This year for my birthday, I spent a week out in the Pines. Here is the cliff notes version (less the crisis from the beginning of this vacation). It is what it is.
Saturday (Feliz Cumpleanos). We had a little “pre” Low Tea birthday cocktail hour on Saturday. C2 baked the most amazing chocolate cake (the best I have ever had on my birthday). How did he figure out that I like chocolate cake on my birthday? And by the way Roman, my name is spelled
R-A-F-A-E-L
Sunday. We had friends visit from the city and Long Island. After playing paddle ball for what seemed like hours, we headed back to the house for cocktails and a BBQ (it seems that once 12noon hits, everything revolves around cocktails). After the BBQ, we headed over to the mini pier dance - “Dance on the Bay.” That party was doomed from the beginning. As we walked onto the dance floor, we noticed a large cooler covering what looked like a hole. Well, it was'nt’t a hole, it was the dance floor caving in. We were herded from the dance floor to a grassy knoll and then back to the dance floor and then a neighbors yard. There was a performer, but no one there can remember his name? The DJ for this party was Junior Vasquez. I used to be such a fan of his for so long, but he either needs to go back on crack or someone should take him out to pasture. How can a DJ at that level not be able to mix from one song to another, repeatedly? Is'nt’t that part of DJ101 class? Either way, the party was cut short. W e ended up dancing for hours at Sip N Twirl and The Pavilion. The night ended abruptly.
Monday. After a comforting and restful sleep in the arms of a hit and run lover, I headed back to my house to deal with the intense ending I had been presented with the night prior (only to find that there would be "nada mas" to write about in this chapter of my life). I ended up spending the day with C2 and RF. We had lunch on the roof deck while laughing for what seemed like hours. It turns out that a good friend of mine mistakenly slept with a 50+ year old model. My friend was so inebriated that he failed to notice that this “model” was now in his 50’s and has had some serious cosmetic work done. Don’t get me wrong, good for the model to have plastic surgery, but my poor friend is 25 and was mortified thinking it could have been his father that he slept with. Either way, I think he referred to the encounter as “having sex with a CPR dummy.” The nice thing was that the model left an autographed picture of his most famous shot on the nightstand. Confusing part is that he walks around with a photograph of when he was a model. Weird. Once we removed the stitches from our stomachs, we went for a long walk along the beach. We walked all the way over to Cherry Grove. Is it just my take on that place or does it look an arid trailer park? I expected to find an old, rusty pick-up truck in some ones front yard. Since I had never witnessed any of the shenanigans that go on at “The Meat Rack”, my friends decided to take me on an hour long gay safari trip. The first part of our adventure was quite boring. Once we crossed that invisible midpoint back towards the Pines, the hunt began. It was like Grand Central Station as far as traffic, but no action. After checking out the prospects, one of my friends decided to approach a Meat Racker and see if he was “racked.” C2 and I set up camp behind some bushes that gave us a direct line of sight. I don’t know who started it, but one of us started making jungle mating calls and next thing you know, guys are popping up from behind bushes like prairie dogs greeting the sunrise. It was like a gay ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Well, the friend finished his rendezvous before anything worth telling happened (yes, the guy was racked). Once we noticed that a crowd had encircled us (a la circle jerk style) we took off like a bunch of giggly school girls. Truthfully, neither C2 nor I wanted to be recognized. We don’t act like that in public, especially not together. It seems so much easier to walk down the blvd and pick up someone face to face, rather than going through this whole search and seek process (and risk getting lime disease). And speaking of how easy it is to get laid on Fire Island, why would a semi-good looking guy find it necessary to pay for sex all weekend (just walk out the door)? One of my housemates found it necessary to do this and the guy was attractive. I am not judging, I just wish someone could enlighten me behind the logic. That’s all. Coffee, topic, let’s talk!
Tuesday. Woke up from another restful and comforting sleep. Amazing how well and long I can sleep with the right COMFORTer. Today is Independence Day (the day I was scheduled to be born on, but that is another story). On top of it being July 4th, it was INVASION day! Loving all things queer (except twinks, shaved bodies and taffeta), I was excited to finally witness the “Invasion of the Pines.” Fortunately, C2’s share house is located on the Marina and we were invited by the boat people (Nice, well to do folks that live on a mega yacht) to view the festivities from the bow of their yacht. I don’t name drop, but I will boat drop. We were on the boat that won for the best decorations. It was great to have a front row seat as a ferry full of fairies pulled into the marina. Legend has it that some 30 years ago, a drag queen was denied service at a local watering hole. Since drag queens are such peaceful beings, instead of burning down the town, they gathered their posse and decided to invade every year on this most American of days. C2's kept telling me that Sip-N-Twirl was awesome after the invasion and that we would have a blast there. He was right. Probably one of the best tea dance style parties I have ever been too.
Wednesday/Thursday. Those that remain leave on the infamous “blood bucket.” I am fortunate enough to have the whole week (and part of the following) off. It rained (actually it poured) for a good part of Wednesday. Two of my housemates were still at the house. I think at this point, my housemate Rod and I noticed that our bowel movements had been “loose” for over a day. We will later find out that there is an "E COLI" warning issued on Fire Island and everyone needs to boil there water. Nice. Rod and I took advantage of the miserable weather and sat in our sunken living room creating DVD’s on our Mac’s. The weather forced us all to relax and unwind from a long 4 day weekend. I needed the rest just to make sense of the Friday – Sunday chapter issue. I ended up doing laundry and consoling myself by eating half of my other birthday cake (which was actually quite good, considering it was from the Pantry). Thank God the house had Direct TV, I Had'nt’t watched TV in over a week. I surfed the Internet and caught up on the news. Is Ken Lay really dead? I say check the DNA of who ever is in that coffin. Headed back to the city on Thursday to deal with my whole cell phone issue (Lost on Friday, IN THE WASH on Sunday).
Friday – Sunday. Back at the Pines, but this time at a different house. I slept from midnight Friday till 1pm on Saturday. Once again, amazing how well and long I can sleep with the right COMFORTer. My hosts for the weekend were amazing. Thanks guys! Sunday night we headed back to the city and went straight to the Eagle. We thought we would be alone since everyone was in P-Town, WRONG! It turned out to be a random, fun filled night (influenced by shots of Jagermesiter). I need to copyright the phase “Ifetch.”
All in all, the week was good. I have a great tan and actually dropped some pounds (even better considering all the consumption of cake, booze and E Coli). Wait, maybe the E Coli is how I dropped the pounds?
I flew out to California on Thursday and met Jeff in Orange County. Jeff is the Director of Sales Operations for FormDecor Form Decor "BUT" by night he is a talented artist and craftsman. To see his work visit his website, Alles Designs . Meeting someone after talking to them via phone and email for such an extended of time can be a bit nerve racking. I wasn’t sure how our chemistry would be once we were finally face to face. Once we met at the airport, it was like seeing an old friend. We spent a part of the afternoon walking along the beach and the marina talking about the same stuff we talk about on the phone all week long. It was comforting to know that nothing had changed. Later that night, we stopped by a boutique shop that currently has his work available for sale at the Bungalow Marcasso. The shop is located in a house. The owner had a neat idea of placing all the items for sale in their appropriate location within the house (i.e. the kitchen stuff in the kitchen, dining room stuff in the dining room and so on). Not only does the owner have great taste, the time he spent on the décor and set up of this shop is completely noticeable. I wish him much success.