Say the words San Jose and vision of tech firms or (if you go way back) apricot orchards spring to mind; but this sprawling Silicon Valley nexus — a bigger city than San Francisco, in fact — boasts its own thriving literary and LGBT scene… and both of these converged this past Wednesday night at Crema Coffee to hear me speak.

Heading down there was something of an emotionally-resonant first: I hadn’t set foot on a commuter-rail Caltrain in over 14 months, when I was working at a gig in Menlo Park immediately after my return from the great world trip. Back then I would use the commute time productively — I sat with my little netbook, the same one I’d used on my travels, and began putting together the morass of blogs and journal entries into the beginnings of what would become Wander the Rainbow. Now here I was headed, books in hand, to speak about it — full circle indeed!

Since this was a 20somethings biweekly coffee klatch that met under the auspices of the Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center, it was arguably the youngest set of people to whom I’d spoken; were the vagaries of fancy-ass flashpacking and liver donations to long-term boyfriends going to resonate with this crowd? The answer was an unqualified “yes.” Like many gays (myself included) these folks expressed a familiar reluctance to travel the world “roughing it” style — and were most curious to know about the “third way” I’d discovered between the low-rent and the five star. They were equally fascinated with the dynamics of a relationship that involved an organ donation — and the wrenching aftermath of a breakup that led to me striking out across the globe.

I also tried out a couple of new things those of you coming to future engagements will notice: I still read three excerpts from the book — but for the third excerpt, I give audience members a choice of options. To find out what they are… come to one of our upcoming events!

I also wore one of the new Wander the Rainbow T-shirts, one of which we’ll be giving away as part of our “trivia contest giveaway” at bookstore events next month. For those of you planning to attend an event, here’s the questionnaire to fill out and bring with you for a chance to win this and other prizes.

All in all, a great evening — thanks to Josh Weston, Joe Calderon, and all the folks at Crema Coffee and the Billy DeFrank Center for making it happen. Next stops: Berkeley, Boston, Toronto, and beyond!

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