I began my weekend with the allergic reaction from hell. From there, I'm not sure it got much better.
See, I've always had really bad seasonal allergies, but the mild Cincinnati summers and the lack of summer-long bloom of pine trees in South Carolina mitigates the effects... a bit. Here, I get mild allergies for a few weeks and then they move on. Friday, they hit full force. Aside of the rapidly draining sinuses that filled both my lungs and my nose with fluid, my eyes were red and... foolish boy... I leaned against the wall during a smoke. I looked down about an hour later during class and found that I had a rapidly growing red rash on my arm from the harmless moment of relaxation. Concerned that my airway would be closing next, I grabbed the bottle of water I was using to irrigate my nose, showed my professor the rash, and dashed out of class with a friend in tow to drive me home.
We picked up Zyrtec (for me) and beer (for her) on the way home. Perhaps I should have purchased some beer for myself.
Leslie was coming into town that evening, so I rested up. Upon awakening, I found a text that said, sadly, she would not be arriving. Disappointment quickly set in -- I had every intention of going to Penny's "private" party at Annie's. When I suggested I might not make it, Penny was disappointed, so I rustled up Jill and Doug to go with. After all, there was a full hour of free drinks... and I had every intention of starting this long weekend off right. Ignoring, of course, the massive amounts of phelgm I was blowing into tissues every five minutes.
It was about this time I posted the now infamous "Penny post," and I discovered just how few people are willing to attach their name to slander.
Out to the club! Doug comes and gets me and we head to Annie's, where we were greeted by Penny, and cute twosome and the idea that I might have a threesome that evening crossed my mind. I'm actually convinced it crossed their mind, too, but I'm not good at the whole flirting thing until your pants are off. The doors opened and we, naturally, headed for the bar. In the next hour, I'm shocked the bar didn't run out of alcohol. Take 150 or so queers there for free booze, give them wide open spaces and a non-judgmental staff at high levels of alcohol use...
...let's just say that between me, Jill, and Doug... I'm shocked we ever left the bar. I think I downed five vodka-Red Bulls before time was up for free booze.
Everyone was there and it's event I really hope is repeated. Hopefully, A) with better turnout and B) turnout that doesn't leave the minute the free alcohol stops pouring (though I was one of those).
We head over to Adonis, where more drinks and cake are consumed, and I am amazed at how few people are at the club on a Friday night ... probably 20 ... Jill tells me, "And this is a busy night!" I am constantly amazed that Adonis can survive solely on the business of one night of traffic. I have been to the Dock in the middle of the week and seen more people! That's besides the point. Will Corson is spinning Karaoke -- word is, he's trying to get a gig back in town with a newly opening bar, but more on that later -- and we're having a good time, and I'm not 100% sure how much I drink there... but I'm pretty hammered and making out with a guy. I spill a drink all over the hottie bartender, which tells me I'm pretty close to toasty by the time we leave.
We head to the Serpent ... well, not me, Doug, and Jill, but me and the guy. I don't remember this trip save for calling some guy in a leather vest Sir. Perhaps it's best for all of us.
I wake up, thankfully in my own bed, at 8am on Saturday morning. It's an obnoxious habit I've developed, waking up that early, still quite drunk, and start to read when the hangover hits. It's 10-ish and I make a call to Jimmy John's. This is my new hangover cure: Jimmy John's, Hulu.com, and as much water as I can down without dying of water intoxication. Yum. Today, the show on Hulu.com is
Glee, which I've heard much about but had not had the pleasure to see. It's campy as hell, the writing is horrid in parts, but I'm still crying by the end. Perhaps it was the hangover, but I downloaded
Don't Stop Believin'that minute because of the final song... and I can't wait for the next show to come out. My throat is dry, my stomach is full, four ibuprofen's later my headache is receding, and I'm ready for my maybe-date.
Back story on my maybe-date: we agreed to go see
Star Trek this week. We were out last weekend, I made an ass out of myself, but the movie was still on... and we discussed dinner. The whole week the discussion with my friends was maybe this is a date, maybe it was just friends. I don't think it's as easy to tell between gay men as it is with heterosexuals. After all, he and I have known each other for years, there's been some weird drunken tension, and it is just him and me... so he became the "maybe-date."
About Thursday I learned that we would have a tag-along, someone I don't particularly get along with, and he became the "maybe-not-date," but I had great hope. Except maybe-not-date began the "date" by announcing he was hung over. Hence, he continued being the "maybe-not-date."
Star Trek was not what everyone made it out to be. I kept waiting for something more, but nothing ever really came out of it. Sure, I'll probably see the next one, and, yes, Chris Pine in boy shorts is 100% worth it, but... I don't think I left with the "oh my god, this is awesome" feeling most people felt. And the whole "changing reality" bit they went for, I'm not buying it. They even threw in there the required "explainer" -- "You mean we're in an alternate reality?" Sorry, kids, but destroying planet Vulcan is a little more of a stretch of the imagination than this queen could handle.
So far, though, maybe-not-date and other-guy and I were not doing badly; no arguments, and only mild annoyance.
We decided on the Taste of Cincinnati for dinner -- "Is there food?" other-guy asks. "Uh." I could only respond. I suggest we take the bus from the Levee downtown as there would be no parking. They think it's a great idea, except they want to check their cars and they are far away and they'll just grab them and meet me over there. So I meander over to the busstop and sit on the corner and think, "Did they just ditch me to ride the bus by myself?" I texted everyone I knew the same, and it became more and more obvious "maybe-not-date" was definitely becoming "not-date." I was also hot and sticky and out of cigarettes twittering madly about the lateness of the Southbank Shuttle. No one understood my plight, and I couldn't talk about maybe-not-date as he had just
added me on Twitter. Oops.
In my defense, I have great hope, and I'm really bad at picking up clues. But I was slowly getting the point.
I get to Taste about 25 minutes before they do, enough time to buy a pack of cigarettes and get a beer... and then a second one... whilst sitting in the shade. Let me take a moment to mention just how much I hate the heat. Hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it. I moved out of the deep south so I could escape it, but this weekend was awful. The sign at Government Square said 90-degrees, and I'm sure the humidity was high. Mix that with the smell of thousands of Cincinnatians, some of them with mullets (which means a questionable bathing history), and you can only imagine my displeasure. I think I had four cigarettes while I sat there... by myself... on a busy street corner... in the middle of a not-date... with a beer in my hand. I'm surprised I only had
two beers.
They show up, and we do what everyone does at Taste: wander up and down the vendors, eat a couple of too-expensive items (seriously, $5 for a pulled pork sandwish from Montgomery Inn with no sides? it's highway robbery) and people watch. Is there really anything else to do? I meant to find the Katie Reider stage (check out
www.3tweets4katie.com -- something I meant to pimp before the event and should have participated in, but I was ill prepared). Anywho, we found ourselves a comfortable seat on Fountain Square, commented on some cute boys, discussed our types (I was not anywhere within the galaxy of either other-guy's or maybe-not-date's "type"), and pondered whether saying someone had an "Italian high forehead" was racist. Real deep stuff.
At this point, Leslie is texting me and we think it might be neat to head over to Hofbrauhaus to see her. We start off, maybe-not-date says he's not going to join us, but would I like a ride home? I said yes -- suddenly, he became maybe-date in my head -- until other-guy jumps in, says "that's silly, I'll take him," and I retort, "Fine! I'll just take a bus home."
I don't go home. I go out, but the entire maybe-date was just saved by that simple offer of a ride home... and now I'm obsessing again.
Ronald Sunday morning, feeling tired, was supposed to meet Alexis out at Taste again that evening, so I laid down at 5-ish, woke up at 930, texted her that I had to write a paper due the next morning, and I went back to sleep at 10. Woke up again at 5am, took the 5 hours it apparently takes me to write 500 words, and go back to sleep at 1030am, to wake back up again at 530 to get ready for work at 8.
All the while, my nose is itching and dripping, and I'm concerned I have pneumonia now because my lungs are gurgling. But a weekend that was totally worth it.
If you made it this far, well done. :-)
A mainstay of Cincinnati's Pride calendar returns -- the Cincinnati Drag Races! After the raucous success of last year's event, held in conjunction with the popular and ever growing Second Sunday on Main festival, the two parties teamed up and will be hosting this year's races on Main Street on July 12th from 2pm-5pm.
