all gayed out

I'm EXHAUSTED! I have socialized more (and slept less) in the past 72 hours than I ever thought possible.

When last I visited the blogosphere, yesterday afternoon, I'd been laying in bed all day after waking (after only five hours of sleep) at 6am and not being able to fall back asleep. I spent most of the day like Jabba the Hut, laying in the bed and grunting, only I didn't have any minions around to bring me food and entertain me.

Then, out of the clear blue sky, my friend Dr. Dutch called me up and invited me to hang out. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to drag my lazy ass out of the bed, but I managed ok and by 5:30pm I was on her doorstep (showered and everything) and ready to walk off to Sushi Mio. Good food, good conversation and a great walk through the hood after, just chatting away. She's one of my oldest Portland friends and I love our connection. No matter how long we go between hang-outs, there's always a real love and appreciation between us when we get together. And I like that in a friend.

After we parted company at 7:30, I realized I was no longer totally lethargic but I was, in fact, totally INVIGORATED! Which felt great. So I drove home and checked the Lesbian Breakfast Club itinerary to see what was up for Saturday night. Turned out there was a lesbian dance at a venue right here in my neighborhood. How could I pass that up?

I got myself ready and just before I left, I called one of the Breakfasters (Claire) for an idea what the plan among them was. I was fully ready to go alone, but if they were going, I wanted to check it out and hook up with them. She told me they were meeting at this "pre-party" and then heading over to the dance. I was a little hesitant to go to a pre-party I hadn't been officially invited to, but I trusted my second-hand invite and knew it would be much easier to find these virtual strangers at a pre-party than at the venue itself, so I told her I'd be there.

It turned out to be less of a "pre-party" and more of a "rugby party" for all these rugby playing dykes. The woman from the Breakfast Club who had freely doled out the invitations wasn't even there yet and all the rugby dykes, nice as they were, looked at us a little askance as we were very obviously crashing their party.

Fortunately, that didn't last long. There were rumors that the dance was sold out, so Claire and I volunteered to pop over to the venue (The Wonder Ballroom) to get in line for the group. Turned out there wasn't much of a line and it wasn't sold out. In line, I ran into my friend Kristin from school, in whose lovely attic many of my early blogposts were written right after I left CB and wound up crashing with people for awhile.

It was great to see her, and especially weird since her girlfriend is a rugby player, and as soon as the rugby party showed up, we all ended up lumped into one big group. Small world. The dance was so fun. It was a huge ballroom, dark and totally packed with women. WALL TO WALL. The play by play details are boring, just know that I had SO MUCH FUN and danced for almost two hours straight w/o a break. Unreal. I haven't danced in so long, I can't even remember the last time. It was great. And the best part of all, I only drank one beer all night! I didn't even *want* more, I was just so naturally happy, I didn't need a buzz to loosen up and dance. It was a moment of personal achievement for me, I assure you.

The main attraction last night was a white-dyke hip-hop duo called God-dess and She. If you watch The L Word, they're the chicks who peformed as Shane's "surprise" at the bachelor party before her debacle of a wedding. They were ok, that style of music doesn't much appeal to me, but everybody enjoyed it and it didn't stop me from dancing.

Finally, around 12:30 my friend Kristin tapped me on the shoulder and said they were heading out. I decided to go too 'cause I had an early morning scheduled. I got home at 1am, drenched with sweat and wrecked from all the dancing. But fortunately, not drunk and with no danger of a hangover next morning. Yay!

I slept ok and got up bright and early this morning, hopped in the shower, blah blah, and headed off to Mother's Bistro to meet the Breakfast Club for the pre-pride breakfast. That was fun too. New women in addition to those at the Hobo's dinner, all just as friendly and welcoming as before. Lots and lots of good chit chat and lots of laughter again. Then we all trecked over to the parade route and scouted out a good spot to watch.

That's where the weekend starts to peter out. The parade itself is always sort of interesting, but never all that spectacular, and then you walk down to the festival on the waterfront and that's just a total anticlimax. Oh well. I still had fun with the Breakfast Club chicks and all that, but pretty soon I started feeling soooooooo tired from days of sleep deprivation and a long night of dancing like a crazy-person, so I left the crew and headed home around 3. Then I took a nap. And that was awesome.

Now I'm cooking dinner and preparing to watch some more dvds to round out my weekend. Gay time is over now and tomorrow I'll go back into the regular world 'till gay time rolls around again next year. Yay for gay time!