Strippers!

Letopho posted about his New York trip, and accused me of being "well-adjusted"! That was a first, I think. Despite my well-adjustedness, I still feel like a bit of a gay noob sometimes, and it leads to odd etiquette questions like, is it weird to go to a strip club with your boyfriend?

Miss Manners was not able to answer my question before this past Sunday, where after a rooftop dinner shared with our friend, with much wine, and other intoxicants, we decided it would be a good idea to check out a strip club. As you can infer from the types of places I dragged Letopho to on his New York tour, despite being generally a good girl, I have a weakness for the really seedy gay bars, go-go boys and the like, but I had never been to a gay male strip club! I have actually been to most straight strip clubs in the city, both from my awkward closeted days, but even afterwards, for friends' birthday parties, bachelor parties, and even a pretty well respected steakhouse/strip club here in New York that was quite an odd experience. I have not had occassion to go to a gay strip club, mostly because there aren't any. There are some venues that do individual nights as a male cabaret, but they're not on odd days, and I had never had the opportunity to check them out. In either case, I figured it was time to lose my gay strip club cherry and check out Le Boyz. I found this flyer here:

And we headed over. Now a few things to note about our experience at this particular club. First things first- everything on that flyer is pretty much a lie. When we got to the door, they were trying to charge us cover, but I showed them the flyer that says "Free Admission". This caused a ridiculous commotion and they had to call 2 people at the door before they grudgingly let us in, and we found that the place was pretty empty, at about 11pm. I don't know if we were too early or too late or whatever, but there were only about 4 strippers in the whole place, of varying quality. The second lie is that the strippers were pretty much nothing like the guys on that flyer, but that's probably pretty common.
As our eyes adjusted to the dim basement, we found that it was not at all like the strip club experience I was expecting. There was no stage show or anything, and it was really just strippers in their underwear walking up to you and aggressively propositioning you for a lapdance, often pulling down their underwear to flash a seemingly unending schlong. These "lapdances" occurred in the corner but in plain sight of the whole room and from where I saw looked less like what I was expecting, and more like grinding their crotch into your face. I definitely got the feeling that this situation could have escalated to more for more money, but it felt really... uncomfortable. It's not JUST because I was there with my boyfriend, but also just it wasn't what I was expecting. I would have liked a stage where I could stuff dollars in a guy's g-string, or maybe a more artistic lapdance, where you're not allowed or expected to grope and lick the dancers.
In either case, despite our initial uncomfortability, we got a little more relaxed when more people showed up, and just like us, for the most part, they just ignored the dancers and treated the place as a normal gay club. We spotted what we believed to be a drag house meeting, where they were all trading some sick moves, and we did our own dancing by the bar and it ended up being a lot of fun, just the three of us.
I wouldn't go back for the Le Boyz event though. Just wasn't a fan of the set up, the door attitude, or the massive hangover on Monday morning...

Gym, Marriage Equality

Been on a bit of a gym kick lately, maybe cause it's nice out, and maybe because I want to go back to that nude beach soon! In addition to going to yoga once or twice, I've started doing some circuit training on weekends. It's from the Men's Health "Jason Statham" workout (pictured above)... Mmmm.


I was hoping to go yesterday and today, but I keep getting roped into the Marriage Equality NY phonebanks, which are right by my work, and it does seem more important than ever to go to and help out. I've been doing that for a few weeks now. We call registered democrats in the districts of undecided NY state senators, and urge them to leave voicemails for their senator in support of gay marriage.

It's a little scary to cold call potentially unfriendly people in upstate new york, but it is nice to be a part of something like this, and I really hope it works out.

What a difference a day makes

The view from my balcony on Sunday:


The view from my balcony on Monday:


Ok, I know I'm the worst blogger in the world, because I haven't been, um, blogging. I wish I could say I've been too busy, but with all the national coverage this snowstorm in nyc has been getting you'd probably figure out that's not true. I've been holed up in my apartment for 3 days, working from home. I only left to drop off drycleaning, which was only across the street, and even that took about 10 minutes just to cross the crazy mountains of snow outside.

So things have been good. My parents included Chris on our family's Christmas card, which was unexpected to say the least. I didn't get to go home for the holidays because I was working, and flights were crazy expensive (and it's just as well that I didn't because I'd probably be stuck in a layover in Denver right now). I did get to skype with them, but it wasn't quite the same- I think I'll try to go back and visit early next year.

Chris and I have been cooking a ton. Mostly cold weather stuff.

He gave me a better Christmas gift than I gave him. Argh.

The thing is, with gay couples that live together, I'm pretty sure that both people get the same amount of use out of any gift item. Example, last year I gave him a North Face jacket that I wear all the time too. He got me a cast iron dutch oven that we both use to cook (and is amazing, for anyone who is debating getting one).

Sorry this post is so late and so boring. I'm really thinking of changing up this blog, maybe freezing this one and moving to tumblr or some new format just to change it up a little... I really loved this format, but I don't feel like I'm in the same place that I was 2 years ago when I started it, and maybe it's time for something completely different...

New Hood, New Gym

New Hood!

So when Chris and I moved in together, we actually moved into a new neighborhood. I'm now in the East Village. That means that pretty much everything about this blog is outdated now. I'm no longer in Chelsea; I don't feel like such a noob anymore; I'm out; and I'm already 30. I guess I should update the sidebar at some point but I'm lazy.

New Gym!

So I recently joined a new gym too, David Barton. For those of you who don't know David Barton, they have clients like Anderson Cooper and ads like this:
Did I mention their motto is "Look Good Naked"?

Basically they blatantly cater to the gay clientele. These are the only yoga classes you'll ever see that are 12 guys and 1 girl. It's pretty hilarious. But the gym is really nice, and the yoga instructors and most of the gym bunnies are nice eye candy. I know it's shallow, but I like going to gyms with pretty men in them. For one thing, you get motivated when you see someone with really nice arms or something, and also it gives you something to look at so you don't get bored.
So I've been trying to go to yoga twice a week, and also some of the group fitness classes. These are kind of like indoor boot camp classes. I did one a few weeks ago called "Guns" that was just really intense interval training with dumbell arm workouts. This past weekend I did one called "Rope Burn" that was a jumprope class with interval workouts; that one kicked my ass. It still hurts to go down stairs. I still made it to my yoga class, but it was pain.

I feel like i'm making huge progress though! Maybe its the lighting in the yoga studio, but my arms look huge doing some of the poses. I'm also SOOO close to being able to do a forearm stand. I really think I'm gonna get it within the next two weeks if I can stick with it.

The goal of course, is to go back to the nude beach looking my best. "Look Good Naked" indeed.

Last post for the night I think

So I think I've read through like a hundred blogs tonight, and it's so unbelievably comforting to hear other people verbalize the fears and assumptions and all my stupid shit that is flying through my head right now. I have so much I want to put down here and don't even know where to start.

On Having The Revelation
I don't know if everyone has this moment, but I had a moment on my birthday at the end of last year where it hit me that I have to come out, I have to fix my life. The revelation came as a result of a bunch of factors. Cue a list (geez I think I have a list addiction):

First, I'm at that age where my really close friends are all getting married, and it's not about me worried about being lonely so much, as me seeing two people genuinely in love; I think a long part of my delay comes from a deep-seated cynicism that is kind of par for the course in New York. I don't know if I actually believed in love, but I think I'm starting to come around to it...

Second, my Grandmother is really sick; to be honest I think she has only months to live. She had a stroke last year and can't really talk anymore, but I had a moment when I was visiting her in the hospital right after New Year's, and she held my hand and was trying to tell me something. I still don't know what that is, but everything about it was screaming to me that I had to fix my life right then and there.

On Coming Out
So I haven't come out to anyone yet, but there was a moment after Christmas where I almost came out to my Dad. As I mentioned before, after visiting my Grandmother in the hospital, I was completely overcome with emotion. My Dad was driving me back and I completely burst in to tears. I had the strangest sensation that I had to tell him everything right then and there, but I held my tongue. I don't know if this was a complete copout, but I was second guessing myself, and of course I was terrified, but I also didn't want to bypass my grief for my Grandmother by bringing other stuff into the mix. I dunno, it was a strange moment for me.

On Meeting Guys
Well, I always feel shallow when I talk about this kind of stuff, especially after the heavier stuff early in the post, but since I guess my attraction to guys is at the very core of this entire thing, I guess it's relevant.

So my one experience at a gay bar before "The Revelation" was in Austria last year. I was there by myself, and decided for my vacation I'd be true to myself and visit some of the gay bars there. Now, being temporarily out on a vacation is kind of terrifying in dimensions I hadn't even anticipated, the first being the language barrier of course, and the second being general touristy fears of shady characters. Still, I was pretty lucky cause in the very first bar I went to (Village Bar), I found some British and Australian expats who were all totally friendly and cool, and became my impromptu gay guides for the night. We ended up at this terrible club with awful music and horrible lights (it was called "Why Not") and it was honestly the most fun I've had in years. We spent the whole night drinking, making friends, talking to a few guys, and it was just an amazing experience. I have to think this was probably one of the most positive experiences I can attribute toward making my decision, so I guess it's not all just fear and anxiety.

I went to G Lounge in Chelsea on Friday for the first time, even though I've walked by it for years and always been curious. While it was definitely more stressful than my Austria trip, it was still exciting to be putting myself out there finally after obsessing about it for so long. I talked to this really cute guy in line, and I probably sounded completely high because I was so anxious, but he was a good sport about it, and we just shot the shit for a while and talked about other gay bars. Inside the bar, I had this strange feeling that this one guy was checking me out, so I went up to talk to him, and he gave me this attitude-face, so... I guess I was wrong there. Oh well. I was kind of mortified, and pretty drunk at this point, so I was planning on turning tail and getting out of there, but then these two really cute black guys (JJ and Shane? I think were their names) beckoned me over, and we started talking and talking; I didn't mention the whole newly coming out thing cause I wanted to sound kind of worldly, does that make me lame? Anyway, they were in a relationship together, and SUPER YOUNG (I don't think they were actually 21), but they were just awesome people to talk to and it was just great to have a real conversation for once, yknow? I should have probably exchanged e-mails or phone numbers, but oh well.

After that night out I think I'm going to try to be a little more proactive in planning to meet people, both to expand my network of gay friends, and to meet guys. I like computers, so I think I'm gonna be more bold in using tools like twitter and this blog to find places to go. I'm also gonna try one of those online dating sites. I'm kinda nervous about the traditional sites (like, here's my picture and my info, message me if you like me), as I'm not out to my friends yet, and it's just scary to think that that information would be floating out there, but I think I'd be comfortable doing one of those online speed dating sites. Is that crazy? Anyone have any recommendations?

A Billion Questions Unanswered
There's still so much I can't visualize about this process, but the blog is helping, I think.

A Todo List

OK, because I'm completely neurotic, and this is how I function, here is a list of the things I need to do this year, in no particular order.

- Come out to Family
- Come out to Friends
- Come out to old friends (?)
- Expand my network of gay friends in NYC
- Meet guys

Right now, I have no idea how to do any of them, but writing them down somewhere is feeling like it's helping.

I guess I am making some progress on those last two fronts. I am starting to create profiles on popular gay social networks. I'm still kind of unsure of how much info I'm willing to put on there until I come out to my family and friends. God I'm such a chicken shit.

As for meeting guys, I went to a gay bar near me, G-Lounge, on Friday Night. The crowd isn't too old or young, but just about right for me; there are quite a lot of hot guys there. The thing is I just feel completely nervous there. I just have no idea how to do this. God I'm such a chicken shit.

I may try online speed dating. When all else fails, I expect my complete and total faith in technology to save me.