The last seven months of my life have by far been the most intense and most humbling of my life. Let's start where we left off though, shall we?
It was a Wednesday, and like any other Wednesday in the summertime in this amazing city we live in, we spent the afternoon picnicking (aka drinking obscene amounts of boxed wine) outside in the grass listening to the orchestra with thousands of other people. It was a relaxing time made even more enjoyable by the knowledge that I didn't have to go to work the next day - I had taken the entire day off in excitement/preparation for closing on my VERY FIRST HOUSE (having moved from college-type apartment to college-type apartment every year for the past ten years). I kept telling people not to discuss it though, as I felt the whole house-buying process had gone too smoothly and something bad could still happen so I didn't want to jinx it. Eventually we ended up at the bar for karaoke night. Well...when you've been drinking since 4pm, it can be a very very crazy night. One friend ended up on the floor of the bathroom stall with a pizza. Another's drunken problems were a little more dramatic though. BFF and the new guy had officially started dating. This didn't sit so well with this guy, who eventually drunkenly sent BFF a series of text messages. When these text messages were ignored though, he turned to the public nature that is Facebook and OUTED HIM ON HIS WALL. The ensuing drama continued until about 3am, when I finally made it home and to the safety of my bed.
Two hours later I was roused from the comfort of my bed by the sound of my phone ringing AND the sound of someone knocking on the door - AT FIVE IN THE MORNING! Groggily looking at my phone and seeing that BFF was who was calling, I made the assumption that he was just being a jerk and deliberately waking me up early. Eventually, I got up and went out to the living room to open the door - the living room that was oddly pitch black. At this point, my thought process wasn't working yet. A voice on the other side of the door told me to get out, so I did. I didn't think to grab anything. I stepped OVER my laptop and my purse. As I walked down the hallway, a burning ceiling tile fell down. I just looked at it confused. They fell down all the time, but this one was glowing...weird. I realized my flip flops were on the wrong feet. When I got outside, rational thought came to me...the building was on fire. Not "somebody burnt chicken" on fire, but "flames shooting from the roof, the whole block full of smoke" on fire..."ON FIRE" on fire..."everything I own is destroyed" on fire.
Then I bought some underwear, got a new ID and closed on my house.
A WHOLE NEW BEGINNING...A FRESH NEW START.
Ok, weird. I started this in October, but didn't post it until the end of JANUARY. And it still posted as October. So when I say 7 months, I mean the end of June.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Just Call Me Sacagawea
Gay men just find me. No, correction, closeted gay men find me. Closeted gay men who know almost nothing about the gay community. They just appear out of nowhere and pop into my life. And, like the incredibly maternal person I seem to be only to unlikely objects of maternal affection, I tend to them. I guide them through the Louisiana Purchase that is the coming out and accepting yourself process. I seriously am beginning to wonder if there is some sort of Fag Hag assignment rotation that I'm just unaware of.
Gaybie is a boy I've been talking to. A boy that just reappeared unexpectedly in my life a few months ago. A boy that, after not speaking for 5 years, I talk to almost daily. A boy that is sweet and nice and cute. A boy that came out to me last weekend. I should have known.
But on a related note, my BFF just came out to his mother. I cannot even begin to tell you how proud I am. He has finally, after 3 long years, reached the Pacific Ocean.
But on a related note, my BFF just came out to his mother. I cannot even begin to tell you how proud I am. He has finally, after 3 long years, reached the Pacific Ocean.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
FruitWeekend of FruitAwesome - Part 2 (Saturday)
The morning of the festival I woke up ridiculously early and headed over to offer my help. A friend had been unable to locate the megaphone he had borrowed from a friend for Pride the weekend before, and they needed it, so I got sent to the store along with an out-of-costume queen to get a new one before the race started, along with a few other small items. I knew exactly where the megaphone had been at his house, so I stopped off and broke into the garage, finding it immediately - exactly where he left it. Unfortunately we still had to go to the store, where thanks to a never-ending stream of texts from those setting up, we had quite the cart full of items. We made it back to the start line just in the nick of time, and then I was driven to the location on the race route where I was to stand, cheering for people and reminding them to turn. As the first runner ran past me, I stood on the corner staring at the map trying to figure out which way to send people. They finished the race, so I suppose I sent them the right direction. Either way, everybody went the same way, which I guess in the long run is really all that matters, right? You haven’t seen a 5K until you’ve seen one with men wearing tutus or women covered in balloons to look like a bunch of grapes though.
The afternoon was an afternoon of frivolity and people watching - drunk people watching. I disappeared for awhile and upon my return was greeted by my boys - all in their underwear and taking turns in the dunk tank. Small children (and ok, adults too) took to just pushing the button instead of throwing balls, but hey, they fell in the water either way. I met some new people, watched people stumble around, and basically just walked around taking it all in. The variety of people at these events is unbelievable. My boss even showed up for the final musical act - an 80s pop sensation who has since sort of fallen off the map, unfortunately.
There is a new guy in our midst. This new guy is the ex of a friend of mine who has a penchant for causing drama. Drama friend has in the past had some history with and continuing mad crushes on both a bartender and my BFF, which has made for some entertaining highlight reels for sure. New guy moved across the country a few years back I guess, and has since returned to the general area. He spent the weekend visiting my drama friend. Fresh meat is always a hit at these events, and he’s nice to look at so he certainly was. Over the course of the day, my BFF and the new guy hit it off quite nicely. But the drama friend didn’t take it so well, and I’m torn between thinking it’s funny and feeling bad.
The afternoon was an afternoon of frivolity and people watching - drunk people watching. I disappeared for awhile and upon my return was greeted by my boys - all in their underwear and taking turns in the dunk tank. Small children (and ok, adults too) took to just pushing the button instead of throwing balls, but hey, they fell in the water either way. I met some new people, watched people stumble around, and basically just walked around taking it all in. The variety of people at these events is unbelievable. My boss even showed up for the final musical act - an 80s pop sensation who has since sort of fallen off the map, unfortunately.
After the show ended, I ran home to shower and check on the dog that I was dog-sitting for the weekend, imploring people to text me if they left so that I’d know not to return. Nobody texted, so I returned an hour later - only to find that most people had, in fact, gone home to sleep. Or, in the case of some, had been sent home. The few who remained told me how they had sent this one guy in a taxi to sleep on the sofa of a friend, despite his desire to go to a different bar. Two hours later, the drunk friend showed back up, extremely intoxicated and explaining how he had just taken a second taxi to the bar, where he met some random people who brought him back to the club. He proceeded to share way too many details of past sexual escapades, and mid-story noticed that he seemed to be wearing only one shoe. After finding his shoe, I suggested that perhaps food was in order. We walked to a local burrito place, where he proceeded to befriend a random lesbian, to the point of pretty much sitting on top of her in the booth. After a few minutes, he challenged another girl to an arm wrestling match, although only after noting that she was hairier than he was and therefore would probably win. (This is a man who shaves his ENTIRE body…fish have more hair than he does.) After about 3 minutes of this arm wrestling match not going anywhere, his food arrived and all thoughts of physical acts of strength were abandoned. After a few minutes of eating, he noticed that he was making quite the mess and asked for a napkin. As I got up to get him one, he grabbed an abandoned quesadilla and used that to wipe his face. Seconds later, he offered the same quesadilla to the drag queen who accompanied us. I’m not sure what I would have done if she accepted.
FruitWeekend of FruitAwesome - Part 1 (Friday)
This weekend was a crazy intense weekend of both awesome and exhaustion. Saturday was an annual all-day music festival thrown by the local gay club where most of my friends work. This year they even added a 5K walk/run before the festival kicked off. The days before it were spent helping them prepare for the ridiculousness. The day after it was spent pretending to help them clean up, but really just relaxing a little in their free AC. But the day of? That was spent people watching. And the only thing better than people watching is drunk people watching.
I volunteered to help out all afternoon Friday after work. So I drove straight to the bar from work, where I then sat around doing absolutely nothing. Eventually we decided to go to the grocery store to get some last minute items. Have you ever gone to the store to get 110 limes, 100 lemons and 20 bottles each of soda water and tonic, along with a whole bunch of really random things, like soy milk? If you haven't, I'll save you the suspense - the cashiers look at you strangely. It was me, a bartender, and one of the drag queens (who was not in drag for this particular outing). The grocery store got a little out of hand. At one point, the bartender and I were arguing, which resulted in the drag queen apologizing to the woman in the aisle with us. When she said she understood, the bartender announced his belief that we should just have sex to solve all our problems. This of course achieved it's desired effect of me blushing like a 12 year old girl. Of course, shortly thereafter, as I was giving the drag queen tips on shaving her legs, I suddenly hear "Hi" quietly from behind me. I turn around to see the only thing that could make this shopping trip more surreal, yup, you guessed it - a coworker! Awkward conversation happened, and then off we went. Back at the bar, I agreed to sit at the packet booth until the end. Only then did I notice another coworker was one of only a few customers at the time. And boy, did he want to talk.
I went to dinner with a college friend in town for one night, one of her high school friends and her co-worker. A seemingly slapdash group, but fun none-the-less. Armed with a name from the original e-mail she sent about this trip, I decided to do a little stalking of her high school friend. Facebook told me we had a number of mutual friends - mostly gay men I know from the bar. I made assumptions that turned out to be spot on. It became pretty apparent pretty quickly that my friend was unaware, which would have been awkward enough. However, he took the opportunity to come out, which was great...but extremely awkward given that he told her in front of two strangers. Somehow we ended up at this dive gay bar (I guess that's what you do after somebody comes out?) and I saw a friend. I regaled him with the tale of how I went to dinner with a stranger who then came out at the dinner table, only to be met with a reply of "uhhh, yeah...I actually know that guy. And it'll be awkward. I'm going to go". I still haven't heard the full story. This now-openly-gay guy then joined me at the club later in the evening, where I spent my night alternately dancing and texting a cute boy I've been talking to. I explained to this boy about the events of the evening. Somehow this turned into us discussing how badly our lives needed to be sorted out. I pointed out that at least he doesn't have to worry about coming out of the closet. A text which was met with the loudest silence I've ever heard. Eventually I received confirmation that, in fact, he does need to worry about coming out of the closet. There's a first for everything I guess, but never before had I had a bit of a crush on a man who turned out to be gay (that I know of). So that was...interesting. After that, I just went home to sleep. Oddly, I'm now sort of helping him with the situation and setting up meetings with some of my friends to discuss their coming out.
How did I write this much so far about the festival weekend BEFORE the festival even started?!
I volunteered to help out all afternoon Friday after work. So I drove straight to the bar from work, where I then sat around doing absolutely nothing. Eventually we decided to go to the grocery store to get some last minute items. Have you ever gone to the store to get 110 limes, 100 lemons and 20 bottles each of soda water and tonic, along with a whole bunch of really random things, like soy milk? If you haven't, I'll save you the suspense - the cashiers look at you strangely. It was me, a bartender, and one of the drag queens (who was not in drag for this particular outing). The grocery store got a little out of hand. At one point, the bartender and I were arguing, which resulted in the drag queen apologizing to the woman in the aisle with us. When she said she understood, the bartender announced his belief that we should just have sex to solve all our problems. This of course achieved it's desired effect of me blushing like a 12 year old girl. Of course, shortly thereafter, as I was giving the drag queen tips on shaving her legs, I suddenly hear "Hi" quietly from behind me. I turn around to see the only thing that could make this shopping trip more surreal, yup, you guessed it - a coworker! Awkward conversation happened, and then off we went. Back at the bar, I agreed to sit at the packet booth until the end. Only then did I notice another coworker was one of only a few customers at the time. And boy, did he want to talk.
I went to dinner with a college friend in town for one night, one of her high school friends and her co-worker. A seemingly slapdash group, but fun none-the-less. Armed with a name from the original e-mail she sent about this trip, I decided to do a little stalking of her high school friend. Facebook told me we had a number of mutual friends - mostly gay men I know from the bar. I made assumptions that turned out to be spot on. It became pretty apparent pretty quickly that my friend was unaware, which would have been awkward enough. However, he took the opportunity to come out, which was great...but extremely awkward given that he told her in front of two strangers. Somehow we ended up at this dive gay bar (I guess that's what you do after somebody comes out?) and I saw a friend. I regaled him with the tale of how I went to dinner with a stranger who then came out at the dinner table, only to be met with a reply of "uhhh, yeah...I actually know that guy. And it'll be awkward. I'm going to go". I still haven't heard the full story. This now-openly-gay guy then joined me at the club later in the evening, where I spent my night alternately dancing and texting a cute boy I've been talking to. I explained to this boy about the events of the evening. Somehow this turned into us discussing how badly our lives needed to be sorted out. I pointed out that at least he doesn't have to worry about coming out of the closet. A text which was met with the loudest silence I've ever heard. Eventually I received confirmation that, in fact, he does need to worry about coming out of the closet. There's a first for everything I guess, but never before had I had a bit of a crush on a man who turned out to be gay (that I know of). So that was...interesting. After that, I just went home to sleep. Oddly, I'm now sort of helping him with the situation and setting up meetings with some of my friends to discuss their coming out.
How did I write this much so far about the festival weekend BEFORE the festival even started?!
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
I'm not going to write a book
I am sick of people telling me that I should write a book. My life is not interesting enough to be the subject material for a book. I am not funny enough to write a book. Not even I would read a book about my life, and I've read a LOT of really boring books in my time (or bought the cliffnotes for a lot of really boring books at least). Heck, I'm not even certain my life is interesting enough or I am funny enough for a blog. But there are a lot of people out there with really boring blogs, so I'm hoping my life is at least interesting enough for this.
I'm just a girl. I'm a girl with a lot of friends. A lot of those friends happen to be gay. Ok, fine. I am a straight girl with an overabundance of gay guy friends. Call me a "Fag Hag" or a "Fruit Fly" or any other of the number of names for it. (I've heard "Queer Dear" and "Flame Dame" already. Anybody have any others?) I'm slowly coming to terms with the stereotypical nature of that. It's not that I don't like the titles - they're actually quite clever - but I just can't bring myself to really own it. I'm not a girl who seeks out the company of gay men. It just sort of...happened. A good friend came out of the closet. Then I met his new boyfriend. Then I met his new boyfriend's friends. Then I met his boyfriend's friends' friends. You can see where I'm going with this. It sort of spiraled out of control. But that is an amazing thing. I've reached the age where I only want to spend time with people that I actually enjoy spending time with and who seem to actually enjoy spending time with me. Gone are the college days of spending hours on end with people that I needed to have a buzz just to be around and couldn't trust with my secrets. Somehow, after years of just wandering around from friend group to friend group aimlessly, I accidentally stumbled upon the most amazing community. These people accept people for who they are! Ok, sure, they are also incredibly critical of and gossipy about everybody, but they do accept them. These friends are just like any other group of friends who share something in common and can relate to one another. In our case, it just happens to be men. Oh, and the love of fun.
We do have a lot of fun. Honestly, I've had more fun in the last year of my life than all the years before it. So I guess I'll just be writing about that. I'm not really sure where this is going. Mostly I'm writing this blog so that when people say "wow, you know, you should really write a book about this", I can respond with something other than "ummm....no". Now I can say "well, actually I do have a blog". It'll make me seem important. I'll try to change the names to protect the, well, not-so-innocent, but some of us have nicknames - nicknames that are just too clever and amazing to not be shared. But I'll change real names. Somebody is totally going to be named Bartholomew! That name is so not used often enough. Neither is Myrtle. Oooo, this is going to be fun.
I'm just a girl. I'm a girl with a lot of friends. A lot of those friends happen to be gay. Ok, fine. I am a straight girl with an overabundance of gay guy friends. Call me a "Fag Hag" or a "Fruit Fly" or any other of the number of names for it. (I've heard "Queer Dear" and "Flame Dame" already. Anybody have any others?) I'm slowly coming to terms with the stereotypical nature of that. It's not that I don't like the titles - they're actually quite clever - but I just can't bring myself to really own it. I'm not a girl who seeks out the company of gay men. It just sort of...happened. A good friend came out of the closet. Then I met his new boyfriend. Then I met his new boyfriend's friends. Then I met his boyfriend's friends' friends. You can see where I'm going with this. It sort of spiraled out of control. But that is an amazing thing. I've reached the age where I only want to spend time with people that I actually enjoy spending time with and who seem to actually enjoy spending time with me. Gone are the college days of spending hours on end with people that I needed to have a buzz just to be around and couldn't trust with my secrets. Somehow, after years of just wandering around from friend group to friend group aimlessly, I accidentally stumbled upon the most amazing community. These people accept people for who they are! Ok, sure, they are also incredibly critical of and gossipy about everybody, but they do accept them. These friends are just like any other group of friends who share something in common and can relate to one another. In our case, it just happens to be men. Oh, and the love of fun.
We do have a lot of fun. Honestly, I've had more fun in the last year of my life than all the years before it. So I guess I'll just be writing about that. I'm not really sure where this is going. Mostly I'm writing this blog so that when people say "wow, you know, you should really write a book about this", I can respond with something other than "ummm....no". Now I can say "well, actually I do have a blog". It'll make me seem important. I'll try to change the names to protect the, well, not-so-innocent, but some of us have nicknames - nicknames that are just too clever and amazing to not be shared. But I'll change real names. Somebody is totally going to be named Bartholomew! That name is so not used often enough. Neither is Myrtle. Oooo, this is going to be fun.
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