THE TWINKIE Or, New York is the Gayest Place on Earth!!!!! Yippee!!!!!

Forgive the pop culture reference, but remember that scene in Ghostbusters where Dan Ackroyd and company are in jail and they start talking about the Twinkie? If one regular-sized Twinkie represents the normal amount of paranormal activity in New York City, says one of them, then the Twinkie representing their current situation would be, well, a really, really big one.

Standing on Fifth Avenue this afternoon, this scene came back to me full force. Someone tossed me a Twinkie! Perhaps a little too much under the influence of Entertainment Weekly, I thought to myself, "If this represents the average amount of queer energy in America, then a Twinkie representing the energy of Manhattan would be bigger than this whole island!"

But I'm getting ahead of myself. To begin with, I wasn't just standing there on the street by myself. It wasn't as though some random person walked by on the sidewalk decided to give me a present. No, in this case, I was pretty much asking for it, attending the city's great, huge, absolutely queer and fabulous Pride March. I was on the sidewalk, and the Twinkie came from one of the marchers advertising a club theme night called -- appropriately -- Cream.

I was hungry, so I gobbled up that Twinkie while the Cream float was still in sight. Since arriving in New York, it's been that way with most queer things for me: I see it, get my fill, and go look for more.

Not that it's awfully hard. Watching the rollerbladers in Central Park one day, I noticed one awfully handsome man performing some very graceful ballet moves. Within five minutes he was kissing his boyfriend and they were walking hand in hand. Over in the West Village, I spotted a lovely African-American lesbian couple on their way to Washington Square. Checking my bags at the Strand bookstore, I came face to face with an insanely beautiful black queen named -- get this -- Kyss.

But these are just a few of the more obvious examples I could come up with. If I listed them all, I'd fill up this whole magazine. This, I think, has been the central lesson of living in New York thus far: this is the queerest place on the face of the earth! I've lived near Northampton, spent a lot of time in Boston, and even visited Provincetown, and I've never, ever seen or felt anything like this city. At night I pass by one glittering cafe after another, each one of them filled with hordes of people I just know are -- and this is the comforting part -- queer like me, like so many people, but so abundant and proud it's just amazing, stupendous, fantastic.

Oh, here I am acting like a little kid again, totally in awe of those amazing New York faggots, dykes, queers, and drag queens. I haven't felt this way since my freshman year of college, for crying out loud! Back then I was freshly arrived from the super-snotty town of Andover, Massachusetts, and found myself face-to-face with one of the most queer-friendly universities in this country.

Within six months I was living in an all-queer dorm, was a member of the Lesbian Bisexual Gay Alliance, and was a regular at all the queer events on campus. By the end of the year, I had marched in Northampton's pride march and written an article for my college paper about a local visit by gay journalist Michelangelo Signorile. I had also come out to my parents.

Things got even queerer the year after that. I got a job as the paper's gay, lesbian, bisexual issues editor. I freelanced for the "1 in 10" section of the Boston Phoenix and interned for them in the summer. I got a really bad sunburn at the pride parade in Boston. That fall I joined the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and attended their convention in Washington, D.C.

To get back to the Twinkie, however, I should say that this past semester at school, I had withdrawn somewhat from my regular queer pursuits. I left my position at the paper and moved out of the all-queer dorm floor. I didn't go to nearly as many meetings or events and skipped the pride march altogether. I was over all that, I told myself. I'd grown up and didn't need anybody's support anymore. It wasn't a big deal.

And then I came here. What a loop that threw me for! I had be so wrapped up in being autonomous that I had completely forgotten New York's reputation. Maybe I just didn't believe it. But there I was, living in a dorm in the East Village and feeling like Sunday afternoon walk was a pride march. At times I became absolutely giddy, smiling and laughing like I was at some kind of amusement park. I had no idea it would be like this!

The scene at Entertainment Weekly was nothing to sneeze at either. My office could easily have sponsored a float in the pride march! Among the men, the ratio of gay to straight must be around 2 to 1. One of the design editors has female mannequins in his office! Another one has Barbie dolls. Passing by a group of guys huddled around a photo spread, I heard one of them exclaim, "Oh, he's so hot!" I mean, I'm not a kid when it comes to stuff like that -- on the contrary, I feel right at home -- but still, I was taken by surprise.

At the same time , I was discovering that being in a place this queer has its downside. Coming home to my suite at NYU, I felt like I used to feel back home with my parents: closeted. There were so many things I wanted to tell my new friends (three of them ASME interns themselves) -- things I'd seen on the street, things I'd done at UMass, things I'd overheard at work. Not knowing how they would react, however, I kept my mouth shut. How would be roommate feel if she knew I was bisexual? Would she be afraid to get undressed in front of me? I wanted to be myself, but I didn't want to suffer any negative consequences.

Eventually the truth came, however. Talk to people late at night on a regular basis and you can't help giving away personal information. Especially when the people you're talking to are nice and open-minded and seem like they really want to get to know you. So I told them about my work and my life at school and things I saw on the street and, heck, even my plans for the pride march.

As it turns out, I didn't have to really press myself too hard to get them to accept me. As I stuffed my Twinkie into my mouth this afternoon, there were four ASME interns right there with me, enjoying the show, drag queens, dykes on bikes, go-go boys, leather men, and all.