Welcome me back!

by snaggle at 07:34 PM on May 13, 2001

Here's a piece of advice for all of you: never let anyone convince you that going to New York City, via car, from Iowa, is a good idea.

It actually wasn't all that bad. We drove, eleven students and two art history professors, together in a university van all that time, straight through, stopping now and then for food and relieving of bladders and such. It took about 30 hours or so each way. Definately an interesting time... we all bonded quite a bit, mostly in a good way.

However, now I am back in Iowa. Sigh. It was great to have not just one but two instances of love from mg and Lilly. Just think, if Lilly actually posted her feelings, it warms my heart to think of how many more of you felt as strongly as she did but couldn't bring yourselves to expose your bare heart and render up your feelings for me to the cold internet for all to see. You may, however, drop me a line to let me know how much you missed me.

I love New York City, center of the universe. Okay, I know it's not the center of the universe, but it's pretty darned close for a person like me. This was my third time in New York sans parents (spacy art history profs don't count) and it was absolutely great, even though I started off the time exhausted. I'll share with you an interesting anecdote about the night I got to see mg, to which he has already alluded. (I called dibs on writing about this.) Don't worry, I'll correct all of mg's grammatical and spelling mistakes when I'm done.

On Thursday night, a couple of us kids from Iowa met up with a few of my friends who live in New York and went out to a little gay bar called Posh, not too far away from Broadway and Times Square and all the Broadway theatres. There were six of us to begin with: five gayboys and one straight girl. We all gathered on or around a single couch, since there wasn't much room. Not long after we got there (about half a beer to be precise), a man came up to our cozy group and proclaimed, "My boyfriend thinks you all are so cute that he's making me buy you all drinks." Thus, we made the acquaintance of a mid-30s-or-40s gay couple who then proceeded to be our sugar daddies for the night. I'll be honest that I don't quite remember their names (reason for that to follow) so we'll call them Steve and John.

After a round, mg met us there. (I didn't know when we'd made plans that it was a gay bar and so I didn't warn him about it, but he was just fine with it. We love allies like him.) When he walked in, Steve offered him a drink. It was starting to become evident to us that they weren't just buying us one round — they were buying our drinks the whole night.

Score.

I'm not used to having people buy me drinks. I think a good part of the reason for that is that I'm never at bars. I think a good part of the reason for that is that I won't be 21 until next month, and they're very anal about IDing people here in Iowa. But that's a gripe for another day.

Anyway, after about five Stoli & 7Ups it became evident that our two suppliers of booze weren't just being friendly; they not-so-subtly propositioned one of my friends for "a little fun." Around that time (which was at least a couple hours after our arrival) we chose to make a graceful exit. I learned later that my friend Robert had been accompanying the guys back to the bar and watched the bartender pour every drink to make sure we didn't end up getting more than we bargained for. Leave it to Robert to take care of us all to make sure we didn't get collectively date-raped. That would have been bad.

After that fun, we stumbled back to Robert's where I drank two Sam Adam's Cherry Wheats (a delightful brew that mg first introduced me to) on top of everything that I'd imbibed at Posh (not that I'm a lush or anything) and had a delightful chuckle about how we left our would-be ménage à sept partners high and dry. I then proceeded to forget numerous details about the night.

Moral of the story: if someone offers you free drinks, milk it for all it's worth, but don't give them sex — unless, of course, that's what you're looking for.