It’s nine in the morning, and I’m in San Francisco. I drove here yesterday, and it took four hours. Along the way I saw vineyards, orange and lemon tree groves, and more trucks filled with tomatoes that I could count. The rolling hills of California, under the hot sun, appeared to me to be pure gold. But don’t get excited and start heading west–they’re really just made of dead grass.

The lesson here is that good lighting can do wonders.

I’m staying with a new friend of mine who’s attending the same dance workshop I am–The Switch. The event’s purpose is to foster the culture of ambi-dancing, or dancing your non-primary or non-gender-specific role. In other words, people who are normally leaders (typically men) have a chance to follow, and people who are normally followers (typically females) have a chance to lead. Anyway, finding my host’s apartment wasn’t a problem, but finding parking was. I circled the block for over an hour. (Street parking is free here but hard to come by, especially on a Friday evening.) FINALLY a someone pulled out two blocks (and up a steep hill) away, and I snagged their spot. (Having packed like Rose on the Titanic, I had to consolidate bags before huffing it down the hill.)

And because I don’t want to go through all that again, I’m not using my car the rest of the weekend. What would be the use? Parking is difficult EVERYWHERE here.

Here’s a picture of the Oakland Bay Bridge, which I drove in on.

After getting dinner at a local Mexican restaurant and checking out a neighborhood bookstore, my host and I went to last night’s dance together–on his scooter. (Don’t worry, Mom, I wore a helmet.) I can only imagine we were quite the site, a small Asian up front, and this large Caucasian behind (with a large Caucasian behind), holding on for dear life, zooming through the crowded, steep-hilled streets of San Francisco. But we made it to the dance in tact and easily found a parking spot–scooters can fit anywhere. Along the we drove through The Castro–the local Gayborhood–or as my host called it, “Queer Central.” Y’all, there were more homos and multi-colored flags than I’ve ever seen in my life. Even the crosswalks were rainbows. Plus there was a bar named Moby Dick, a grocery store named Bi Right (clever, huh?), and a coin laundry named Sit and Spin (think about it).

Fabulous.

The dance itself was lovely. Honestly, I haven’t seen a room full of such happy, smiling people in a while. The “rules” for the event are that if you ask someone to dance, you ask what role they would like to dance–lead, follow, or switch (as in, switch roles throughout the dance). So the place was full of not only the traditional setup–girls leading girls, but also guys leading guys, girls leading girls, and even girls leading boys. You know, just people dancing, having fun.

Being in a new city and not knowing anyone (except a few people I’ve met at other events), it took a while for me to get up the courage to ask others to dance. I mean, I did just have a rough experience asking guys (and girls) to dance at a gay bar in Dallas, and some of those feelings of rejection popped back up. Plus, I did that thing I always do the first night of dance events–compared myself to everyone else in the room and found myself wanting. But I told myself, These feelings ALWAYS show up and try to ruin your good time, Marcus. Just let them be–and ask someone to freaking dance. So that’s what I did. Actually, I asked quite a few people to dance–and a few people asked me to dance. And I had some delightful conversations. And it was fun.

And no one died.

The scooter ride back from the dance went well, but it was freezing. Having come through 120-degree desert heat on the way here, this is something I was unprepared for. I guess it’s because San Francisco is covered in fog (you can’t see the moon, or the stars, or anything at night), but it was sixty degrees when I got here, and God-knows-what when my host and I rode home last night. Thankfully, my host let me borrow a jacket (he’s very kind) so I could layer-up, and I’m looking at the cold weather as an “adventure.”

I can do anything for a weekend.

Currently I’m sipping coffee and thinking about getting ready for classes, which start in two hours. I need to take a shower and round-up a light breakfast. Mostly I’m contemplating a book on hypnosis, which I read a couple chapters in last night before I went to bed. From what I understand so far, the book suggests that 1) hypnosis is both a state of mind and a form of learning and 2) all of us are technically “hypnotized” far more often than we realize. In fact, according to the book, it’s possible (and likely) that my feelings of rejection and better-than/less-than came up at the dance last night because the environment (new city, new people, dance hall, music) reminded my subconscious of dozens of similar situations in the past in which I had responded the same way (feeling insecure). Sort of like when you change jobs or move houses but crawl in your car and suddenly find yourself driving to the old location and not the new one. We’re talking about “learned behavior” here (crawl in the car, go to location X), and this action/response mechanism can apparently apply to emotional responses as well (go to new dance event, feel insecure).

This theory makes a lot of sense to me. I’ve talked before about how I often react to present situations with past emotions–when dealing with finances, for example–and having this context about learning and behaving helps me better understand what’s going on here (in my life). Now–what to do about it–I don’t know. I’m only three chapters into the book. Stay tuned. But I trust that if a human can learn to respond to a situation one way, they can learn to respond to a situation another way. If you can learn to lead, you an learn to follow. You don’t keep driving to your old house forever.