Mysterious Ghetto Gypsy bus in Missoula, Montana
Last you heard (unless you’ve been checking Facebook or Instagram), I was first arriving in Montana.
So, meanwhile, back in Montana…
In the wee hours of my awful no good very bad birthday, I arrived in Billings, Montana. I air mattressed hard. Breakfasted with my kind, burly, professional video-gamer host (who gave me that hairy pink birthday card that sang to me, and stuck candles in a cabbage because he couldn’t figure out how to give me a slice of cake that I could fucking eat). He was great.
Diner breakfast. Felt like the South and Long Island smushed together. I ate a pile of corned beef hash. He ate a pile of pancakes. I felt envy.
I drove on.
Billings, MT to Missoula, Montana. Six hours. I arrived in a pile of leaves next to a gypsy bus. (See above. And below.)
Ghetto Gypsy bus parked in Missoula, MT. Do you know who travels in such a bus?
I didn’t have a plan for Missoula. I didn’t know anyone who lived there or have any recordings lined up or really anything specific in mind at all. I just wanted to see big sky country. I longed to feel more spaciousness. There is little more exhilarating to me than feeling free. I imagined that I would feel very free in Montana. Friends suggested Missoula. And, by the grace of my friends go I. And so I went.
When fall comes, I know I was born. It’s a kinship, between the fall and I.
I drove in around dinnertime and, after rolling in this pile of leaves next to the gypsy bus and feeling like a fall baby, I strolled into a clothing shop next to what appeared to be an extremely happening biergarten. A place of microbrews. It felt like Portland, and, though I drink no beers, on the inside I thought, “Ach! My people!”
I asked the shopkeeper, “Where’s the cute little funky place to stay? Not a hotel. A little artsy kind of place.” She directed me to the Shady Spruce Hostel.
I was sitting on their steps at dusk, trying to book myself in. A blond carpenter man who looks like he hikes a lot came out the side door holding a bag of peppers. I startled him. He startled me! I apologized. He invited me inside, and got me booked in. The Shady Spruce is his place.
It’s the fourth-oldest building in Missoula. He was indeed a carpenter. He gut-renovated the place and and turned it into the sweetest little hostel you ever did see. Hammocks outside, big kitchen table inside, huuuuuge maps. A traveler’s haven.
Missoula was so sweet. It felt like a tiny Portland with mountains. (Yes, I realize that when I want to say that I enjoy a place I begin by saying how much it’s like Portland. No, I probably won’t go back to live there anytime soon. The mean greys and damp clothes really got to me.)
I went to a yoga class and the instructor gave me a 15-minute walking tour of downtown Missoula. He took this, at my request.
After much coaching, I got a yoga teacher to make like a tripod, but right side up.
Yoga teacher scurried off to teach another class (I relished in the fact that I did not have to teach that class, or any class that day, that week, or that month). I browsed a shop that the Shady Spruce Proprietor was sure I would love. I did not love it.
Then I poked around a shop called “Upcycle.” The proprietor was sweet and chatty and we got to dishing about podcasts. He listens as he crafts. It’s his thing. “I’m just a consumer,” he said. “I don’t make one of my own.” “Great!” Said I. “We need you!” “And you are a maker in other ways!” I told him about horizontal, how I’m finally making my own thing and putting it out into the world, how I’m finally making good on my mission to cultivate intimacy.
“Oh,” Donovan said. “Are you here to interview my friend Lindsey Doe?”
“No,” I replied (not recognizing the name but having a good feeling about this), “But I’d like to be!”
Lindsey is the creator of Sexplanations on YouTube. Sexplanations! It’s massive! Almost 500,000 followers! She’s the sex ed teacher you wish you’d had in high school. She’s absolutely brilliant at breaking things down in a way you can understand, without talking down to you, and with a certain kind of academic cheerfulness that I find entirely refreshing. Like the Art History teacher I had in high school, who would nerd out on the Renaissance. Just delightful.
I hadn’t watched Lindsey’s videos before I met Donovan, but a month prior, at the Communities Conference, someone came up to ask me about Hacienda Villa. She said that she wanted to become a sex therapist because she’d been watching Lindsey Doe. I had heard Lindsey’s praises sung for the first time just a month prior! And here I was, in her city, one degree of separation away!
Then I remembered that I’d seen a post on one of my secret Facebook groups that Lindsey was seeking an assistant… AND I COULDN’T REMEMBER THE WOMAN’S NAME. Do you know her? Are you her? If it was you, write to me! I can connect you to your idol! (If you know who it was, write to me and I’ll put them in touch.)
Lindsey gave Donovan permission to give me her phone number, and he suggested I get on that, so I promptly texted her. When I didn’t hear back the whole evening, I chalked it up. It was too last minute. Sometimes the spontaneity works in my favor and sometimes it aligns not, fair readers.
I decided to drive up to Glacier National Park the next day, because several friends told me it was the most breathtaking place in Montana. I figured that I’d head on to Idaho from there.
Two Medicine at Glacier National Park. Twas windy!
As is my wont, I drove into Glacier too late in the day and without destination. There were hardly any people around so late in the season, and the Going-to-the-Sun Road, seemingly a main attraction was closed. I felt isolated. The other venturers didn’t seem to want to chat. They were curled in towards their companions, insular. I had fantasized about happening along a group of 30-somethings who were making a fire and being invited in and roasting marshmallows on spindly sticks and telling stories from the road, and driving on with campfire smell in my hair as a souvenir.
Eu du campfire. One of my favorite scents. I’ll delay my hair wash for days if I can smell the sweet woodsmoke in it… But there was no jolly group. It was quite quiet, and I suddenly felt alone, which I rarely felt on this journey.
“That’s what people come here for but can never get because we’re too busy,” said the pretty park ranger in her jolly green giant uniform. “Solitude in nature!”
I didn’t know park rangers could look like that. I guess I always expected them to be red-faced and pot-bellied and grizzly-skinned. Clearly, I have not been acquainted with many park rangers in my time.
(Just to clarify, I thought she looked hot in her moss-green uniform with its wide-brimmed hat. Really hot. Actually, I would have liked to have kissed her. She’s the one who said that she felt like the jolly green giant.)
(I wasn’t sure how to make the kiss happen.)
(Well, Lila, how do you make a kiss happen with a man, then? You don’t seem to have any problem with that, do you? She had lips, right? I’m pretty sure they work the same.)
(Thanks. Thank you for that. That’s different. I know how to get a man to kiss me. But what if I made pretty park ranger uncomfortable? She’d only mentioned a man she dated. Nothing about women. I couldn’t read her vibe. I wasn’t getting a distinctly kissy vibe, but who knows!)
(What did you have to lose, huh? You were just “passing though,” as you are so fond of saying.)
(Um, embarrassment? One evening and the following day’s worth of embarrassment. Two days tops. Plus the salt-woundy sting of rejection. Which sometimes lasts longer.)
(You should have kissed her.)
(Yeah. I know.)
(Dammit…)
“What’s your favorite place in the park?” I asked her. “I only have a few hours to devote to this mission,” I said. “I’m just passing through.” (I love saying that. It suits my wandering soul.) “I want to see something beautiful. Where shall I go?
“Two Medicine,” she said. “Too medicine?” I asked. (As in, “that’s too medicine for me,” like, “that’s too metal for me”?)
“Two Medicine,” she said. “It’s about 90 minutes to the other side of the park, but it’s a beautiful drive around sunset, and that’s where I’d go.” I listened to the pretty ranger.
I arrived at Two Medicine at dusk. There was a lone car in the parking lot. I pulled in and waved at them. A middle-aged outdoorsy couple in the front seat waved back, and promptly pulled away. “Noooo,” I thought. “Don’t goooo! Stay and play with me!”
It was even windier than my self-portrait suggests. The only other human creatures I saw were returning from a hike. They excitedly tallied their animal sightings and finished with, “And a black bear!” I decided not to hike.
No use running into actual bear arms at twilight.
Too groggy to drive the 7 hours to Idaho or 4.5 hours back to Missoula, I re-traced my route back to the west side and (Finally! Whyyy didn’t I do this on my birthday! Ach! Oy!) treated myself to a hotel in Whitefish, Montana.
horizontal in hotel robe. Whitefish, Montana.
Ah me! Such luxury!
I went in the hot tub on the roof. I drank a glass of wine and closed out the empty hotel lobby bar! (Highly rare, I assure you.) I starfished on the king sized bed. I pleasured myself. I asked for a late checkout. I took a hot hot shower. I asked for a later checkout. I ran over on that one, too, languorously applying makeup. It was dreamy.
starfish (verb) = when one person spreads themselves across a bed like the Vitruvian man, or, naturally, a starfish. This can make it challenging for their bed-sharers.
Determined to make it to a hot springs, I set my course for Quinn’s, on the way to Idaho, where my old Portland tango friend’s mother was going to put me up for a night.
Evidence of plaid shirt purchase in Whitefish, Montana. I know, I know, you don’t even know me anymore.
As I was poking around the shops in Whitefish, fancy little ski town, and buying myself a plaid shirt because I was in Montana so it felt important, the yoga teacher from Missoula messaged to say that I shouldn’t go to Quinn’s because it’s man-made. He told me to go to Jerry Johnson Hot Springs instead. Okay, then. I changed course.
The Maps app routed me back through Missoula.
Forty-five minutes north of Missoula, I got a message from Lindsey Doe asking if she’d missed me! And also, “what is it you’re doing again? What’s this with the robes?” She sounded highly skeptical and yet game at the same time. I felt vaguely worried that she wouldn’t like me. “Stevie Boebi‘s in town right now, too. She’s the go-to YouTuber on lesbian sex. Would you want to record an episode with her?”
YES.
“Okay, I’ll see if she’s interested.”
Well, maybe she was inclined to like me after all… That was an incredibly generous idea…
I drove to Lindsey’s house straightaway, listening to her YouTube videos en route. (Don’t worry, I did not watch the screen. I had my EYES ON THE ROAD. Why are you hassling me? Okay, I admit it. Very occasionally I texted and drove. I definitely know how bad that is. Mostly I dictated and drove. But I NEVER watched a video and drove. Satisfied? No? I understand. I won’t do it again.)
Back in Missoula that night, Lindsey fed me a salad and asked me again what this podcast was all about. She apologized for the delay in getting back to me. The two kids in her household and her partner were finally gone for the night, so she had a little peace.
I told her about horizontal, trying my damnedest to seduce her with my concept…
“This is an odd life you have!” Lindsey said. “Traveling the country with a mic on an arm, robes and blankets.”
“It’s true,” I said. “I love it!”
We recorded back-to-back episodes. It got late-ish. Late for Montana, at least. (I had hoped Lindsey might invite me to stay — the house looked so cozy, the beds, so inviting, and I, so lazy — but when no invitation was forthcoming, and 10pm rolled around, I made arrangements for a bottom bunk at the hostel. In the nick of time, too. The proprietor was about to give up on me when I was radio-silent at interview time!)
bts of horizontal with Dr. Lindsey Doe in Missoula. This dog is very prominent in our recording. I’m hiding the jumpsuit beneath my robe. I was chilly. Lindsey was dressed as a giant vulva. She was not.
When I was teenager, I read Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It remained my favorite book throughout college. I didn’t have a lot of time for extracurricular reading in college, but that wasn’t why. I wanted to write like him. Like him, but like me. I wanted to ingest him and translate him through my body. I wondered what might have been lost in translation from the Czech. It seemed perfect in English. Native. He uses the phrase “six laughable fortuities.” This was a favorite of a former best friend of mine, and I. We were constantly looking for the six laughable fortuities of things. As in: the seemingly inconsequential choices, those bits of happenstance that conspire to make something happen, when it very well might not have happened.
“Seven years earlier, a complex neurological case happened to have been discovered at the hospital in Tereza’s town. They called in the chief surgeon of Tomas’s hospital in Prague for consultation, but the chief surgeon of Tomas’s hospital happened to be suffering from sciatica, and because he could not move he sent Tomas to the provincial hospital in his place. The town had several hotels, but Tomas happened to be given a room in the one where Tereza was employed. He happened to have had enough free time before his train left to stop at the hotel restaurant. Tereza happened to be on duty, and happened to be serving Tomas’s table. It had taken six chance happenings to push Tomas towards Tereza, as if he had little inclination to go to her on his own.”
– Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
horizontal with Stevie Boebi in Missoula, Montana. She borrowed a robe from Lindsey. I changed mine (costume change!), but neglected to cover up the jumpsuit in this one. Oops.
horizontal in the warm springs at Jerry Johnson Hot Springs, Idaho.
Missoula, Montana to Jerry Johnson Hot Springs. 1.5 hours.
Not as hot springy as I had hoped. Too many swimsuits, too many children, too many uncomfortable college students drinking to assuage their anxiety and surprised by my nudity, not enough joy. Also, I did not get the selfie I wanted. I blame the vibe. So, in protest, I have turned this portrait on its ear.
Now it’s artistic.
While the spring itself was not quite warm enough, the hike in, however, was Fern Gully.
This is the sight that greeted me at the open:
Welcome in.
Jerry Johnson Hot Springs to Lewiston, Idaho. 4 hours. Overnight in the guest room of the tango mom’s house. She was kind.
Lewiston, ID to Walla Walla Washington. 2 hours. Lunch. I love lunch.
Walla Walla, WA to Portland, Oregon. A quick stop at the Pendleton outlet for a new robe. 4 hours.
Portland AT LAST!
In Portland, I re-celebrated my birthday by mending a torn friendship, having sex with an old lover (much longer stories for another missive, or an episode, perhaps), seeing Professor Marston and the Wonder Women for the second time, eating gluten-free vegan pancakes, soaking with naked people in hot hot water, and savoring salmon caught by my friend paired with chanterelles hunted by his housemate.
horizontal in the bed of my old lover. After. There should be a French word for this.
horizontal with Lurleen on a pile of leaves in Ladd’s Addition, in Portland, OR. I know. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, too.
I got to record with my beloved friend Lurleen, who looks like a model and swears like a sailor and mugs like Jim Carrey.
She always, always, always makes me laugh.
She learned at a young age how to temper her beauty by making funny faces and embracing her full-octane awkwardness in order that others wouldn’t feel uncomfortable around her. It works. You can see her. She is goofy.
You can almost forget that she’s a model.
She was nervous about recording with me, but she’s been avidly listening to horizontal since the beginning (I think her favorite was when Mistress Leigh called feelings “fee-fees” in episode three), and I think she really wanted to give me her story as a gift. I think you can hear how much we love each other.
We talked about sister dynamics, her singular visit to a sex club, and the burden of growing up with polyamorous parents. I’m so excited to share a challenging story about polyamory from the perspective of a child in the household. I think it’s important. I want to hear from as many perspectives as I can about alternative relationship structures.
Lurleen is also the person who totally gets that, when we happen upon a vintage truck with a pile of perfect leaves in the back, I must clamber in and do a spontaneous photo shoot.
horizontal in a pile of leaves in Portland, OR. I like the theme.
horizontal in the back of a small tan truck in Portland, OR
Also while in Portland, I got to record with Reid Mihalko and Allison Moon.
I wanted to record with Reid so badly that, when Lindsey suggested it, I asked her to send him a message, Kenneth to send him another message, and I sent him one myself. Hehehe. Triangulation!
After the barrage, he invited me out to the house and suggested that Allison record with me as well. Jackpot.
Reid is the sex educator’s sex educator, co-founder of Cuddle Party and creator of Sex Geek Summer Camp, the man whose recipe for difficult conversations I used with my housemate Zed in episode 15b, and the human who coined the phrase “date your species,” which Dr. Zhana and I discuss in episode 4b.
He was every bit as articulate, gregarious, warm, funny, knowledgeable, charming, and lovely as I thought he would be.
horizontal with Reid Mihalko in Gresham, Oregon. I said, “But Reid, you’ve got the mic in the shot!” He said, “It’s verite!”
It was my first time meeting Allison and learning about her work, so our episode was an unfolding, a slow melt.
She’s the author of Girl Sex 101 and Bad Dyke: Salacious Stories from a Queer Life!
We talked about the use and limitation of labels, strap-ons, lesbian identities, the concept of an innate sense of gender, how I relish my femininity, and how she fell in love with Reid. (He’s the only man she’s interested in having sex with!)
I thought I was going to do California in this missive, but. California’s too big of a state, and it took up too much emotional bandwidth. I think it will get its very own missive. horizontal does california, complete with infatuation and irresponsibility, coming soon.
horizontal with allison moon in Gresham, Oregon. (They shared the Superman robe.)
Big Love,
Lila
P.S. I’m not ready to go home, but I’ll be back in New York in a few days all the same. Hoping for a soft landing. [Update: Landing not so soft.]
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