The two guys stood in line together, in the drugstore side of the grocery store, on Broadway, by Addison, waiting to buy an enema. They were holding hands, so one could only assume they were boyfriends. They weren't particularly attractive, to me, but were cute in their own way. One of the guys looked like the kid I saw at the urinal in Cairo, an old disco on Wells, in what looked like his grandmother's Chanel boucle blazer. I was so jealous he was able to pull it off the way he did. I wonder what would spin Gabrielle faster in her grave: that us gays boys stuck her brooches on our motorcycle jackets back in the late 80's, or the chubby women with pantie lines and bratty kids sporting double 'C' sunglasses, today? Where will you go from there, Karl?
No one in the store seemed to notice the two guys, and what they were buying but me, and my only thought was when oh when will it be my turn?
I got into the habit of going to the Jewel down the street from my apartment on Mondays, my day off, in 1989, relishing my new healthy habits. My last apartment had no cooking gas, and I didn't really much care for food then, so I rarely shopped for it. It felt good to something good for myself for a change. I was doing a lot of things I had asked myself to do. I was saving money. I was making travel plans. I was letting go of my I can't attitude, and accomplishing things. I guess I came to an end to another self-destructive phase in my life, and was starting to rebuild. This was a place I knew all too well. I kept waking up alive, so I may a well go on living.
I went on with a sense of being another step further to being a grown up. I tried to do somethings with my life and failed, and that really hurt, but I didn't feel the need to wallow in my misery, and just kept on going. I failed pretty miserably, because I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life in a relationship with Brad, and now I didn't think he would ever speak to me again.
I enjoyed and needed to be living again with Scot, and we spent most every night going out. Berlin, Cairo, Vortex, Christopher Street, and sometimes Medusa's, because Scot worked there during the day, 'fixing the repairs'. He found many interesting things on the floor the morning after, and one time it was a Cartier bracelet, which he gave to me, which I managed to keep for a year til I hocked it.
I didn't socialize too much when I went out; I would bury myself on the dance floor, with Scot, who would run on and off the dance floor when he saw someone he knew, and got lost in the music for hours at a time. Except at Vortex. The main dance floor was really not my scene music-wise back then, but they had a fun video room in the back, like C Street did, and I would request Gaultier's song over and over, along with Deep in Vogue, it's the Virgina Slims girl! (man, was it ever fun seeing Paris is Burning in the theater when it came out. It brought the house down!) and the Soul 2 Soul hits. And, of course, the most famous song of all, the beautiful Whisper. Scot would put this video on to get me to stop putting on make-up, and finally walk out our front door. It got me to go because I knew they would play it for me at Vortex, which was usually our first stop.
My 'during the day activity' was wearing thinner and thinner, but I kept myself distracted studying for my trip to London. I did want to go with my boss Concita, having heard the stories of the glories of her boozy, glamorous trips over the years, and I didn't want to take my first trip over seas entirely alone. I read up on what to expect and what I wanted to do in London for weeks, in my Let's Go and i-D. But soon after Scot and I moved in to our new place on Sheridan and Broadway, in 1989, we were to have a slew of house guests...
