"It's Gay-Ja-Vu"

Oh. Migod.

Lemme fill you guys in. Because, for serious, I have such news for you! You will laugh, you'll cry, you'll dance and sing! Don't touch that remote!

Okay, enough intro. Here's what happened........

After James came to visit me in Rhode Island this summer, he continued northeast and went to Maine. While there, he met a lad named Jon. They hung out, went out, and summer loving had them a blast.

Despite myself, I was furiously jealous. But I told myself it was okay because, hey, I'll never meet this guy. He's in Maine. Right? Of course right.

The world is too damn small.
I'm partying in Providence, and my friend Joe (who is a skanky mcslutterson, and he won't mind me saying that either :P) is trying to hook up with these two kids: Francis, from RI, and his friend Jon who is visiting from out of state.
I run into Francis and Jon a couple of times and then it comes out: Jon is from Maine.
I'm afraid to ask, but I figure....there's got to be a ton of Jons in Maine, right? No way is this the same one.
So I ask......"Do you know a James from Pennsylvania?"
"Tall guy?"
"Yeah."
"Ohmigod, I LOVE him!"
So not what I wanted to hear. I left the conversation, ranted to Rob (my boss at the Dark Lady who is also one of the few people in Providence who I think really knows the depth and breadth of this crush) about what had just happened and then tried to hate Jon.
It's not frikkin' possible. He's just nice. I can't hate on him, and I won't.

But of course, I can't keep my mouth shut. Jon says "Tell James I said hi!" So I did.
Next thing I know, James is on his way to Providence and he's gonna stay at my parents house. With me. NOT IN MY BED. He said things were over between him and Jon, but he had vacation time and he was going to Vermont anyways and he'd been planning on swinging by this place in New Hampshire that Jon goes and surprising him.....so he was gonna stop in Providence and see both of us instead.
I'm freaking out. First of all, there's that jealousy and the fact that Jon is unhateable at war with each other. Then there's the fact that Joe totally wants to hook up with Jon. All I can see is the drama I'm afraid is going to happen.

James shows up and watches The Illusionist with my mom, my grandmother, and I. Then we went out. I had to work at Dark Lady that night, but James went over to Mirabar. He came back, mildly intoxicated (he's cute when he's drunk, I have to say) when the night was ending. Some guy would not leave him alone, and ended up taking James outside with him when Dark Lady closed....I went over to Rob and was like "A guy just took James outside" and Rob hands me money and goes "GO!" Love that man so much. Like, really, it's ridiculous. If he weren't my boss and weren't taken and if there was any chemistry there at all...:-P

Anyways...next day, I have to help take down decorations with mom. Obviously, James should not be enlisted to help....so, I was good, and encouraged him to spend the day with Jon. My mom was proud of me, and you should be too. :P
I was also supposed to have a date that night...didn't end up happening, so I took James to the coffee shop it was supposed to be at. He'd never had tiramisu, so he had it. He offered to pay for me too, but I didn't let him because that totally wouldn't have been fair. Also, would have been very date-esque...and while I would've loved that, at the same time it didn't seem right.

So we went to the Dark Lady, where I was a little depressed to find that two of the guys there who've been single the whole time I've known them both came with boys attached that night. That's okay, I showed up with James...different sort of attached, but whatever.
We went to Mirabar. Jon and Francis (and Joe) were all there, along with a million other people I had to say good-bye too before I left the state (we'll get to that later, it's less important :P). I'm pleased to say that James danced with me most of the night. We didn't flirt much that I noticed, but he did do a lot of flirting. Because of that...things that were yet to come were quite shocking for me!

In the parking lot where we'd parked, we ran into Kevin who DJs at Dark Lady some time and he invited us to Bickfords with him and some of his friends. We accepted.
Anyways, through the course of the meal, as had been happening all weekend, many many people assumed we were either dating or hooking up. Kevin seriously wanted to know why I wasn't going to have sex with James that night, so I dragged him outside, explained the situation as best as I could (especially the part where James tells me about all the boys he likes and is talking to) and he gave me a sound fist-to-the-chest and a flick on the forehead to knock some sense into me.
That worked well.
Anyways, thankfully Kevin has some degree of tact and did his best to put a stop to the questions about James and I. This, however, opened the door for Brendan -- one of the pillars of Providence's gay community and also the most tactless queer I ever met (although I do love him most of the time) -- to proceed to mercilessly hit on James. We get it, he's hot. Not every guy in the world needs to express this all the time.

So James and I got home around 3:30 am. I had been planning on waking up at 10 am and leaving at 11 am. This would have worked if mom had remembered to finish the laundry. So I went to bed at 5 am.
Early in the expanse of laundrying, I noticed James still getting texts -- presumably from Devin, one of my friends who is a shot boy at Mirabar, who'd been texting him since we left the club. If it weren't Devin I'd probably be jealous too, but Devin is just so friendly it's even possible (albeit unlikely, but I'm telling myself this is what's going on) that Devin is just texting his new friend. Anyways, I teased him about how late he was still getting texts and how popular he was. He sent me a text that said "Shut up biotch" and I replied "Whatever. Either go to sleep or help keep me awake, bitch :P". His reply said something along the lines of "I'd invite you to sleep with me but I think it'd be awkward for your parents in the morning".
Whoooooooooaaaaaaaaa.
I said "I'd accept but for the same reason."
And thus that bout of flirting ended as James went to sleep and I did laundry.

The next morning, James left for Vermont and I, in turn, headed in the opposite direction, back to Pennsylvania, to collect my car and return my rental to Enterprise. One week before classes start.

I want to reiterate that there was no sex during the course of this past weekend. There has been no sex since...well, Thanksgiving break. I'm okay with that.

So, in comparison to Rhode Island, even in the winter, I've determined that central Pennsylvania? Boooooooooooring. I'm bored bored bored. So I've been IMing basically everyone who is on the buddy list of my new screenname (ps, yeah, I got a new one) except Jonathan Vargas cause I'm totally nervous to IM him. :P
That includes James.
Who, yesterday, randomly...well, here's an excerpt from our conversation:

Me (11:48:15 PM):	I'm so bored, I think I might be hungry just for something to do.
Monday, January 07, 2008
James (12:08:11 AM):	:-*
Me (12:08:55 AM):	:-) what's that for?
James (12:09:01 AM):	i dunno
Me (12:09:21 AM):	Yeah, okay. :-P
Me (12:12:27 AM):	Well :-* back atcha. :-)
Me (12:13:32 AM):	And maybe you can get a real one next time I see you ;-)
James (12:13:43 AM):	ok

Yeah, I got a little flustered and I think I ruined it. Oh well.

Umm...so, today I got my car back and returned the rental. I really need to clean my car, that's the plan for tomorrow. Well, today now....

"Why should I worry? Tell me, why should I care?"

Firstly, I apologize for the uber length of this post!

Okay, before I begin I have an anecdote to share. I slept in this morning, went down for breakfast/lunch/afternoon snack and mom comes in while I'm eating and goes "Hurry, you're going to be late!"
"For what?" I ask.
There's this pause. "I don't know, don't you have something to do today?"
"No..."
"Well, I know I don't. I know your father doesn't. Do you mean nobody's doing anything today?"
This is such a bizarre event that mom is like...I thought she was going to meltdown on me for a minute. And that pretty much sums up my family.

Anyways, this weekend started off special aside from Pride. Our cousins from the Carolinas came for a visit! We haven't seen them since our road trip down to them a few years back -- sophomore year of high school, I think. That's a Monday Memory (when I get back to doing those) for another time. Probably three or four Monday Memories actually.
But anyways, we didn't get see my favorite cousin, Ed, that trip because he's been in the Coast Guard for the past several years (we think it's been seven years, and we realized we hadn't seen him in 10 years). Ed's been my favorite cousin since the incident with the giant turtle, which is also a Monday Memory I'll have to share. Anyways, Ed is one of my heroes, for sure. We watched a video of a rescue he did this weekend that kind of cemented that feeling -- Ed did basically all the work. Here, watch this:
It's not as well-done as the video we saw but it's the same rescue. Ed is the one standing up in the rescue boat, doing *everything*.
So we spent Friday with the cousins, catching up on years that we've missed.

Saturday was Pride RI (or, the much-catchier name for it is Providence Pride, because it alliterates). It was in a new, smaller location which wasn't too much of a problem despite the fact that this was probably the biggest turnout Providence Pride has ever had. The fiascos going on with NYC Pride probably contributed to that.
I hung out with Joey, his ex-boyfriend Felix, and his friend Jesse all day because they were the first people I knew that I ran into. I saw a lot of people I knew though -- some of the Crockett Clan (who I went to high school with), Joey and Matt (two of Mirabar's shotboys), Justin, Preston, Bruno and Kenny (two of the strippers from XL and who were caught on film paying more attention to their adorable puppy than to me :-P), DJ (who I think recently quit from XL), Jason....I don't really know why I'm listing all these people. :-P

Anywho, Grace and Ryan and his friends Sam and Mike met up with us part way through and we kept adjourning to Joey's hotel room (to drink). Mike is pretty much awesome, and Sam is pretty fabulous too. I feel super bad because I have Mike's number so we could hang out next time he was in town, but I seem to have lost it. I'm dumb like that sometimes. Anywho...

So we watched some of the acts that were on the main stage...acts that included Frenchie Davis, Peppermint Gummybear, Colton Ford (who is STILL hot!!), and more! I was looking forward to Sean van der Wilt but, alas, he was cut from the lineup do to timing issues...and I'm sure he wasn't happy about it, because the crowd was amazing!
Colton Ford was pretty good, though at first he had the mic too close to his mouth.

We actually missed the parade because we went to get dinner and it took longer to find a place that didn't have a ridiculous line (hour 45 minute wait??? That was the shortest!) and then to eat, so we missed the parade. That was sad.
Then we went to Mirabar. And we stayed at Mirabar because....and this is said, I was gonna have to pay again in order to get in a second time. So...there was no trip to XL, there was no Roman Heart.
I'm not complaining though. Mirabar was amazing -- of course, the numerous other parties at the other clubs had to be just as good! Some of the headliners from the festival were performing there, including the fabulous Alyson whose performance really was great and you could tell she was having a good time, and Jenna Drey and others, all of whom were great! Jenna Drey is frequently on the CD for A&F so it was exciting but simultaneously nauseating just because I hear the songs so often. :-P
I also saw basically everyone at Mirabar.

Really it was two parties, too. The block party outside and the party inside, and everyone was going in and out but it was crowded! Fun though.
Part way through the night Brendan and Cody called me to discuss things about my upcoming birthday extravaganza, where they were coming up to party with me. There was gay drama, which would continue until the next day and lead to the party's cancellation. That's all I'm gonna say on that one, but it contributed to a funk I found myself in after Pride.
The other things that contributed? There was also drama between Joey and I, which I won't get into too much but it ended in, basically, him making a whole bunch of "if we're gonna work, this is what you need to do" demands -- not like to make up for anything I did because he definitely was the one who'd screwed up, but somehow it turned around to I was the one who needed to change for him. And I'm pretty sure I'm cool with A) that little about-face in who's the screw up, or B) the fact that he wants me to change for him before we've even been on a second date. Cause, apparently I'm not good enough as-is?
Then I ran into Jonathon, who got pretty shitfaced, so I helped him get to his car at the end of the night. On the way, we stopped by Energy, which was still open. And who to my wondering eyes should appear? Kyle and Dom -- who had both moved to Florida and I hadn't seen since January!! So that was exciting.
After that, as we went to my car so I could give Jon and "his driver" a ride to their car, he decided (because he's an honest drunk) to regale me with all the reasons we can't date. Or even try to date. Or in fact, do anything more than what we have been doing, which is hang out like friends and then make out just enough to get us (or at least me) riled up and then leave before anything happens.
So I was in a serious funk. Or a "gunk" as they would say on Kyle XY. ("He's in a gunk." "What's that?" "A guy funk." "So what do they call a girl funk?" "Redundant.")

Monday I went out to get a job at Dark Lady. Except, in my funk, I couldn't bring myself to ask without moral support. So I ended up at Energy...which added to my funk. Two guys I had previously liked were there, neither one into me and one of them there with someone else. Ordinarily this wouldn't bother me at all, but, hey, funk!
So when I was introduced to my friend Josh's friend Neil, who was gorgeous and flirty, well...it helped a lot. So, I'm starting to come out of the funk now.

Tuesday was full of little things: new manager at A&F who seems pretty nice, movie night at Justin's, Jonathon called me again (and again today, I don't think he remembers what he said), and, oh, I think I blew the Italian oral exam out of the water.
That's right, this is my last week of class!!

Oh, and for people wondering what's going on with Club XS these days...my friend Jenny just put up this video of their latest amateur drag contest! Cody tells me my ex-boyfriend has been showing up to participate in them lately. You'd think he'd have gotten the hint: you've been doing drag for years and never gotten better than runner-up....they're trying to tell you something.

NOTE: There will be more pictures, I just have to ask my friends if they mind showing up on my blog is all.

"Before we play the game, let me say that I never lose"

So, let me start by saying that I am in SUCH a good mood today. I slept an almost normal amount of sleep (unlike my 12 hour coma the night before...that was some crazy ass shit :-P), and when I woke up I pulled out my as-of-yet unopened book Yoga in Bed by Edward Vilga. The book is full of nice easy stretches to do in the morning when you first wake up and right before you go to bed. The stretches are very easy to do and perfect for beginners like myself, and perfect for people who don't have time to do yoga during the day. It even includes tips for power napping -- something I can really use! I highly recommend it.
It's definitely a step in the right direction for something I haven't been doing terrifically at: taking care of myself. I also took my morning pills today -- it's been a while since I took my pills. I've also written down a to-do list for tomorrow that includes calling my doctor and making an appointment. I've got enough going for me right now that I can't afford to be slacking off and ending up in the hospital.

Another thing improving my mood? Fairview Sue, of course! She did this whole post about how fabulous and unscratched I am and it really brightened my...well, I guess this is still morning since I've only been awake for a couple hours. (No, but since I went to bed at 6 am, I'm really not a waste of life!)
And the comment that our favorite Down Under stud Shaney left on the post was also an ego boost. :)

Speaking of Down Under studs...Aussiebum not only makes the hottest underwear, but they have the most gorgeous models. Seriously. I've been going through the site this morning looking at things I want to order when I think mom won't mind or get suspicious or after she's found out I'm go-go dancing and finished flipping out about it. :-P

Anyways, I won't keep you waiting any longer, I know what you want to hear about (or at least I think I do)....last night was....WOW. I know I say that every time I have a weekend or go out for a night, but every night I get surprised at how much fun I have!
First of all, I hadn't been out with the kids from our Gay\Straight Alliance since November, really. Some of them I hadn't even seen since November when I started working at the club I now work at (almost!) every weekend. Also, my friend and Queer Mentor* who graduated at the end of last year showed up on campus to surprise us!
Also, Cody found out I was going so he went. As did Brendan, bringing a new friend of his named Joey. Carl was there with some friends of his. And my friend John who I haven't seen since November was there. Codi, who bartends there, was there with his boyfriend even though he wasn't working tonight. Mark was there, Danny was there, Adam was DJing, Will was training the new bartender, Jacki was working the door, Loki was on staff, Ray was doing security, Brenda was checking IDs...all these people I hadn't seen in forever because they work there! All in all, it was amazing to see all of these people!

Unfortunately, there were like 3 people there who I didn't know. They were awesome, but it was dead. It was cool though, we made the party happen.

(This picture is of my lesbian (yes, mine) Margie and I doing our "Just a Little Too Late" faces at each other while the song was playing. Her Lesbian Death Glare has been perfected.)

Worse still, there was drama. Well, apparently there was some lesbian drama going on, but I followed the Treatise of Drama* and stayed the hell out of it. But there was other drama....
Now, I had heard that some of the bartenders and managers from the club I work at had gone to this club and made asses out of themselves and been banned. I hadn't realized that they had gone so far as to ban all employees of the rival club -- which includes me. I understand their thinking here, I really do, but there were some problems with that:
-I hadn't driven, which means I was going to be stuck in the stairwell til 2 in the morning.
-From a business perspective, 11 people from my school came. Most weekends they stay on campus for their partying. Not to be stuck on myself BUT....what does that tell you?
-There were probably less than 10 people there who weren't there in the.
-When I take a night off...I have no other clubs to go to.
Anyways, Jacki talked to Loki on my behalf (after she gave me my five bucks back and told me I had to leave in a really apologetic way). She said she was going to discuss it with the club's owner too, because I have never given her a problem. Which, I'm sure isn't true, but whatever.

Anyways, I was allowed in for the night and she didn't take a cover charge the second time I went in...so I bought a lot of drinks. The new bartender they had that night, Josh I think they said his name was....CUTE!! Gonna have to go back soon, and on one of his weekends, so I can maybe talk to him a little bit more. I gave him big tips though, so I think I got his attention at least. (Also, I was talking to Brendan and said "The new bartender is CUTE!" right when the song faded so I'm damn sure he heard it. Whoops. :-P)

*At my school, we have these people called "Peer Mentors" who teach incoming freshmen about our school. Ryan, my "Queer Mentor" taught me about the gay culture when I came out, so we call him that. In return, I am referred to as his protogay. (protoge? It's really very clever. :-P)

*The Treatise of Drama is a (fictional) document written and signed in the early '70s (or whenever) which clearly states that gay men are not to be involved in lesbian drama and lesbians are not to be involved in gay drama. If it is mixed drama, it is fair game. All drama is fair game for heterosexuals.

"And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad..."

The world has lost it's mind. Seriously. I can't even understand.

Five Amish girls in an Amish schoolhouse got killed -- and that's not counting the injured or the perpetrator who killed himself. Who does that? And over a twenty year old grudge that isn't even against the Amish but is against young girls? That's crazy on its own.

And then...I finally heard from someone in Rhode Island. And I almost wish I hadn't. Things are worse and more bizarre than I had imagined -- and believe me, I had imagined some pretty crazy shit going down. I can't go into details.

But I do want to go home. So badly. So, so, so badly.

And on another note: pet peeve of mine? Mixed signals!