On Shenanigans, Kisses and My Confessions from the Dance Floor

I was just kissed by a lesbian.

I’m not sure why it happened. I’m not sure how it happened. And judging by the way she keeps dancing next to me, I am not sure it won’t happen again.

My friend and I walked over here to Roscoe’s after our first choice of watering hole proved to be quite unsatisfying. We skipped over the line for drinks, made a brief stop at the restrooms and then headed directly for the dance floor. We’re here to get our groove on.

As soon as my hips found the rhythm and my feet found the beat, things started to turn strange. Near us a group of gay guys are dancing in a little circle making that “woot woot” sound you might remember from the 1990s. When they first started with the auditory shenanigans, I turned to give them the stink eye when I saw someone I know.

“I just saw someone I know,” I hissed into my friend’s ear.

“Who?” I could tell by the tone of his voice he was hoping for a juicy story.

“I don’t know.” I was a little panicky. “It’s either my ex or the guy who looks just like my ex that I went out to lunch with a few months ago. I can’t tell.”

And I couldn’t. I really couldn’t. Even after my first lesbian kiss, I still can’t tell if the guy who keeps making that annoyingly outdated noise is a man I should ignore at all costs or a man I’d really like to talk to.

After the shock of the sighting began to fade, I let myself be swept away by the music. It wasn’t hard. The DJ just finished playing a mix of Let’s Hear It for the Boy, for Pete’s sake. Are you kidding me? I’m in gay heaven.

Somewhere around the time Deneice Williams was telling the crowded dance floor that her “baby may not be rich,” something other than the music swept me away. A rather large woman whose hair looked like it would have been all the rage in the year Let’s Hear It for the Boy was first released took a liking to me. She grabbed me by the shoulders, turned me in her direction and proceeded to lip synch the song to me. Being a good sport, I went with the flow and mouthed the words back at her.

Now I am thinking she may have been a drag queen. I couldn’t tell. I really couldn’t. Even after my first lesbian kiss, I still can’t tell if the woman who dragged me into her dancing fantasy is really a woman.

It was around the time I was first pondering this question, that I felt another pair of hands on my shoulders. I turned, expecting to see the possible drag queen. Instead, a small woman was dancing in front of me. I had seen her dancing with another small woman earlier. I have very little doubt that they are lesbians. I can tell some things.

The lesbian smiled at me and I smiled back. She then reached up and put her hands on my face. Then she pulled me toward her and kissed me right smack dab on the lips.

I was just kissed by a lesbian.

I’m not sure why it happened. I’m not sure how it happened. And judging by the way she keeps dancing next to me, I am not sure it won’t happen again.

And I’m still dancing. It seems like the right thing to do. I don’t want the lesbian to think she scared me. I don’t want the possible drag queen to think she scared me. And I certainly don’t want the man who may or may not be my ex to think he scared me.

So I’m still dancing. And I’m thinking I should go talk to the guy who probably isn’t my ex. Or I should try and get my friend to dance closer to that beefy guy. He likes beefy guys. But the DJ just threw a Christina Aguilera mix on. So I’ll just keep dancing for now.

When I’m dancing to a good mix on a hot dance floor on a Saturday night, all else can wait.

On Poker, Marines and Stripping the Military Hunks of Their Money and Their Dignity

Long before televised Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments made poker all the rage in every frat house from Seattle to Charleston and back again, I was dealing out hands of Follow the Queens and Black Mariah in my parents’ living room. Poker has been the game of choice in my family for years, and I was practicing my poker face long before I took the training wheels off my first bike.

I love a good game of poker. Unfortunately, I don’t often get to play. When I am not visiting my family in California, a good old-fashioned game of five card draw is hard to find.

The last time I can remember getting really down and dirty at a poker table that was not surrounded by my relatives was a summer night back in college. My roommate was dating this girl who had a roommate that was engaged to this extremely sexy Marine.

She was a lucky little minx, but that story is for another post.

One night my roommate’s girlfriend called to see if I would be up for a game of poker. Seemed the sexy Marine was having a few of his military buddies over for a game, and they were short a guy. She knew I was a card shark and suggested they invite me. Being manly men in uniform, they were all too anxious to have a gay guy fill in. I think they figured I was easy money.

They were dead wrong.

I cleaned up at that table. By the time the night was over, I had taken the money and the dignity of four of the hottest Marines to ever enlist. One hunk was particularly bothered by my kicking his military butt all over the poker table. He kept claiming I was just getting lucky. All I could do was laugh. Someone who was taught to play poker by his grandmother at the age of five doesn’t need luck. He’s got skill enough to take on any Marine any time.

And next time he knows to insist on a game of strip poker.

On Friends, Users and The Hypocrisy of My MySpace Page

I have been called many things in my day. Some were good. Some were bad. All of them, I suppose, were true in their own way and in their own time.

The devil.
Romantic.
Fat.
Sexy.
Ugly.
Creative.
A whore.
Selfless.
Selfish.
Funny.
Manipulative.

One thing I can not immediately recall ever having been called is a hypocrite, however. I’m sure it’s a term that has been slung my way on occasion, but none of those occasions come to mind. And yet that may be the one word that describes me best right now. I am a major hypocrite, my friends. And I am ready to come clean.

In December of last year I wrote a post in which I made a stand against MySpace. I claimed I would never become a user of MySpace and went on to give reasons for my firm resistance. I even went so far as to call the whole MySpace phenomenon “low brow.”

You know where this is going, don’t you?

I have a MySpace page. I had the page back in December, as I explained in that earlier post. At the time, however, that page was merely a blank profile with my name attached to it. It was never used. I had no friends. It was essentially nonexistent.

That has changed.

I now have friends. I now have photos. I even gave the page some color and added a song. I’m totally a MySpace user. If you don’t believe me, feel free to take a gander at my lovely MySpace page.

I am totally a hypocrite.

So what changed? Why did I decide to embrace my inner low brow internet user and dive into the deep end of the MySpace pool?

I blame it all on peer pressure. First there was the coworker who insisted I add her as a friend. Once I did that, it seemed silly not have anything on my page so I flushed it out a little bit. In doing so, I added my educational information. That’s when people started to find me. Before I knew what was happening, I was getting friend requests and posting comments and checking the stupid thing daily.

And here I am today – a full-fledge MySpace user. And a full-fledged hypocrite.

But at least I am coming clean. That has to count for something, right? It’s not like I am hiding my addiction any longer. I’m owning up to it. I’m letting the world know that I am a MySpace user and I am okay with making my splash in the MySpace pool. I want the world to know so I no longer have to hide in the MySpace shadows.

And I want the world to know so I can add a few more friends to my profile by the weekend.

On College, Books and The Modern Library’s List of the 100 Best Novels

When I started my college career in the late summer of 1997, I was all set to work hard for four years and walk away with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. After one semester learning journalistic theory and having my papers torn to shreds, I realized that I was not cut out for the path that lie before me. I was not a journalist.

I loved the written word, however, and was not about to give that up. After speaking to my advisor, I decided I was better suited to a four-year stint as a terminally unemployable English major.

As it turns out, that was exactly what I was meant to be. Reading and writing and exploring the written word were my passions. Thoughts of a career had driven me toward journalism, but passion had drawn me toward the study of literature.

In the early summer of 2001, I completed my four years in college with a bachelor’s degree in English under my belt.

Since those days, I have continued my passion for reading. It is rare that I am not currently plugging away at one book or another. The one difference, however, is that these days my reading material is far less literary or scholarly then it was back in my college days. I’m quick to pick up a good thriller, but don’t often finding myself reading anything on the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best novels.

Until today, that is.

I’ve decided that I am going to tackle the books that make up the Modern Library’s list (as soon as I finish the mystery novel I picked up yesterday). There is the list of the 100 best novels as chosen by the Modern Library. There is the list of 100 best novels as chosen by a reader poll. And lastly, there is the list of 100 best novels as chosen by the Radcliffe Publishing Course. Consolidate the lists, and you get the 209 best novels of all time.

That is a lot of reading.

Luckily, I have a jumpstart. I’ve already read 28 of the 209 novels on the list. Sadly, it is a lousy jumpstart, especially for someone who studied literature in college. Can you believe I’ve never read The Catcher in the Rye?

But I soon will. In fact, it may be the book with which I inaugurate my literary journey.

And what a journey it will be. I am prepared to read some wonderful works. I am also prepared to read some overly verbose prose that only the truly insane can enjoy. And I am prepared to take a break from time to time to enjoy a good cheesy thriller.

I can’t be a literary genius all the time.

On Knowing, Thinking and Filling in the Timeline

Here is what I know.

Last night at 11:18, two people entered my apartment building. They noisily stumbled up the stairs as if they had just gotten in from a drunken night at one of the many bars in the city. They banged against walls. They tripped on stairs. There was a lot of laughter and the kind of loud whispering only drunk people can produce. The couple made it to the floor above mine before disappearing into an apartment. From their voices, I can only assume the couple consisted of two men.

Another person entered the building at 11:34. From the sound of the footsteps on the stairs, I was able to ascertain that this guest was a woman. She walked up to the floor above mine and knocked on the door through which the drunken couple had entered earlier. She called for the inhabitants to open the door and continued to knock for a few minutes before giving up. As she left the building, I could hear her crying. She was clearly very unhappy.

The woman was back by 12:06. This time she had company with her. The two of them walked up to the apartment on the floor above mine, and there was a loud pounding sound. The woman’s guest was not messing around. “It’s the police! Open this door!” That got the inhabitants’ attention. The door was opened and there was a muffled conversation I could not quite hear. After a few moments, the door was slammed shut. The cop and the woman left the building, the woman sobbing loudly and muttering something about love.

Here is what I think.

The man who lives on the floor above mine got off the phone with his girlfriend at 6:32 after telling her he wasn’t feeling well enough to meet her for dinner. He slipped on his shoes and headed out the door. Upon leaving the building, he did not notice the woman sitting in the car across the street. Had he noticed her, things would have turned out very differently.

The man found himself at Sidetrack at 7:07, just in time to enjoy a few hours of show tunes with the gayest of the gay men in Chicago. He settled himself at the bar and quietly sang along to some number from Moulin Rouge. He sipped at his Kettle One Krush, breathing a sigh of relief. He was finally where he belonged.

He was getting ready to leave at 9:12. The show tunes had ended, and the crowd was thinning. As he got up from his place at the bar, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see the most handsome man he had ever laid eyes on.

They burst out of the train at 11:14. They clung to each other, laughing at their own drunken state. They noisily wandered toward the apartment building, passing the woman sitting in the car across the street. As they disappeared into the building, she began to cry.

The sound of the knocking finally registered at 11:36. He pulled himself away from the man he had met at the bar and moved for the door. He stopped before he could get there, however. He knew it was her. He knew she had somehow found out his secret and had come to confront him. He looked from the door to the man who was sitting shirtless on his couch and decided to deal with her the next day.

She decided to call the police at 11:47. She knew it was wrong, but she just had to get inside his apartment in order to stop him from making a huge mistake. She knew he loved her. She just needed to see him in order to remind him of his feelings. She told the woman on the other end of the phone that she had gotten into a fight with her boyfriend and he had locked her out of their shared apartment. The operator did not question her story and promised to send an officer over soon.

He flung the door open at 12:07. She was standing there with an aging police officer. She threw herself at him and he gently pushed her away. After the officer explained the nature of his visit, the man who lives on the floor above mine calmly explained that the woman did not live in the apartment. Furthermore, they were no longer dating. The officer moved to ask the woman if this was true, and she merely crumpled against the wall and began to cry. The officer apologized for the intrusion and the man closed the door.

The woman left the building at 12:12, knowing she would never return. Her sobs were painful, but not nearly as painful as her broken heart.

Perry Mason has nothing on me.