romantic weekend vaca hometown. The place had changed a lot during the tion that didn’t involve visiting family or friends. years I’d been away, hut there were still some Just us. Up north to the land of the free-to-get- features I could point out with expectancy of her married-and-have-health-care. We set our sights on appreciation. On this first trip, 1 took her to Vancouver, British Columbia, because of the over Downtown Saturday Night—a once-a-month whelming good press and word of mouth the city evening street fair. Vendors, musicians, punks and has received lately. So we packed and drove straight freaks would fill up Ronstadt Plaza (yes, as in the to the border, where we learned, while sitting Goddess Linda), and as teens we would hang out and motionless in our car (yes, a Subaru Forester) for Thursday: Super Summer Salad Special! Friday: Prime Rib Extended menu including late night hours HALLOWEEN COSTUME PARTY hours, that we’re not the only ones with Saturday, October 27th this idea. Once at the border patrol sta Saturday & Sunday 9am to 2am tion, we handed over Saturday Breakfast 9 am our passports and Sunday Brunch 9:3O am proudly announced the nature of our 503-230-7980*2913 SE Stark www.starkys.com relationship. The agent didn’t give us a second look. The Old World Italian cooking with New World lents m a casual upscale atmosphere. stay in a cheap place outside town. But when the magazines rate Vancouver as “the best city to live Fine wines ride the buzz of our heightened self-consciousness. in,” they don’t necessarily mean Burnaby— I realized the event marked a coming-of-age thing a strip-mall suburb 30 minutes from downtown. for me, hut 1 hadn’t anticipated the drastic The woman who owned the “bed and breakfast" changes that took hold in my absence. The (i.e., her basement apartment) didn’t expect two blessed punks and freaks of my youth had trans women. She also didn’t understand why we had formed into threatening thugs and addicts. a problem with sleeping on two twin beds (the Walking down the street together, the girlfriend double, we discovered, was as soft as a table). It was and I got a vicious, “Fucking dykes!” hurled at us late, and so we made do by pulling the twin from a passing vehicle. mattresses together onto the fkxtr of the main Surely, 1 thought, taking our honeymoon in room, where we romantically tried to avoid lying Hawaii a few years later, we could expect consider on the crack. By noon the next day, we were in able comfort with our minority status in tow. After a downtown hotel. That night we celebrated our ail, wasn’t Hawaii the first U.S. state to delve into second wedding anniversary at a world-renowned the ongoing experiment with legalizing same-sex Indian restaurant. Our beautiful gay waiter—the marriage.7 But when we arrived at our hotel, the kind of guy who naturally looks like he’s wearing desk clerk seemed truly perplexed. eyeliner—made us feel right at home. "So, what are you two doing in Hawaii.7” she Executive Chef Wade Crowley Family owned and operated. 1 thought we should Something for everybody in Vancouver, British Columbia. Live music on Friday and Saturday 503-693-6027 www.trescaitalian.com pincher that 1 am, <Mayl > offer you a 6ITE? > Full service restaurant, bar and catering 250 E Main St. Hillsboro, OR 97123 penny- asked in a nice bubbly voice. HALLOWi 'EN 2007 C&wce as y arestt! Traveling queer might mean having to come out over and over again—to every bellhop and “We’re on our honeymoon!” we exclaimed. maitre d'. The familiar English language, Walgreens She cocked her head and said, "Where are your and IHOPs of our travel destinations do not neces husbands?” sarily represent the acceptance and safety we might No, we explained. It’s our honeymixin. feel in the communities we build at home. But “You mean you two got married?!” when we do find the right spots—the cafe with the Nice and bubbly left the building, and her ugly rainbow window sticker or the diner with the flirty twin sister curt and awkward took her place. We butch waitress—we can sit hack and really be on weren’t anticipating that kind of ignorance, which vacation. unfortunately set the tone for our subsequent encounters. A few weeks ago, the wife and I decided it was M alka G effen has plenty of iwm in her head. Fill it by e-mailing malkageffen@gmail.com.
