Philadelphia fun

I rented a car in Philadelphia, and decided to drive to the Philadelphia Outlet Malls, 35 miles outside of the “city.” It took two hours – crazy traffic. Where, I wondered, where all of these drivers trying to get to? King of Prussia? Ho-ho-kus? By the time I got to the outlet malls, I was crazy late, so I dashed into a Banana Republic and bought a dress shirt and a more casual shirt, and I dashed into a Puma store for some underwear. At the Puma store, the high school girl at the register showed me which underwear was men’s (they were all on the same rack) but whenever I saw a pair I liked, I looked at the tag and there was a woman on it. I didn’t want to inadvertently buy women’s underwear, though it wouldn’t be the first time that my tastes in clothing have led me to the women’s section by accident. So I bought a boring 3-pack of boxer briefs. Amazingly, I stayed under budget, for once. I then got back in the car and drove back to my hotel, then tried to drive to the dance performance at Temple University. The traffic was insane again, and I didn’t even get there in time. Jeremy was texting me, and eventually I gave up trying to reach Temple, and drove back to the hotel again, where Jeremy met me. One of the many things I learned that night was that Jeremy is a Republican. A gay Republican! I can hardly believe it. Of course, that made me want him more. Since part of romance is violence, I love being romantic with people whose views I don’t share, or who are distant, etc., so that I can get out my anger and frustrations on these stand-ins for whole groups of people, whole ways of life. We spoke a bit about economic theory, but neither of us was budging from our points of view. I did explain, though, that I’m a Democrat in name only – really, I’m a libertarian-slash-socialist, though that may seem like an oxymoron. I guess I want all individuals to be free to be like everyone else, though that doesn’t sound right. If I really wanted that, wouldn’t I shop at the Gap more? Anyway, the next day, I was caught in more traffic (and street closings) on my way to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit. I gave up again and drove to the train station. How ironic that I thought I would be able to symbolically snub Mrs. Clinton and Obama on this trip, when in reality, they hampered my ability to get around with their Secret Service-mandated street closings and such!!! A week later I tried on the casual shirt from Banana Republic, and I looked hideous in it. Ugh, it was so shiny and blue. But Jeremy contacted me that day and told me again how much fun he’d had, and I fell in love with Philadelphia and all its contents again. I’ll be there again on June 2nd, for Paul Taylor Dance (for reals this time, yo!) on Jeremy’s birthday weekend. I’m going to give him an unbelievably big present.

Ghost of Chelsea

Went with Van to meet MB at Cafeteria, and afterwards we walked back to work. We were passing all these guys I knew, and Van and MB of course assumed I'd slept with them all. I'm proud to say I haven't slept with those particular guys, but imagine the odds of that? We passed some queen with tighter pants than I'll ever squeeze into, and I wanted to say acidly to him, "Oh, honey - I understand," but I inhaled my bile, instead of uttering it, which is still novel enough to give me a secret thrill whenever it happens. As I was thinking that thought, I noticed that the woman in front of me was wheeling herself in a wheelchair while wearing a fur coat. Fabulous! I had to stifle a guffaw - that is so me-two-months-from-now! Of course if I was in a wheelchair, I would have to offset that fact with fur. I had to snap her picture, and I pray that she doesn't find this blog post (again, imagine the odds). I immediately knew I would blog about her, and that doing so would expand the worldview of this blog tremendously - instead of just blogging about my outfits, now I can say that I also blog about other people's outfits. As we passed that poor wheelchair-woman, Van noticed that she had a leopard-print kerchief wrapped around her face, and underneath that was a surgical mask. Buzzkill! Now I can't fool myself into thinking that was fabulous - she actually probably has serious medical issues. People always ruin the fun of me mocking them. : ( Anyway, we looked back after a couple of seconds, to get another look at the poor soul, but she had vanished, which gave me a good title for this post, at least.

Panda happiness

I went to see Della Dare at a burlesque showcase at the Bowery Poetry Club. She was beautiful, as usual. : ) The World Famous *BOB* was emceeing, and she said something that got to me - she doesn't want to live in a world where she can't shave her eyebrows and wear glitter! Or something like that. It made me think about how boring I have become these days, with my ties and such, walking three blocks to work in an office. What a rebel I am - unbuttoning the top button of my button-up shirt! The next day, I dug out the kids' panda hat I bought years ago at Space Kiddets, and that I've been too self-conscious to wear more than once or twice (and usually only when I was blotto). I wore it to work. A woman I passed on the way laughed her head off! But she wasn't laughing at me, I felt - believe it or not. I think she was laughing because my hat made her happy. It made me happy, too, and I wore it all day. But then I ran into Martin at around 6 p.m. and he looked at me in a way that made me feel crazy, and I took it off. Imagine - Martin made me feel ashamed of my hat! He of the medallions and low-cut blouses. Still, I feel like the hat served its purpose that day. And Martin should have seen me back in the day - I wore panda hats, rode on hobby horses, and had 911 on speed-dial. When I think about the latter, I feel like the true rebellion for me is still being alive.

Armani jeans

I asked Chris what kind of jeans he was wearing, and he replied, almost ashamed, that they were Armani Jeans. They were amazing, very snug, and of course, Chris has a perfect ass, and they wouldn’t look that good on me, with my nonexistent ass. But I immediately wanted to run to the Armani store and buy a pair. Sadly, I had already bought my one article of clothing for the week (a pair of Cole Haan shoes, online from Bluefly). Still, though, Chris’ jeans took me back to a simpler time, when I used to hang out with that crowd just because a couple of them had wonderful asses.

I went out to brunch with George, Chris, Major, Al, and some new guy, and told them about how last week, I was wearing my own pair of Armani jeans (again, I had asked some guy with an amazing ass where he'd gotten his jeans, and hadn’t been able to stop myself that time, when he’d replied, ‘Armani,’ from running to the Armani store to buy a pair. But that was, like, seven years ago). I’d had brunch last week, too, in my fancy jeans, and then pranced about town, tending to my errands, and then arrived home and realized that there was an enormous tear on the backseat of the jeans, and my underwear and awful ass had probably been hanging out the whole day. I almost cried as I threw those jeans away, they were so evocative of my earlier, carefree NYC days. If I was handier, I would save fabric from all those disintegrating, formerly glorious outfits, and make them into a horrible quilt – a quilt which certainly wouldn’t keep me warm, but which would look good.

Speaking of earlier days, I am finally going to visit Philadelphia next week, to see Robert Taylor dance and some gauche regional Philadelphia dance, as well. It will be during the Pennsylvania primary, but don’t expect me to have any useful thoughts about politics. My political imagination can’t be adequately engaged by the American process – there is no viable Communist candidate, for instance. Still, if Hilary wins, I will feel that secret, giddy thrill I always do when idealists are disappointed. I am always disappointed – why shouldn’t everyone be?

I am only going to Philadelphia because ten years ago, some queen smiled at me there in a nightclub, and it sent me into that mindspace of, “See? The gays are friendlier in dumb little towns.” But they won’t be friendly on this trip, because I will arrive in my current, bitter glory, and they will see me coming from a mile away. I asked my online pal if he wanted to see Robert Taylor dance with me, but he hedged – I probably won’t even meet him on this trip, but I haven’t taken a vacation in a while, and certainly not a solo vacation, which I used to love, so I’m so looking forward to seeing you, Philadelphia! My old friend. Please alert your outlet mall, if you indeed have one, that Gee Henry will be breezing in, armed with a credit card, and he won’t be leaving without that one perfect piece.