Ptown Day

Yesterday Helen and I had a Just Us day down in Provincetown. It’s been a lot of years since I was there on a summer day – I’d forgotten how insanely crowded the joint gets. It’s like Times Square after the shows get out on a Thanksgiving weekend. Yesterday was a rainy and still it was a mega packed house.

What’s that you say? All the folks who would’ve been swimming, sunning and playing on the beach were, instead, in town shopping and gallery hopping. Hey, just like us! Oh, OK.

I do dearly love this town in the off season. Sure, the galleries are all closed but still, there’s a buoyant, creative, happy air. It’s a town where I am NOT the oddest duck on the street – I’m just one of many. Ptown feels like my soul’s hometown.

This week is Bear Week . I’d thought the town’d be crammed with tubby, bearded dudes. Ya know, no eye candy for yurs truly and IT IS ALL ABOUT ME! Right? Nope. Plus, Bearness is way more than that. There were all body types, shaved faces and not, all blithely strolling Commercial Street. This brought tears to my eyes – seeing so many older, gay couples walking hand in hand. The Amazing Bob and I always held hands. For the first zillion years of our euphoric affair, this was affection, the need to be in near constant physical contact. Later, the last ten years mebbe, it was also about helping each other walk without tripping over every and any blasted bit of fluff in our path.

What’s up during Bear Week? There are Tea Dances, Sunset Dune Tours and Clam Bakes, book readings, yesterday was Tacos and Tequila Tuesday, there are karaoke nights, pool parties, a cupcake party (I want to go!), more and more dance parties and pool parties. There’s a Leather and Chrome Night – chrome? I SO want to go to this! On Friday there’ll be a shabbat minyan, followed By a kiddush. It seems the week has it all and is a big ass load of fun.

A lot of the shops and galleries are showing (and selling) bear art this week. The Adam Peck Gallery has Juan Carlos Castañeda’s Bear on a Rope. The Woodman Shimko Gallery is showing, amongst other brill artists, the enthralling Cassandra Complex. Dunno if this counts as Bear Art but each figure, each portrait is blazingly strong, charged – just magnificent.

Oh and Helen and I had the most awesome lunch at Way Downtown. We shared the best calamari that either of us has ever had. She had a shrimp dish and I had an amazing avocado, tomato and goat cheese open face sandwich. WOW! Like most Ptown restaurants, Way Downtown is just open from May through October. Do they have a restaurant somewhere else, only open in winter, or do they take a much deserved rest after six months of nonstop, 7 day work weeks?

I think I’d really like to spend an off season month in Provincetown. Wake each morning to the dunes, stroll Commercial without the oppressive throngs – I’d paint and read and just plain be. I really like this idea. Can I make it so?