Wednesday, May 21st - Saturday and Sunday Revisited (The Birthday Weekend, pt 2)

Yeah, I know. I never got around to blogging yesterday. I think it had more to do with the daunting task of actually recounting Saturday and Sunday more so than not having the time to do it. So, I'm just going to jump in with the traditional bullets instead of trying to get a narrative going, and I will do both Saturday and Sunday so I am no longer under the pressure of the weekend.

Saturday

• After dropping BusinessBoy and cohort off at the airport, I drove home. Along the way, I dialed up Mom (my actual mother not the Mean Girls blog mommy), and we discussed the situation with grandma. Apparently once she got to the long term care facility, she downshifted into crazy granny mode, which is not really a comfortable place for anyone involved, except maybe her. There is some family drama involved in that which I will censor here, but to say that my mother and grandmother's relationship is strained is probably the understatement of the millenia. On top of my mother, who is a teacher, dealing with research papers and finals, she now has to deal with being harangued by grandma on a daily basis. So, anyway, I had to give my mother some telephone therapy, hung over, on the way home from a weekend fling with a great guy. Whoa...I am a living soap.
• Upon getting back to my apartment, I have my wallet and phone in hand, and as I am stumbling up the stairs, I realized that I had hit talk on a phone call with Athena. As soon as I noticed, I hit the end button, and I have to figure that this is the moment that my ATM card decided to leap out of my wallet. The irony is that the day before when I was getting a beer with Athena, I was figiting with my wallet and put my card in the wrong slot. Since I wasn't paying attention, I had a momentary panic when I couldn't find it. This time it was really gone, and I didn't notice it until Romeo, Blanche, and I were out running errands before tailgating. I am very much an ATM card centric person, and I rarely have cash on me. Which pretty much put the onus on Romeo and Blanche to get everything for the party that I had planned on getting. Thank god, I had cash coming to me for the tickets for the Roller Derby, otherwise the whole weekend would have been a wash.
• Romeo, Blanche, and I made it to the fairgrounds for tailgating around 4, and we started to set up. We were promptly asked to move because of a truck loading up some cars from a car show, but we ended up in a better place in the shade. It was a bit windy, and every time a big gust of wind came along, everyone had to grab the tent lest it blow away. Romeo went into Martha mode and started getting the food setup, while Blanche and I continued setting up, hanging up posters, balloons, and drinking.
  
• Everyone pretty much got there all at once, and we proceeded to have a very good time. I really do think this may become a tradition!
• Once the doors opened for the Roller Derby, we moved inside with our stuff for the Pride Skate '08. We had decided that since we're partnering with the Naptown Roller Girls, we should promote our thing. Even though I can't say we were the most visited booth, I think we did go a long way towards getting the IndyPride (er Circle City IN Pride) name out there, and as someone put it, we do feel totally mainstream now.
• After the bout, we made our way to Illusions. OMG, that was some terrible drag. Seriously, Romeo and Blanche could have won it in street clothes, but it was pretty fun because even my str8 friends went. We all had a fab time, but the smoke was pretty bad in there, which pretty much ended my evening early.

Sunday

• After sleeping in and not even noticing that Romeo, who had slept on the couch, had left, I got ready and met the boys at Metro for coffee/morning cocktails. Normally, after a day like Saturday, I wouldn't have wanted to do anything on Sunday, but since I celebrated my birthday with the fam last weekend, I was free to go watch the Hoosier 250 tricycle race. The bad drag show that Romeo and I went to last Sunday was to crown the queen of this race, and part of her duties is waving the green and checkered flags. Talk about something you don't see every day... I'll post pictures as soon as I get my camera back from Romeo.
• The Skating Committee (why won't Skate Board stick, dammit) decided we should wear silly hats to help promote our Pride Skate '08, and after Maramaduke produced four hats out of nowhere, I think we might have started a tradition. It'll be like the Derby Parties, only weirder.
• After the Mayor of Gaytown decided he was bored with his announcing duties, he came and asked me if I would take over. I would like to think it is because I have a nice, deep speaking voice, but I have the sneaking suspicion that he thinks I must be gullible. The good news is that I like doing stuff like that. It is odd that my last announcing duties would have been a track meet in High School, and Sunday, I was announcing things like "We need Team Fellatio and Team Bitches with Nuts." Yeah...
• This was probably the most visible thing I've done in the gay community, which is kind of weird, but hey, if the Mean Girls are wanting to move up the social ladder, we're going to have to get out there and be in the forefront. I'm never going to be a Bag Lady like Blanche and Romeo. So, that leaves me to fall back on things I'm good out. Yes...that means talking too much.
  
• After the race, there was a free cookout at the Metro, which lead to an invitation to go back to one of the big Pride couple's condo to look at the pictures from the photo shoots Blanche and Romeo have been participating in for a fundraising Bag Lady Calendar. The pictures were great!
• Additionally, someone who I have always considered to be ridiculously hot (I mean...half naked on a parade float hot), admitted that he'd always had a thing for me, which I had conveniently never really noticed. Doh! Well, I would say things progressed, even though we were both incredibly drunk. Again, I'm not sure where that is going, but hey, at least I got to see him half naked. ;) And no...nothing happened there, either, but I'm not going into all the details on that. It was apparently quite the scandal though that we left the party. Ah well...I have finally arrived....

All in all, tremendously busy weekend with a lot of ups and a couple downs. It was so nice to just sit on my ass on Monday and just catch up on TV. Whew!

Monday, May 19th - Friday.... (The Birthday Weekend, pt 1)

There is really no good way to start off a recount of my birthday weekend, and it is certainly impossible for me write it down in one post. So, I am going to do one post for each day, and since I am not planning on any big events happening the next couple days, I am going to space them out. This is also due to the fact that I do not have pictures to post yet, and I need to retrieve them so you can share in the fun.

Since Thursday was my big deadline day, and I was able to get everything done that I needed to get done. I was ready for a bit of celebration, which was great because we had a regularly scheduled monthly Pride Mixer to go to that evening. After the usual festivities, Romeo met Blanche and me at the Metro, and we commenced what is becoming an all too typical night of drinking.

I was looking forward to Friday because I didn't have any reports staring down at me, I had a meeting out of the office, and I was planning on leaving for the day after that. The meeting was for a fundraiser that we have at work that I was pretty instrumental in making better than previous years, and we are moving it a location closer to downtown, which is just nicer for me. Maybe if it is still warm, I'll be able to bike there in October! Anyway, the theater that we're renting also happens to be home to the YMCA where I workout and one of my favorite restaurants, the Rathskeller. We had lunch there, which was a good birthday surprise, even if I opted for a healthy salad over the usual heavy German-fare that is the restaurants specialty. I already knew I was going to have a debauched weekend. So, I might as well attempt to be healthy when I can.

After lunch, I drove home, and I grabbed my workout gear and made my way back down to the gym. While I could have easily planned ahead and took my clothes with me to the work, it was a beautiful day, and I wanted to get the bike out to enjoy my afternoon. I am pretty happy with my workouts lately, and while the pounds are still not stripping themselves off, I have regained my level of strength, especially in my arms. I feel all bulgy again, which means the muscle shirts and tank tops are out again. Woo hoo!

When I got done with my workout, I had 7 text messages, which is the most I've ever had in one sitting. Then I realized that Athena had sent 4 of them, and they all said the same thing. So, I guess it was her phone freaking out. She was at the Rathskeller for an after work beer, and even though I was sweaty and gross from my workout, I decided to meet up with her in the beer garden. Obviously, my day was destined to revolve around the Rathskeller! It was a good time, and Maestro met up with us. I only stayed around for an hour, because I needed to get some things done before supposedly meeting up with BusinessBoy and his friends so that I could show them the gay nightlife. BusinessBoy is someone that I had met online and felt an immediate connection to, and when it turned out he was going to visit Indy, I was excited at the prospect of meeting him. He lives in San Fran, and while I do not put much credence in the prospects of long distance relationships, I can't say I am 100% negative on the idea (but that is a topic for another blog). For now though, it is just a nice flirtation.

Originally, his friends were supposed to get into town at 8, they'd get a quick dinner, and then we'd meet up at 9. I was going to take them to Talbott Street for a drag show, and then we'd meet up with the other Mean Girls at Metro for the usual Friday night. Well, they decided to go to a restaurant with an excessively long wait, and since I was all dressed up and nowhere to go, I met up with Romeo at Talbott for an almost miserable time. The drag was off, and it took Romeo a comically long time to get a drink. We then packed it up and went to the Metro, where we hung out with some other birthday revelers that we knew from Karaoke, and this is where the cavalcade of drinking started. At one point, I had two drinks in hand and another shot being brought to me, and the stuff after that was pretty much a blur.

I do remember getting to Greg's, bonding with my favorite bartender (another free shot), meeting up with BusinessBoy and his friends, having a bit of surreal time with an abnomally large crowd, cuddling with BusinessBoy (nothing more, perverts!), and then driving BusinessBoy and one of his co-workers to the airport Saturday morning. It is kind of annoying that my best dating prospect in a long time was flying away, but hey, at least, I was able to see him for a while.

Okay, I think that wraps up Friday. Saturday and Sunday are even more jam packed. So, stay tuned!