Twenty-four hours in the Twin Ports

The heir apparent returned to Duluth on Friday, this time incognito with Katie in the passenger seat, whipping out Juice Newton at the appropriate moments and slaking our thirsts with Vruit. It's funny how I've come to appreciate Duluth over these past couple of years (and even more so in the past several weeks). When I was a faggot teenager I couldn't wait to get the hell out of that city and away from everyone I knew. The place was too familiar and I had exhausted its circuits and it had exhausted mine.

There's an oppressive quality to the Northwoods which others may not notice (or may even appreciate)--the lack of perspective. Away from the lake, the trees close in around you. And they're not even very tall trees. Suddenly your sky is limited to a tiny circle and you can only see to the tops of the thirty-foot popple around you. There's no height to the land, no way to get above the trees and see beyond them. At least that's how I've always characterized the place.

All that changes when you hit the moraine that borders Lake Superior; suddenly your tumbling down to the blue. It can take your breath away, like when you crest Thompson Hill on I-35. Duluth is built as though it was caught off guard by the drop in elevation...the city seems to tumble brick tindersticks down to the lake. For a while there I knew it a little too well.

But one man's trash is another man's treasure...we stayed with Katie's cousin and his partner and their friend who all live together in an old farmhouse out in the woods between the highway and the railroad tracks with the lake visible between a line of white pines. Chuck meticulously grooms tiny carnivorous plants and has poisonous frogs for pets, which inhabit beautiful terariums, and within five minutes of meeting me we were bending over tiny pitcher plans and bladderworts.

We decided that it being Friday night we needed to go rip up the Twin Ports, so Jeff and Chuck graciously took us to The Main, which is the most important queer establishment north of the Twin Cities, and often seems to me to be more importantly a political basecamp than a drinking establishment.

Well, we may have walked into a rather quiet Friday night at The Main, with a collection of regulars huddled around the bar for warmth, but we did indeed rip that place up...

photos after the jump!

Katie, being the kind of girl who needs a costume for every occasion, decided decadent cowboy hats and big sunglasses (they can't be too big this season) were to make up the evening's attire.

Katie said I was all Backstreet Boys but I think I was more perverted lumberjack. Here I think I am posing for my Friendster photo.

This is Katie's cousin, Jeff. Notice who he wears less and less clothes as the night progresses.

Here's me and Katie posing with The Professor. No one was fucking off limits to us. We found a box of discarded blue jeans in the entry way and tried them on in the Ladies restroom. We took over the juke box. Drag queens out of drag kissed us and said they loved us.

Rar.

That's Chuck and Katie and Jeff. And see that little face in the background? That queen was fucking awesome, even if she wasn't wearing her makeup (many people do not wear make up in Superior, Wisconsin). Loved Katie's hairy armpits and told her she didn't shave her legs. "I just tell them, 'it's worth the climb.'"

This photo was taken in the ladies room!

Rar. Again, in the ladies room. We were in there because Katie was trying on pants.

So you wanna be my boot boy?

Okay here we're just getting salacious.

These two boys were at The Main for one last evening, as they were moving back to California in a few days; they had been in town for a year with work. We made them dance with us to Dolly Parton's Muleskinner Blues and then they took our photos on the pooltable. Later, at JT's for last call, raunchfest ensued when our party collided with theirs on the dance floor. Nice chaps.

The next day as we enjoyed bagels and coffee, it dawned us that it was a perfect beach day (and there about three of those per year in Duluth). The sun was fierce and the sky was cloudless. So naturally we needed costumes and acoutrements. We stopped at Target and TJ Maxx for beach bags, beach towels, sunglasses and two-pieces.

The wind was steady and the waves were high. Once we got over the shock of the water (if you are a true Duluthian you don't make a face and always, no matter how big of a lie it is, say, "it's actually not that cold!") we spent a couple hours just bouncing among the waves.

Here, Jason models his Tommy H beach towel ($9.99, TJ Maxx), sporty Polo shades ($12.99, TJ Maxx), and cute beach bag backpack ($2.47 on clearance at Target).

...

At about three am that night, I found myself completely naked and barefoot, standing in the woods behind Jeff and Chuck's house. The night was perfectly still and warm. A lightning bug here and there and I could hear the semis on Highway 61 which was always a sort of lullaby to me when I was growing up. The back porchlight switched off on its timer and the woods were sort of wavering green, the color of a luna moth. It was oppressive and closed in on me, yeah, but at that moment it felt like not necessarily a bad thing.

Posted by jason at July 31, 2024 12:28 PM