Continuation of The Gay Lifestyle.

So, we arrived at the club. From the outside it was pretty spartan, (pun intended). The entrance was a single door on the corner of a nondescript city block. Beside the glass door, a relatively small sign stated the club’s name. I’ve seen straight clubs with similar low-key outside appearances. And just like a straight club, I could hear the muffled beat of the music from well outside the door.

We went inside. Boom! The music was bouncing — the same music I liked to dance to elsewhere. But holy crap, the entrance price was twice what I had ever paid to get in anywhere else. Wow, the gay lifestyle must be pretty damn expensive. One more reason for me to stay straight.

On the inside, the club looked like most any other nice (not a dive) club I’d ever been to (maybe half a dozen by then), or have been to since (maybe two dozen). It looked well kept up, though worn. It was pretty crowded compared to other clubs I’d been to. The place wasn’t particularly small; it just seemed that all of the city’s gays and lesbians must have been in that one club that night. (Maybe this was the city’s one and only GL club.)

The people looked just like people in my normal hangouts. In fact, at first glance, nothing looked gay or lesbian about the clientele. Guys standing around talking with other guys. Ladies standing around talking with other ladies. Some mixed gender conversations. Just like in a normal night club.

On the raised dance floor, guys danced with guys, and girls danced with girls. Oh, there’s the difference. There was no mixed gender dancing.

Hmmm, I thought, I guess I won’t be dancing tonight. I ain’t gonna dance with a man.

My friend and one of the sisters went to the bar to get drinks. I stood in the crowd with the straight sister and looked around at all the people. What struck me the most about the crowd, (even more than seeing men dancing with men, and women dancing with women), was how completely non-gay/lesbian everyone looked. I didn’t see a single stereotype.

There were handsome men, beautiful women, dorks, tramps, winners, and losers all around me, but not a single “queer” or “dike.” I saw a couple of guys and girls that I had seen elsewhen in the world, and my first thought was, Wow, they’re gay?

Then I immediately thought, If they notice me, here, in a gay and lesbian bar, they’ll think I’m gay. That thought discombobulated me for a minute. I mean, I didn’t think any less of them for being gay/lesbian, and surely they wouldn’t think poorly of me for being gay — but I’m NOT gay!

Continued: The Gay Lifestyle part 3

Bullgrit

Way back when I was 21 years old. . .

I went to visit a girl friend one evening and found her hanging out with two other friends, (two sisters). They were getting ready to head out for a night of clubbing, and they invited me to go with. I, of course, said, “Sure.”

As we were walking out of my friend’s house, they warned me:

“It’s a gay and lesbian club,” my friend explained.

“Oh,” I said, taking a few moments for the concept to fully sink into my head.

My friend was bisexual, one of the sisters was lesbian, and the other sister was straight. I had known my friend’s orientation, but I had only just then met the sisters. (If it needs to be said: I am pure hetero.)

We stood on my friend’s front porch for a minute while I considered the night’s destination. “Hmm,” I said. “Will one of you always be with me while we’re there?” I asked. I found myself surprisingly not put off by the idea of going to a GL club, (I mean, there’d be men and women there, just like a normal night club, right), but I really wasn’t comfortable with the idea of having guys hit on me if I stood around alone.

I actually found my curiosity rising, (not about that); just what did a GL club look like? Was it any different than a normal club? My only image of a GL bar was from Hollywood comedies. Did the men actually wear black leather vests, and did the women actually wear flannel shirts?

The women standing beside me at that moment, inviting me to the club, were dressed like any other 20-something girls going out on a Saturday night. They didn’t look like a stereotype, (unless you’re thinking of the girls-going-out-on-a-Saturday-night stereotype).

They promised to not leave me by myself. So we loaded into two cars (in case I and/or the straight sister wanted to leave early), and headed out.

Continued: The Gay Lifestyle part 2

Bullgrit

Here’s my Monday post
It’s written in a haiku
I hope you don’t mind

Bullgrit

Since we’re getting a new refrigerator with our new house, we decided to sell our old fridge. It’s a good appliance, only a few years old, and in good shape, but we had no more use for it, (our house buyer didn’t need it either). So Cowgrit put it up on Craig’s List for sell. Almost immediately, we had a buyer.

The buyer came and picked it up Friday night as we were packing the last parts of our house for the movers to come Saturday morning. The buyers were a man and woman who were, themselves, moving into a new home. They came in a pickup truck, and brought an upright dolly to roll the fridge out.

Now, we have six brick steps from our front walk to our front door, (they knew this before coming to pick up the fridge). Those steps make moving anything in or out of our home a pain in the butt. The bigger the item, the bigger the pain. Moving a fridge up or down those steps is only two degrees easier than moving a mountain ten miles.

I helped the man get the fridge onto his dolly — it had no straps to fasten it to the tool — and down the steps. I let him direct the operation, as I didn’t want to be held responsible for its handling. I just gave some muscle power and made sure no floor or wall was damaged in the work.

I don’t know why, but he decided to take the fridge down the steps leaning flat forward (pulling it from down the steps), rather than leaning about 45 degrees back (lowering it from up the steps). Doing this, he basically let the fridge drop off every step to the next lower, banging loudly every time. It sounded like someone dropping a car over a cliff: blam! blam! blam! six times. Once down on the front walk, he rolled it to the back of his pick up truck.

I remembered that we had put some extra appliance light bulbs in the fridge for them, and so I opened the door to look and see if they had gotten broken in the banging down the steps. Opening the door, I saw all the glass and plastic shelves jumbled inside. I just closed the door. Holy crap!

I eventually helped him get it onto the bed of his truck (which was full of holly bush clippings for some strange reason). They thanked us for selling, and we thanked them for buying. We watched them drive away, and then said to each other, “I hope everything isn’t all busted up, but if it is, it’s their’s now.”

Why in the world would someone spend a refrigerator-amount of money and then so badly mistreat the purchase before even getting it home? If no glass shelves are broken in the thing, it’ll be a miracle. I wouldn’t be surprised if the compressor was dislodged in some way from those six drops.

Bullgrit