Farewell, Nausicaa (The One Man Show Mix) in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

I should know better than to name my trips something as singular as “One Man Show” because in essence, that’s what it became. A series of misfires in which I found myself at the mercy of my own planning.

I finally returned to SoCal and found many things still the same, but a great many other things had significantly changed. It’s nothing worth reporting about, except maybe about the fact that it was a sharp reminder that people share only the positive things that are happening on social media. Many of my friends, people who had been begging to see me, were suddenly absent when I arrived, and that’s when I heard the truth about their situations.

I am not the only one who has had a difficult time.

The meat of the trip, which was of course Palm Springs, was, for the most part, stable and fun, as I predicted. Pride was fun, beautiful and full of life. I will say this, Palm Springs Pride is both the most family-friendly Pride event I’ve ever been to, as well as the raunchiest gay event I’ve ever been to. Seriously, there were things there I didn’t even see at Folsom Street Faire or Dore Alley.... and they were co-existing with the family-friendly stuff. It was truly a sight to behold.

Yes, I had sex there.... perhaps too much. I had sex with 13 people and came 4 times in around 2 hours. And that was just the first day. Told you, raunchy.

But that was beside the point, I kept running into people I knew, and people I’d wanted to know. And it was, well, a letdown. I’ve made huge mistakes in my relationships with people, and I see the limitations and restrictions I’ve put on these relationships by being so guarded and lost.

On my second-to-last night, when I got really sick and spent $150 to Uber back to Los Angeles so I could stay with a friend and recover, I realized that this isn’t the solution it’s intended to be. I retold the story of the last three years to people, but all it did was feel like a summation and not a culmination.

When I finally left to head back to Northern California, I felt like that moment in the Odyssey where Odysseus says good-bye to Nausicaa… you see, she is presented as somewhat of a love-interest in the story, but in the end, he leaves her behind, blessing her and feeling blessed, but not loving and not loved. I feel blessed by all of those wonderful people in Southern California, my friends, but because I chose to leave, I can’t go back and pretend that nothing has changed because things HAVE changed. I have changed. They have changed. Our circumstances have changed.

So I don’t think I will be moving back to Los Angeles. That’s not my place.