I feel so lucky

The activity Wednesday evening was attending GayLab’s Mr and Ms HIV Prevention 2007 pageant, and watching Ashley compete!

Here’s an email I posted to the GNO list:

Girls,Ashley was fabulous last night. There were drag queens on stage and then there was our beautiful Ashley. I’m afraid poor Ashley had no chance to win the competition last night because–as you all know–she is 100% girl, and I guess the judges were looking for…something else. Anyway, it was a blast for those of us in the audience. We saw our best friends on stage, we some great performances, we saw amazing diversity. Personally, I loved turning the serendipity of Ashley’s post at 4pm into a fun evening for me as Sonia. I didn’t have plans for the evening; I hadn’t paid much attention to Maxi’s earlier announcement of the event, but when Ashley spilled that she was going to be on stage, I decided on the spot to try to make it to the pageant. An hour later, computers were running slowly at work so I thought my time was better spent getting my ass home. 5:30 I was home and finishing up work over the internet. 6:20 finally before I was done. In the bathroom, shaved face and arm pits. In the bedroom, dressed in festive colors I thought would be nice for attending a beauty pageant. Minimal makeup–shading, blush, a dash of eyeliner. Jewelry and lip gloss tossed in the purse to put on while riding the train. 6:40 out the door. 7:10 on the street at the Arlington T stop, except…they’d moved the stop. WTF? I looked around and wasn’t really quite sure of where I was. Berkeley Street? Which way to Arlington street? I know, the streets are even laid out in a grid there, but male-mode navigation has always served me poorly in Boston. I took a few steps, spotted the Hancock Tower, and then knew which direction to walk. Thank god for female-mode navigation. 7:20, at the pageant, fashionably late. People were just arriving and it would be a bit before the show started. There I was, dressed, at fun event that was about to start! How much fun is that?!! I sat and calmed down from the rush to get there. I tried to finger comb my hair that I hadn’t had time to brush out, realized it was hopeless and that I needed to do the right thing. In the ladies room, in a stall for privacy, off with the wig, brushed it out nicely, replaced it, took a deep breath…now, I was there and dressed. Back in the auditorium, I kept an eye on the stage door until I saw a flash of blonde hair. Yes, and there was Micky. I couldn’t resist going over to say hi. There was time for a few pictures, then it was time for the show to begin. The whole show was great. I really do love watching drag. I really should learn to come better prepared to tip when I come to drag shows! I had just six singles in my billfold. It wasn’t a lot, but I especially loved giving up one of them to my sister Ashley, dancing and lip-syncing for me, for the audience, and for HIV prevention. What a great time and place to be a girl. I feel so lucky. Love, hugs, and kisses, Sonia

After the pageant, I came straight back to Somerville, if not straight home. Yes, I stopped for one drink at Diva. No Alex. Home, I had the best intentions of working on the computer, but ended up just chatting with people and listening to music. At 2am I’d lost all of my chat parters to bed, but was still wide awake. I got up and danced for an hour right there in the living room. (This is all going to sound so silly to me someday, isn’t it?)

Bogus phone number

Tuesday, one guess. Yes, I was back at Diva. I was seriously planning on staying home, and so really wasn’t dressed for the bar. I was dressed in my strange hippie/midwestern/suburban clothes just for sitting around the house. But then was chatting with Deedee and she wanted some information that I could only get by walking to Diva. Life’s rough, hm?! I had two cocktails. Got the information. Didn’t see Alex, but did meet Dennis, an interesting, goth sort of guy. Never mind that my makeup was only like half there and I was wearing crazy clothes, he loved me. Wanted to come home with me. I said no but took his phone number. (Tried calling it yesterday and got the three rising tones and “your call could not be completed as dialed…”)

Now this is an ID I’ve got to see

Monday was work as usual, plus I saw the therapist and made yet more excuses for not doing my homework. After work I fixed dinner, did stuff around the house, moping for lack of money, when a small miracle happened: Alex texted me! I felt like a teenage girl getting her first phone call from a boy. I tried to sound cool. I explained that I had no money. He said to meet him at Diva and he would buy me a beer. He bought me a few beers. There was a fun crowd of regulars there. We closed down Diva and walked over to Burren. Now, Burren is a typical Irish pub, and while I’ve been in there a number of times male mode, this was my first time there as Sonia. The bouncer was checking IDs, mostly going through the motions because he knew most of the people in our group. A couple he waved through with out checking, but one look at me, and he smiled real big and said to the other bouncer, “now this is an ID I’ve got to see.” I gave him deniability if he wanted it, by smiling and saying, “Oh, you’ll like this. I bet you don’t see this too often… It’s a KANSAS license. Go ahead, take a good look.” Loving it, he looked at the card, at me, at the card, at me, and handed it back to me. We were all in. We closed Burren, Alex came home with me for the third time now. Can it possibly mean anything? I’m so intrigued!

Sheila dinner

Sunday I had Sheila over for dinner. I just hadn’t seen her in a while so I called her up and asked her over. I cooked some chicken, Sheila fixed salad, and also brought over some bread and a few other little things she picked up at the grocery store. Dinner turned out nice. Then we sat around and watched a couple of movies on TV.

Play date

Saturday the fun continued. I’d made plans to see Erica. Play included a little BDSM scene. She was good. She liked it. It was fun and easy for her. Most significant though, was that she was finally able to verbalize that she understood my feelings. That while I liked her as a friend and loved playing with her, I probably didn’t have the same feelings for her that she had for me. It was a big relief for me and I felt free to unleash some physical passion. We had a really nice time.

Go after your man!

Wednesday after work, I packed for two nights and met Lynn to drive to New Jersey for Thanksgiving. It was good to see Nancy (Lynn’s mom) and talk with her again. Thanksgiving dinner was at her sister Jackie’s house and was interesting. I had heard all the stories ahead of time about all the drama between the people there, yet for a holiday meal, everyone was on their best behavior, smiling, cheerful, pleasant, and courteous with each other. Friday on the drive home I was dozing as Lynn drove. Finally I rolled my head over to face her and said, “Lynn, you know who I keep thinking about? Alex.” “Call him!” Lynn said without an instant of hesitation. It was a girlfriend moment. I’d told her earlier about Alex, about him sleeping over. So here she was doing for me what she would do for any girlfriend, saying in effect “you idiot, go after your man!” I called. He said he’d meet me at Diva. We exchanged text messages until I got there, some hour or so after I said I would. But all was good, he teased just one little tease about me taking so long, then we hung out at the bar and drank like always, then…yes, I brought him home with me again. This time was better. Much better. In the fortune cookie sense. *happy sigh*.

Glamorous life

Tuesday was a new bar. The Bon Ton girls were hosting DJ Roger Sanchez at Underbar and Deedee had us on the guest list. Before Underbar though, we were meeting DJ Craig Mitchel for dinner at District, another trendy bar and restaurant. I had money in my pocket, had suffered from being broke the last week, and was ready to get something nice. I spent $60 there on a Sapphire and tonic, an appetizer of spring rolls, and an entre consisting of a small piece of salmon. Well, they were all very good. Deedee and Craig talked DJ all evening and I really had nothing to contribute. I felt like eye candy on Deedee’s arm. Underbar turned out to be a blast. Friends, great music, crazy fun dancing.

He held my hair

I’d been looking forward to Monday because a guy I had met online was promising to come over…for sex. He ended up never calling, never arriving. I went to Diva again instead. Drank, had drinks bought for me, ended up bringing Alex home with me. He mixed me more drinks until I was over my limit. He offered to hold my hair. How sweet was that? Being new to all this, I didn’t get it and told him no, he didn’t need to do that. He told me a couple of days later that he held my hair anyway. I didn’t remember that. We slept, me with my head hanging in the waste basket off the end of the bed.