It is a happy accident that I landed in Bloomington, Indiana, the day before the Fourth of July.

I woke early this morning—5am—made some phone calls, ate breakfast at the Bloomington Waffle House (They have had the same morning wait staff for at least the last 10 years), and then wandered around downtown.

Downtown was rather festive, even though I was early—the band wasn’t scheduled to start playing until 9, and I was there by 8:15. After poking around a bit, I donated some money and ate some purple pancakes to support the PanCAN. It was about then that the skies which had been drizzling rain, started getting more serious about it.

Fortunately I remembered seeing an umbrella in the car, so I went back to the car, grabbed it, and protected myself. It was a wise move because as the parade started at 10, the skies opened up and there was substantial rain for the next hour, which coincided almost perfectly with the length of the parade.

As Bloomington Fourth of July parades go, this one was a shorter, impacted by the weather, but quite nice. A sampling of photos are below and be sure you read my comments about the last photo.

The most tasteless float I’ve ever seen in any parade:
A Christian Church’s tribute to 9/11.
Had a Muslim group put together such a float, they would have been booed.
Unfortunately I had the feeling that I was the only person watching
who had a negative reaction to the float.

I’ve stopped in Augsburg, Germany, for a Big Event, which I will not describe beyond saying it’s a work related Big Event.

Tomorrow I leave this beautiful city for HoosierLand with 25€ of chocolate in my suitcase, a Turkey T-Shirt, and dirty laundry. Don’t worry, everything is separated.

After my overnight bus ride from Beach City, Turkey, to Istanbul, I had six hour before my flight—3 if you discount the time it takes to get to the airport plus checking in with an excessive, but comfortable, margin of error for a new-to-me city.

With that time I decided to visit the Cemberlitas Hamami and get cleaned up: sitting on a bus for nine hours is dirty work, especially when the bus company puts two larger males next to each other—I would have preferred the thin fem looking Turk, but I got what I got.

The plan was simple: get a shave, get a bath, and get lunch before heading to the airport.

I dropped my suitcase at the bed and breakfast where I’d previously stayed—the host was kind enough to let me keep my key so I wouldn’t have to disturb him when I got back to Istanbul, and then headed onto the streets.

Unlike the States, Istanbul has lots of barber shops. In the first five minutes of walking, I counted three, and I went into the third, where I suddenly felt like I was the oldest customer they’d had in a long time—a neat trick considering I’m not that old. It also had a quasi-gay feel about it, but that’s not a feeling I trust given the cultural signaling.

I mimed that I wanted a shave, and that’s what a I got—a professional-ish shave, complete with a shaving brush and straight razor. It was nice having somebody else do it, save for the fact that it wasn’t actually that good a shave. I do better by myself with a mirror or whist taking a hot shower. Cost: 6 lira, or 3,05€.

After that I hopped onto a tram and went to the Cemberlitas Hamami, a traditional Turkish bath built in 1584 and located next to the Grand Bazaar. Because I had the luxury of time (but not that much) and an excessive number of Turkish Lira, I went for the biggest package, which not only included a professional washing me, but a 30 minute oil massage.

The bath is a wonderful experience. I spent 15 or 20 minutes lying on the big heated stone under a gigantic dome sweating and doing nothing—it was like lying on the beach in Portugal, except I didn’t need sun screen and at the conclusion of it, some guy was going to come along and scrub away the dirt. Which is what happened: after not doing a thing for awhile, a guy came to scrub me from head to toe, skipping the very middle.

It was wonderfully relaxing and soapy. I actually felt like I was going to slip off of the heated stone pedestal. Once he was done, and this included washing my hair, I was escorted to the massage room, where I was given a lovely massage. Seriously this is something I almost never do, and I regret not doing it. The guy massaged everything and by the end of it, I was putty.

Finally I was washed off again and took a quick shower where I could wash the more private parts. Total cost: 79 Lira, or 40,19€. It was a rather decadent way to spend my morning, and well worth it. When I left the Hamami, I felt perfectly clean: I’d brought clean underwear and a shirt to make sure I felt that way.

From there I headed to the Grand Bazaar where I found a restaurant, where I had an early lunch—so early I suspect I was the first customer of the day.

Once I was done eating, I had a leisurely stroll back to the B&B where I picked up my bags and headed to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

It was the perfect close to my time in Turkey.

B&B Note: Given that homosexuality is legal in Turkey, but not widely accepted, I’m not going to say a lot about the B&B where I stayed, except that it was very gay and very nice. It’s definitely a place for gay bears and the owner is very helpful and wonderful. If you’re going to Istanbul and are interested in knowing where I stayed, please drop me a line.

I am in Germany, back from Beach City, Turkey, where it was boiling hot, until about four hours before I left. Doh!

Make no mistake: the wedding was fantastic. I have no complaints about the wedding. It was a beautiful affair with the mayor administering the rites quickly after the starters and before the main course.

Turkish culture dominated the wedding with a few nods to the groom’s Swedish background—a cake brought from Sweden on the table, plus a few traditions adapted from Swedish culture injected into the wedding by the groom’s family and friends.

Despite the uniting of Swedish-Turkish culture by the marriage, though, the families stayed separated by origin in seating, and despite the fact that I know the bride, I sat with the Swedes because they spoke English and the Turks did not—the linguistic barrier is formidable since Turkish has a fundamentally different structure to its language and I am a linguistic idiot. It helped that the groom had invited a friend from France who understood a few words of Swedish, so we were able to affect the language spoken at our table.

The worst part of the trip, as far as I was concerned, was the heat.

Fundamentally speaking, I am not built for heat, so when I saw a digital thermometer reading 40 halfway from Istanbul to Beach City, I was concerned. 40°C, for those who don’t know these conversions off hand, is a mere 104°F. It was probably 35/95 every day that I was in Beach City, and I melted.

Fortunately the hotel room was air conditioned (but one had to divide the key into two in order to keep the power turned on in the room, otherwise the air conditioning would have to start anew with each return to the room), and I didn’t do much in town. I can say that I’ve put my feet in the Aegean Sea, seen Lesbos from afar, and explored the offerings of Beach City, but I felt somewhat like a crotchety American tourist, constantly complaining about the heat.

I learned several things about myself that I hadn’t recognized from before, or if I had, they hadn’t really sunk in.

First, I hate heat. I know from past experience that Madrid in July is a mistake. I should probably never go any place where nighttime lows are higher than daytime highs in Britain.

Second, I think beach resort towns are fundamentally boring. I much prefer going to real cities or to the mountains, despite the fact that I love the beach in Lisbon. There were 10 kilometers of beach at Beach City, and a thousand little booths selling magnets, rugs, greasy food, and more. These, for me, are interesting the first ten minutes. The next ten hours are awful.

Thirdly, I should never go on a cruise. I took an all day boat turn of the area with the wedding party, and when the boat was in motion and we were looking at passing landscapes, it was great. When the boat dropped anchor and people went swimming, I was bored. I suspect my interest in riding on boats maxes out at about 3 hours. After that I want to jump ship with the anchor attached to my foot.

Fourthly, I like fish, but not fish heads. The main course at the wedding was a lovely fish, with its head attached. I quickly and efficiently removed its head and after putting it another plate, covered the head. After that I was fine. On the boat, we had fish for lunch, and I spied a head, and another, and another. These were small fish (perhaps sardines) and I felt physically ill at the sight.

Fifthly, I hate touts and shadows. Walking down the beach front road in Beach City, I passed a lot of touts trying to get me to eat in their restaurants. These people annoy the hell out of me, and actually turn me off—I ended up picking restaurants where there were no touts. On the same level, I detested the helpful shop keepers who would stand directly behind me as I wandered their shops. Leave me the fuck alone—when I need help, I’ll ask for it. Most of the places I’ve gone, shop employees understand this from my body language or a quick sentence—in Turkey they are impervious and I end up leaving the shop without having bought a thing.

Before I forget, I want to thank IUMike for his contributions to the blog—I hope he feels like continuing his contributions whenever the mood strikes him, as it’s nice to have a second voice on the blog.

Friday was National HIV Testing Day. I got a jump start on the occasion actually...I took the test the week before last and got the results back on Wednesday.

The testing process is unpleasant enough that I can understand why many people don't take it. I don't mean that the process is physically unpleasant...the test itself is a simple oral swab usually. But before taking the test, one usually completes a questionnaire and then has an interview with a test center worker about one's sexual history since last testing. I understand that the need for the information, both for epidemiological analysis and to provide good counseling, but the process is a lot what I imagine confession is like for Catholics. I always end up reliving the guilt from the times I've strayed from strict adherence to the condom code since I last tested.

That's not the hard part though (and to be truthful, the test center counselors do their best to be as matter of fact as possible). The hard part is waiting for the results. Let me say first that I've not had a particular reason to be worried over the results: I generally play safe and am not particularly promiscuous. Even so, I find things to worry about over the week between taking the test and getting the results. I find that I dwell on the encounters that were not 100% safe, wonder about the risk of oral transmission, and so on. I begin to interpret minor illnesses as signs of impending doom. None of this is rational, but I do it anyway.

By Tuesday then, the day I was to get the results, I was pretty much frazzled, and was relieved when it was time to get the results. So I go to the testing center and...

No results. The lab somehow had not processed the samples from the previous week. Can I come back tomorrow to get the results?

I was pretty much a wreck then all evening Tuesday and all day Wednesday, even getting downright paranoid. But I also had some time to think more carefully about what it was that I feared from the results. Suprisingly for me, as I analyzed my thinking more carefully, it wasn't the virus itself that I was worried about, or about getting sick. What I feared was becoming a social outcast.

Most gay men have the experience of being social outcasts, to at least some degree. It goes with the territory. But gay men who are positive experience that sort of social rejection again, this time from among other gay men. Once one is positive, one's range of dating, sexual and social opportunities becomes much more limited. My inner economist would put it this way: one's "value" in the gay male sexual community drops significantly when finding out one is poz. (Incidentally, I suspect from what I have observed that this same sort of sexual devaluation happens on the basis of race within the gay community).

I don't really have a solution to this problem, but it does point to an important reason why many gay men don't get tested for HIV: plausible deniability. If one does not get tested for HIV, then one can go on belieiving (and telling others) they are HIV negative. In my boudoir, some men will ask my HIV status (or if I am "clean"), but no one has ever asked when I was last tested, or if I've had unsafe sex since last testing. Thus, so long as one never tests, one never has to face the possibility of telling a partner that they are (or may be) positive.

There's bound to be an academic paper somewhere in here...I just haven't found it yet!

One of the main indicators of the success of gays and lesbians in organizing and in social acceptance has been the growth in the number of cities with gay pride celebrations in June. Gay pride festivals have been around for decades in most every large American city (Chicago is celebrating its 39th this year). But community organizations in many smaller cities now organize pride festivals as well, including Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and Lansing here in Michigan.

This weekend was Michigan Pride in Lansing, and so I did my best to live up to the occasion. I had a first date on Friday evening with a very charming and handsome commercial designer. I've always felt I lacked a creative edge in my own thinking, and so I admire artistic talent. I have to say I was impressed with some of the work J. showed me for a new restaurant he is designing. We had a fantastic time talking over dinner at a seafood restaurant he likes.

Unfortunately, J.is not likely a long term relationship prospect...he lives about an hour and a half away from me, near Fort Wayne.

The Michigan Pride festival itself was Saturday afternoon. I've gone in years past as well, and have always been surprised at its size for a city of Lansing's size and that Chicago Pride is the same weekend. The festival bills itself as a statewide event, since it focuses on a march and a rally at the state capitol, which may help a bit in bringing in folks from out of town. This year, the festival expanded significantly in size, occupying about twice the space as last year.

Saturday evening I met up with my friend G. to see a movie. We ended up going to see Wall-E, in spite of fears that the movie would be packed with kids. The theatre was actually pretty kid-dense, but we didn't have trouble finding two seats together, and the movie was engaging enough that the kids around us were well-behaved. I really enjoyed how the movie meshed elements from all kinds of other movies and genres...science fiction, silent movies, with a heavy dose of An Inconvenient Truth for good measure.

After the movie, I went out to the local dance club, Spiral. I hadn't been out in over a year, and Pride is pretty much their busiest night of the year. Even so, I had a good time, mostly from running into my ex-bf from last summer. I usually stay on good terms with men I've dated, and so we had a chance to catch up with each other. But in some other ways too, it was also oddly awkward...I still care a lot about him, and I got the impression JF feels much the same way.

To add to that, I spent some more time with JF today. But it is probably best if I save that for another blog post.

I guess all in all then I have a lot to process from this weekend about my relationships with other men. For better or for worse, that is probably as good a way to celebrate Pride as I any I can think of.

Hello all, I am IUMike, or just Mike, and will be guest blogging for Adam as he makes his trek back to Bloomington. I’ve known Adam for 10 years, since we were in graduate school together at Indiana University, but rather than travel the world like our host, I took the more conventional route of entering the professoriate.

So my life is somewhat more like that of Disenchanted Professor, without the Coach and pets but with some gay twists (particularly more gym time!). I just finished my 3rd year as an assistant professor at a large public university in Michigan.

The winters in Michigan are long, and the workload during the academic year is heavy, so I am enjoying the pleasant summers we get…in fact, enjoying it too much, since I have much writing to do in order to keep on track for tenure! I did earn reappointment this year, which means that I keep my job until a tenure decision is made. There are lots of days when I don’t know whether that is a good thing or a bad thing!

I am still having some new experiences as a faculty member, and yesterday was my first opportunity to participate in an interview for a staff position. The position was with the campus gay and lesbian services office, and it was a simple lunch meeting with myself, another faculty member and the director of the GLBT office.

What is odd about the experience is that I was not really sure what kinds of questions to ask the job candidate. Up until the meeting, I had only thought about interviews from the point of view of one being interviewed. As it happened, the conversation flowed very smoothly, and I did pose some questions about some current campus gay and lesbian issues to obtain the candidate’s thoughts on how they might be resolved. I guess for grad students going on the job market, the lesson is that professors just make up interview questions on the fly.

I’m having a great time in Istanbul.

Principally, I’m exhausted. The city begs for walking and exploring, and I’m doing both. It’s got hidden nooks and crannies, shops to explore, touts to ignore.

Today, Wednesday, is my last full day in Istanbul. Tomorrow morning I rise at some unspeakable hour and take the bus to the site of the wedding, which is on Saturday. Round-trip, the bus ride from Istanbul and back, including a sleeper service on the return, is costing me 95YTL, or 50€.

It’s an eight hour bus ride, each direction.

From the descriptions, it sounds like my time on the bus will be more enjoyable than an domestic first class journey on a plane in the States—and I’m taking the less expensive option.

Below is a picture of a room from Topkapı Palace—one that Reko would want installed in every house, and one that CQ would rightly want destroyed. I want it used only in fully informed cases.

It’s hard for me to believe that just a week ago I was in New York City, having meetings, working, and standing in line for pizza. Now I’m in Istanbul, exploring history, eating great food, and seeing beautiful buildings.

I’d rather not start listing everything I’m doing because listing it would be boring, and any attempt I make at describing it would be woefully inadequate. There are some photos on my Flickr account, and I’m adding to my “Istanbul and Turkey ‘08” set as I go.

That said, I’m taking full advantage of Istanbul’s public transit system. I took the Metro from the airport to my B&B, which is about a three minute walk from the Metro. From the B&B I’m mostly taking the tram around the city. It’s a few stops from the B&B to the tourist center of the city, where I’ve spent most of my time.

Istanbul’s tram system is quite popular and crowded.

Suffice it to say that I’ve had sex that was less intimate than my tram riding experiences. Really, I had no choice but to rub my ass up on that guy’s crotch—and that muscular arm right in front of my face: it’s reaching for a pole.

Random Thought: It was hard to tell the difference between Thursday and Friday nights in Berlin last week. Thursday night Germany won; Friday night Turkey won. I suspect that Wednesday night, when Germany and Turkey face off, will be chaotic in Berlin. On the other hand, there will be no doubt in Istanbul.

According to Google’s weather service, it’s only 26° (79F), but it feels a whole hell of a lot warmer to me.

I spent today wandering aimlessly around the city, crossing to Asia, coming back to Europe, and looking at whatever was around me.

There was a lot to digest. It’s not a completely foreign culture to me, but the activity and vibrancy reminds me more of Guadalajara or Yerevan than any place in Europe I’ve been lately. The streets are constantly filled with people, hustling about their business, which often consists of hustling goods that I have no interest in buying.

Meanwhile, in the parks, people were soaking up the shade and having picnics, whilst on the quays young men were swimming.

NYC: Wake up, take shower, go to coffee shop. Drink coffee, work online, eat breakfast.

Berlin: Wake up, take shower, go to coffee shop. Discover it opens at 10.

I have no idea what time B-Cup opens. By 10, I had already had a Café Latte with soy milk and breakfast. I’d even come and gone by that time on at least one day.