"Knight's an energetic cocksucker and Armstrong's clearly defined balls cling close to his body in their tight sack during the lick."
It's a little surreal. It's Saturday, we are all sunbaked and shell shocked from the street fair, and we've stopped off at my apartment just to gather back together and regroup for whatever night brings. karma debt giggling voice rings out over my living room, having grabbed the local free gay entertainment guide's porn review article and reading it now outloud. "Wow. Straight porn reviews aren't anywhere near this graphic," someone chimes in from the couch. I can't remember who. I just giggle and smile. These are the little tiny moments -- these five minute asides, sometimes sweet, sometimes absurd -- that sparkle in the afterglow.
But I'm getting ahead of myself...
It was Friday around 5 pm. I was lost. Go me? Hometown advantage and all, yet when the time comes, I've managed to get completely mixed up. Chicago's perfect grid usually doesn't betray me like this, but we're here at the corner of 4000 and 4000 -- all the addresses are the same and I don't know the Northwest side of Chicago. I'm running late and it's already been a long frustrating week full of overtime and fevers. Even today, I ended up leaving work at 4 when I had asked for a 1/2 day. I needed very badly to have a good weekend.
Finally, after walking about 5 blocks more than I needed, I stumble up to vanderwal's C!'d apartment, climb up, and sink into a seat. It's a nice place -- warm and full of character with two cats of opposite demeanors. The brown one walked up and demanded to be pet, but only in the way that it wanted (cheek to back to tail, incidentally). The other, a fuzzy orange blob, just napped lazily in the filtered sun coming in through the window.
I was first to arrive, but it wasn't too long before a few others started arriving. Few by few we settled onto the deck in the back -- the place that would become the centerpiece of the weekend -- and sipped the moon out of it's daytime hiding place. As day left and night went on, we teased, we joked, we talked seriously (but mostly not)... It was comfortable basking in the glow of new friends that have felt like they've been there forever (and those that really are starting to actually be that).
What occurred on Saturday was possible the gayest thing ever to happen at a Nodermeet. It should therefore not be a surprising thing that we were swallowing sausages for brunch. 2 o'clock had found us at Hot Doug's, a self-preported "encased meat emporium." The line was out the door around the corner when we arrived, Saturday apparently being a big day for hot dogs in Chicago. It was no surprise why there was a crowd with such delicacies as fries made with rendered duck fat and hot dogs made with pheasant lined up against old favorites like traditional brats and red hots. Most of the people new to town had a taste of the traditional Chicago dog, the miniature salad on top balancing precariously, while others tried some of the more esoteric or fancier things. It was an enjoyable divey place -- small but worth it.
I had mentioned to vanderwal that the weekend also happened to hold Chicago's largest street fair: Market Days. Taking place on N Halstead, between Belmont and Addison, Market Days is one of the big events of the end of summer in Chicago. It also happens to be one of the Gayest events in the city outside of the Pride Parade. Not that it would usually be a bad thing, save the fact that the oncoming hordes of scantily clad gay men left little room for anything else.
I'd only been to the fair before in off hours, but as soon as we stepped through the gates, it occurred to me that perhaps I'd made a bad suggestion. People were packed back to back in varying states of undress, the uniform du jour seemed to be a pair of speedo briefs and tennis shoes. Squeezing our way through leather daddies and drunken twinks, we ended up rushing through the fair as if it was some sort of rainbow gauntlet of doom. Someone cried shortly after leaving, "I had no where to look. There was just man-flesh everywhere..." The shock would have been equal had we just pressed ourselves through any other mostly naked crowd of people. Still, it was fun to point out that this was really really gay.
[insert porn review escapdes here. add splitting of groups -- one back to vanderwal's and one to the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge]
"All I really want and
is to bring out the best and worst of you"
-Karrin Allyson
I ended up ripping out the last few blank pages out of my mini-notebook. The rule for the evening was no talking while the pretty lady sang. If we were to have words, they'd be with Big Al, the large guy at the door with the mustache. I'd seen Big Al a million times - I come to the Mill all the time and walk past it even more since it's less than a block from my place. Tonight was the first night I knew him as "Big Al," but his loss of nameless bouncer status had more to do with BrooksMarlin then it did with this announcement.
"Paulie," BrooksMarlin's cousin (incidentally, the owner of the club) said, the thick tones of a heavy Chicago accent dripping from his words, "this is Big Al. Big Al, this is Paulie." We were sitting in the Capone booth -- in this case a literal label rather than a cutsey name, the Green Mill being one of the oldest continuely running jazz clubs in the US -- and with it's prohibition, speakeasy feel, this scene was, as Ysardo said, "straight out of a movie."
This was that sort of night.
None of us knew who Karrin Allyson, but by the end of then night, none of us would ever forget her. Even without the threat of Big Al, I don't think any of us would have broke the hush her voice placed on the crowd. It was a sort of velvet smooth that rocked us into this awed silence. Smiles crept across our faces as we passed notes, back and forth... I don't remember all that was said, I just know that they ranged from the silly, to the sweet, to the things that made me feel something strong...
I've lost those few hours now in a haze -- libations at my lips, music in my soul. We settled into the smoky room, and we sipped and took in all of it, or at least tried to. I think, though, that I'd rather not have them back. I'm happy with the a murky memory of such a demurely wonderful time.
We slammed ourselves into the booth a little later, the group reforming at the Golden Apple, just one of those late night diners that you end up at on late nights after many drinks with many friends. We feasted on that wonderful mix of coffee that only a diner can make and breakfast food flipped onto the darkside of the morning hours. We were all smiles, all around, and there was a peace in the chaos of conversation and passing food. Potato pancakes can leave a memory if you let them.
From there, we melted again into a night on the porch, cards flying as fast as the conversation. I ended up crashing on the couch, the long bus ride home too much for me that night....
Things lingered on Sunday... people peeled away one by one, each with goodbyes. We end with one last introduction on the border of Uptown and Lakeview - a Mexican brunch. One last coming together before the winds blew us apart again.