Dunseith, Freddy Mercury, and Death

7-24-05
1:16 p.m.

Dunseith, ND, is pretty much nothing. It has charms, though. We stopped at a truck stop for a restroom break and lunch. The bathrooms were surprisingly good-smelling and had automatic paper towel dispensers that you waved at, and they spit out just the right amount of paper towel. However, the women’s restroom had two toilets, but no stalls; how bizarre. We’re fifteen miles from the Peace Garden. For lunch I had French fries with VINEGAR! Complete YUM! I about died of ecstasy. My BnL gave way to the Killers, who gave way to Queen.
There’s water all over the place here, just standing and being unbelievably blue. Cattails grow in the shoulders on the sides of the road. Birds play in roadside ponds. The water really is beautiful.
There’s something about Freddy Mercury that makes me smile. Maybe it’s the fact that he sang so well, or that he had the courage to be so rampant about his sexuality. I love Queen in a big way, but it’s times like this, when I think about people like Freddy Mercury, that I wonder if anyone loved him enough to be with him when he died. Following that I start to contemplate my own death. I think just now that I want to be buried in North Dakota, just because we passed a cemetery that was ever so pretty.
Thinking about Freddy Mercury also puts me in mind of homosexuality in general. Two kids tease each other, calling each other “poop-brain”, “diaper-head”, and “gay”. It hurts. I might not be completely gay, but the only reason for this is because I’m attracted to personalities, not looks, so it holds nothing with me what set of parts you have in your pants. But it rankles with me still because of my gay friends. It also rankles with me when you get girls who are all like, “Hey, guys! Omigod! Guess what? We’re lesbians! Isn’t that hot?” Followed by mad giggling. It’s not, though, or it shouldn’t be. Because a real lesbian would ignore guys, at least sexually.
We’re half a mile from camp.