Friday, September 22, 2006

Remembering the Gaymes...

Literally.

I don't remember a lot. For the first time since the Champaign-Urbana era, I drank for 8 days in a row. The problem was that I was broke, so it was a lot of Bud Light cans and combinations of whatever liquor was just, you know, sitting around.

I'm relying on people remembering for me. So, thanks to Giniqua, I have another list of I-swear-I-wouldn't-have-done-it-said-it-concieved-of-it-if-I-were-sober moments to retell.

1) Joliet is a lot farther from downtown Chicago than one might think. Or, Joliet needs a furniture store something bad.

On a map, Joliet doesn't look all that far from downtown Chicago. And considering more than half the team was 12 hours from panhandling, hooking and dealing for money, a free place to stay was a godsend. I need to say how thankful and grateful I am that the twinkie chickens offered their place. But, more than half an hour into the drive away from the eighteen hour long Opening Ceremonies, I almost made my own rest stop on the shoulder of I-55. 8 days of that wasn't gonna work.

And, it wasn't so much that I could count the amount of furniture in the house on one hand. Or that there wasn't really air conditioning during Chicago's major heat wave. Or that Vodkina was shadier than an Ohio/Florida election official. If memory serves, Mike slept on a towel I found in my trunk, I slept on a pile of clothes I didn't have time to wash in Michigan, Nate slept on a rug and his t-shirt. And I couldn't give two flipping fucks where Vodkina passed out. Two days later, I pulled a nail out of my foot...which may or may not have been from the house.

In the end, I really am grateful that the chickens offered. Andersonville was a little more convenient and a lot more fabulous. Plus, there was The Roger...

2) Here straighty, here boy, here straighty straighty straighty... Some gay social service agency set us up at the Andersonville palace we moved to the next day. There was air conditioning...kind of. There was room...kind of. There was a large enough window for me to throw Vodkina out of and down three stories if the motivation and opportunity presented itself...I would never, but it made me feel better to keep that one in the back of my mind.

But, the kicker for Giniqua was The Roger...the "straight" rommate. I think the Roger's funny speaks for itself:

Exhibit A - Two ho's were online setting up tricks. Brittany was blaring. Giniqua was yelling for people to wash their holes. Vodkina was organizing Whitney tickets. The door opens and in walks The Roger with...his parents....who stood in the doorway as if it was the only safe haven and we were all extras from 28 Days Later. No matter The Roger's insistence that he was almost sure that we had all been vaccinated and the gay isn't contagious, the parental units wouldn't budge. I'd kill to hear the conversation that ensued.

Exhibit B - From what I remember, The Roger may or may not have learned...how to use manhunt...how fabulous Project Runway is...that he could get laid any time, any place, any how...pink Abercrombies, opposable thumbs and an affinity for Perrier are the only differences between Giniqua and velociraptors...and...

Exhibit C - The Roger is crazysexycool when he's drunk...and "straight" in a room full of gays...and naked. Mental note: the Roger likes to watch lightning in the living room -- drunk and naked -- at 4 am, regardless of who else is there. Pinky swear, I thought I was dreaming the opening scene of a porn.

3) Vodkina's tragicity. John had a story about how he -- I mean Vodkina - had a tragic night. I was probably hung over (safe assumption) and confused from running into too many of Navy Pier's oddly-placed pillars (even safer assumption).

I remember something about shots, more shots, more shots, shots within shots...wait, that was me. Okay, I remember something about a couple of shots, John throwing up on Christian -- his twinkie-hunting friend from Vegas, then John making out with Christian's friend. And then John ended up at a hotel, locked out of Christian and his easy ho friend's room. And then somehow a big burly guy taking a chainsaw to the locked door and then some sort of trickery ensued. There may have been a dwarf, a hooker and a clown too.

Eh, John bought me a burrito and -- I'll be honest -- I was just being polite and pretending to listen.

4) Attachment Theory. If I remember correctly from all the psych classes, psychologists and biologists have proven that little chicklings will latch onto the first thing they regularly see after birth. Dogs. Cats. Humans. Dolls. Shoes. They latch on and don't let go...

Apparently the same is true of little gay twinkie chicklings.

Now, to be fair, all gay men can remember a time when they first started coming out that involved hooking up with a guy who did something that seemed no one else could ever do again...hold their hand, not call them a fag, stick their dick in a hole -- you know, revolutionary. Intense attachment, infatuation and dreams of his and his flaming pink cell phones ensues. Most won't admit that's true. Trust, it is.

But, it's still fun to watch it happen all over again. Kind of. Well, only for a little while.

I knew that our dear old friend Olive -- who I'm almost certain cruises malls and lemonade stands for twinkie chickens - would fight his way through a crowd to sink his claws into the two chicklings on our team. Of course, it happened. In fairness, I did forget the fire hose I was planning on bringing to the Gaymes to fight him off. My bad. But, it started a chain reaction for Chickling #2...

Day 1: Opening Ceremonies -- Chickling #2 (from here on, C2) starts asking questions about Olive that I mostly answer with a "You Don't Need To Know...Do Not...Please Don't..." I snap a picture of Olive and the two chicklings in the event that authorities want to place a "Have you seen...?" on the side of a milk carton after the Amber Alert is sounded, the hounds are released and the Chicago River is dredged.

Day 2: Olive gives C2 "a ride" back to the house in Joliet. C2's Love Affair #1 (C2's LA1) has commenced.

Day 3: C2 LA1 ends. Olive gives C1 "a ride" back to the house in Joliet without anyone noticing. C2 is left at North Avenue Beach with the rest of us. A few concealed tears, a 12 oz liquor-with-diet-coke-for-color and a hunger strike follow.

Day 3/Part 2: C2 LA2 begins. C2 meets RyRy. RyRy, being the great guy that he is, feels bad for C2 and comforts him.

Day 4: C2 LA2 has bloomed. RyRy, on the other hand, already has a cell phone and isn't a big fan of flaming pink, or chicklings.

Day 5: C2 LA2 ends. A few concealed tears, a 12 oz liquor-with-diet-coke-for-color and a hunger strike follow.

Day 6: C2 LA3 begins. C2 meets Derek, a AA/Open volleyballer from California. C2 follows Derek around (see above psychology experiments), enamored of his volleyball skills and imaginative x-ray vision.

Day 7: C2 LA3 ends. Derek already has a cell phone and isn't a big fan of flaming pink, or chicklings. A few concealed tears, a 12 oz liquor-with-diet-coke-for-color and a hunger strike follow.

Day 8: Gays Of Our Lives is cancelled. Forever.

More later...

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Oh my God...Karen's a bottom...

So, the unemployed thing is going...well, it's going.

I went grocery shopping for the first time as an unemployed individual. Now, I'm not exactly shopping at Aldi. Yet. And, I'm not exactly broke. Yet.

But, I'll admit to being a little embarassed that other shoppers were judging me by what was in my cart. Like the way I usually judge other people by what's in their cart. I had a little unemployed self-pity moment when I reached for the generic canned corn and bought oranges by the prepackaged bag because they were both on sale. I went for the Bisquick and the sale-item cereals because, hello, breakfast foods aren't just for breakfast anymore.

I swear to you, this was my thought bubble...

"Okay, when all the food and money is gone, you can get by on cereal. And the generic-not-even-bisquick can make pancakes and biscuits and...hell, I'll snort it and see what happens. Might as well go down with the ship."

I ended up with exactly $49.00 of food, saving $12.38 by buying with self-pity. Then I went home and had some Intelligentsia Organic Strawberry Green Tea brewed in my French Press tea pot, sifted through my Pier One cloth-drawer shelves, watched a rerun of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO2 on my 35 or so inch tv in my Shorewood 3-bedroom apartment. Shortly after thinking that the cashier had double-scanned a 79 cent Roundy's can of kidney beans and wondering whether I could get by on cereal, generic cigarettes and water for the rest of my life, I realized the absurdity.

Yeah, it took that long.

Yeah, being unemployed sucks. But, there are those unemployment checks coming and my mental health is very very much improved. Ironically, I feel like less of a failure now that I don't work there any more. And, I'm not eating really fatty Italian food 5 days a week.

I may or many not be finding God in the next few weeks. I started watching the 700 Club cuz, you know, what else is there to do?

Friday, September 15, 2006

I almost forgot...

So yeah.

At 10:48 on Sunday night, I got fired.

I'm a little bummed.

That's about it.

I guess I have time to do some cleaning now...

I'm a horrible, horrible blogger. Seasonal affect disorder SUCKS!!!

Around April and May, it finally hit me that the Gay Games were around the corner and I was a wee bit shorter on cash than I thought I'd be. I stopped going to the bars. I stopped going to Potowatomi. I picked up shifts at work and tried doing some creative calucluating with the bank account. Which helped by.... Ok, it didn't help much.

So, the schedule went a little like this:

July 5-15th: Volleyball Camps
July 15th-22: Gay Games
July 23rd: Beg for job. Panhandle....

I left for MSU's summer volleyball camps at 3:13 a.m. on July 5th with $50, a check card and a dream. Dramatic-like, almost Thelma & Louise if you will. Well, without a Louise. Or a convertible. Or a vagina. Or guns. Or the need to cause havoc and destruction. Or considering the possibility of driving my non-Louise-convertible-vagina-with guns-causing havoc and destruction Toyota Corolla over a cliff. So, I guess it's not too much like Thelma & Louise.

Somewhere around Gary, Indiana, the Corolla's ole check engine light went on.

Somewhere around Kalamazoo, Michigan, I found out my check card wasn't working right.

I say, "somewhere," because I don't actually know where these things happened. See, I've been kind of blind for some time now. And I don't mean the "I forgot my reading glasses" kind of blind. I mean the "my face is 3-1/2 inches away from the computer screen and the 25 pt type is still a bit fuzzy" kind of blind. Let's just say that the big "E" at the top of the eye chart was pushing it the last time I went to the eye doctor.

So, back to driving 375 miles blindly across four states in the dark of night following a 7 hour work shift with no sleep.

Six hours after I left good ole Milwaukee, I arrived at Butterfield Hall on MSU's campus, ready to check in and get them camps started. Lots of impressionable young, budding, excited girls wanting to learn from my vast knowledge of the sport.

(When I went to summer volleyball camps at the University of Hawaii, I thought my player-coaches were the best thing since sticky rice. Every time I did anything, their advice seemed god-like. After 8 summers of being that coach, I can safely say the #1, or so, thing going through most coaches' minds when doing drills with players that aren't their own is...: "Don't hit her in the face. Don't hit her in the face. Don't hit her....damn it. Don't hit her in the face again. Don't hit her in the face again...Is she crying? Whew. Okay now, don't hit THIS ONE in the face.... Fuck, I need a beer.)

I checked in at the front desk and asked who else had checked in. No one. Okay, so, it's 10:15 am with a staff meeting at 11 am and no one has checked in except me. Something wasn't quite right. Whatever, I thought, I smelled pretty bad. I needed a shower like K-Fed needs a vasectomy. Federal mandate or not.

I grabbed two of my bags out of the car, the keys to the dorm room out of my pocket, the cell phone out of the other pocket and walked it all up two flights of stairs. Note: still blind as a headless bat.

I'm standing outside what I think is probably my room, working the key into the keyhole when...I dropped my cell phone. Which has happened a lot in the past. Those people that know me aren't surprised if I walk into a wall, or an oddly-placed six foot diameter pillar, or fall up a flight a stairs (I'm coming to that one...) or drop something that's practically glued to my hands. Opposable thumbs and panoramic vision, I sometimes don't have.

This time, the cell phone breaks in half.

So, I'm holding the two halves of my cell phone, trying to reconnect the connecting ribbon that I assume is probably important to some aspect of the phone fuctioning properly by banging the two halves together like a homo erectus trying to discover fire for the second or third time.

At that point, the keypad half starts lighting up. Flash flash flash....flash flash flash...

I'm not gonna lie, I started crying right there and then.

Camps weren't too bad at all. Not what I expected, but not bad for my last go around there. One of the highlights was the Project Runway 3 Premier Party at Tracy's place. I'd like to think Tracy and I should patent the phrase, "I just want to punch him in the windpipe." It was fun trying to explain to the uber-straight 6'9 volleyball guy about the whole concept of Project Runway and its fabulousness without using any gay buzzwords.

Try it. It's not easy, but kind of fun. It's like ex-gay Password, except ______.

See. I told you.

The ENTIRE time I was in Michigan, Mike's words haunted my every move.

"Girrrrrl, you BETTER just be eatin that salad. I'm not taking one in the face because of you..." ....which doesn't sound quite right now that I actually type it out. I guess it's a volleyball thing.

I'm not gonna lie, I lost at least 15 pounds in a week and a half. Nobody on my team in Chicago would believe it, so I didn't say anything.

I guess the next post will be about all the debauchery and ridiculousness and crazysexycool that was the Gay Games in Chicago. Oh, and I think some volleyball was played, but I still can't say for sure. Since I like lists, I'll leave a little note for me to remember for next time...

1) On my new cell phone heading to Chicago from Michigan -- "Girrrrrrl. John done lost her wallet somewhere in the Burger King at the Vegas airport.... It had your cash, her credit cards, all her shit... What the fuck she doing at Burger King??????"

2) It IS possible to fall UP a flight of stairs. And then Giniqua rolls her suitcase over you to get in the apartment.

3) In the gym at 1 pm: "Hey, I was watching you guys playing. You're really good." "Uh, thanks, but no, we're not. (Do we know you?)" "So yeah, I heard you were the guys with beer." "What? We would neve...yeah, it's in the suitcase over there."

4) "Hey, it's Brent. I just wanted to apologize for anything the manager in Chicago claims my friends did when he calls you about the homos he kicked out of the restaurant..."

5) Watching Project Runway: "Is that Vera Wang?" Nine homos turn in unison to look at the ONE straight, I mean "straight," guy in the room. And, he's wearing a pink polo.

6) Someone: "Okay, someone has to find a trick and sleep somewhere else every night so there's enough room." Nate: "Done."

7) Wherever the "I'm Not Your Bitch, Bitch" team goes, there's always the possibility of an orgy just breakin on out all over the place. I'm not saying it happened, I'm just saying it's a possibility. On the balcony. In the middle of a bar. At the IHOP. On the train. In the gym. On any and all couches. Just sayin, there's potential.

8) SEVEN TIMES. SEVEN. Seriously now, SEVEN TIMES. And, it's huuuuuuuge. I'm innocent and virginal, so I don't know. I'm just sayin...SEVEN TIMES.

9) Me: "So yeah, Mike and Nick, just a little request. While I'm driving down Michigan Avenue in rush hour traffic, do you mind NOT waving the Smirnoff Ice bottles out the window...you know, just when we pass the traffic cops."

10) There's NO WAY your boyfriend can think he's straight. He's like Jessica Simpson, but not as butch.

11) "Hey there young men, do you mind talking to us for a minute. So, how do you feel about God?" which wasn't all that funny until 20 minutes later when Mike the lawyer talked her out of believing in heaven and the afterlife.

12) "....and I don't think I can make it... (inhaaaaaaaale) again..."

13) When operating a washing machine: (1) Load laundry into machine. (2) Pour detergent into THE SAME machine. (3) Insert quarters into THE SAME machine as was used in steps 1 and 2.

Nate: "Hey Brent, let's unload John's laundry so we can get out of here."
Brent (standing next to Nate): "Hey Nate, look, this machine is washing air."
Nate: "Hey Brent, why is John's laundry dry already? And it still smells."
John: "Okay, I dropped this bag full of bottles of liquor, but everything fell into the bag. Here, I scooped the smirnoff out of the bag...drink this. I know, I know, I'm bleeding. I cut it on the broken bottle."
N & B: "Uhh, no, I think we're gonna pass. But thanks anyway. So, how did you get the all of the broken glass out of the liquor before you scooped it into the cup? And, are you sure you're actually washing your laundry?"

14) "....so, we're going to a Black....gay...dance....club....where exactly? So, left on...was that Fucking Beatdown Street...oh, ok, right on No Prayer In Hell Blvd...got it. Toodles."