brud to the blain

I'm having a watermelon smoothie. I'm trying to use up the leftovers from the potluck I had a couple of nights ago. Earlier today I made myself an arugula, black olive, feta omelet with white wine (I put the wine in the omelet, I didn't have a glass on the side!). The eggs and the feta were the only ingredients that weren't leftovers from the party.

My friend M is going on a four-month performing road trip (her myspace page) and I suggested a going-away party. She said that two of her girlfriend's birthdays were on the same night, so it became a bigger party than that. It wasn't out of control, though someone showed up with a standard sized poodle and freaked out my cat (or maybe it was just me!)

I made a salade niçoise from my favorite and most used cookbook (Nikki & David Goldbeck's American Wholefoods Cuisine), and I made my Aunt Melba's Dream Chocolate Cake with black onyx dutch process cocoa S and I get from a little spice shop in Denver, Colorado (we order it); it made the cake and icing so black that I wanted to put yellow stripes down the middle of it (longways) to make it look like a piece of highway; I mentioned this to P when she called to ask if I needed anything for the party; I told her birthday candles. She brought candles and a can of yellow icing! It looked cool. She also brought a bottle of Prosecco to celebrate finding out that she had gotten a full-time job that day. She came a little early, and so did A (who also brought a celebratory bottle of pink Prosecco -- or maybe it was P who brought the pink; anyway there was a bottle of white and a bottle of pink) and the three of us had a toast and a nice quite conversation until guests started arriving.

B came late and stayed late-late. He and I were sitting on the front porch drinking beer and talking until 3 a.m. It was nice (it was nice to have started and ended the party in the same way, having a nice conversation with friends). B is one of those guys from the Dance Group I attend on whom I once upon a time had a crush. (Okay, maybe I still do.) He knows this. He's straight, as are the majority of the men who go to the Dance, though they seem to be mostly in touch with their feminine sides -- which is sometimes confusing for a homo like me.

B and I found out we have a similarity in our lives: religion. He was raised Jehovah's Witness; I was raised Assembly of God. We both got out of it at about the same age (though he's nineteen years younger than me), but for some reason he seemed to fare better in the aftermath. Not that I'm totally fucked up, but I think I'm a lot more neurotic. Probably the homo-factor.

The conversation came around to that, to my fears about peoples' perceptions of me, about being judged for being gay and therefore not wanting to let too much of myself out. B encouraged me to be who I am (which sounds cliché, and those weren't the words he used), said that being my more authentic self would allow me to have deeper relationships with others, not just in Dance, but in the world in general. I know that's true. I asked him if he ever saw a woman across the dance floor and had a sexual thought about her. He said yes. I was glad to hear that because it seemed to give me permission of some sort. I told him that I have to hold myself back, though, because I have the urge to go sit in somebody's lap or kiss them... He said, "How funny would it be to go up to somebody and say, 'I wanna sit in your lap!" I guess it's the kind of group that could handle that sort of a thing. But I'm a'scared. I've got this self-defeating thing about not wanting push myself, my style onto people, holding back, not wanting to be a big fairy, not wanting to be a faggot, not wanting to be the labels I was given back in the painful days of my youth...the scars are deep.

Last night, I went to Dance because B was facilitating for the first time (the warm-up, another person facilitated the bulk of the night). I had a great dance. It was wild and I felt really connected to myself, to my past. I felt wide open. At closing circle, inspired by what B and I had talked about the night before, I said: "Some of you may wonder why I'm such a great dancer." (giggles) "Well, from the eighth grade to the 12th grade, I was ostracized by my schoolmates; I was having a hard time coming to terms with the religion I was being raised in; I was having a hard time dealing with my sexuality, with being different from everybody else. But when I went to school dances, I shone." It felt good to say that, and when I thanked B for allowing me to be neurotic and always being encouraging, he said he was happy to hear me speaking. He asked how it was for me. I admitted when I got to the part about SEXUALITY my throat started closing up and my heart was racing. Interesting to notice.

I've got to get ready to go to yoga now. I'm still not sure -- and am very intrigued -- by my very handsome and sexy (and presumably straight) yoga teacher. I get a strong sense that he is flirting with me. I don't know if he knows that I'm gay, but I am very titillated by the things he does for me and to me, holding me, touching me, placing his front on my back when I'm bent over, tapping on my thighs... We're in the middle of a room of women, so it's not like he's making the moves on me, he does these same things with them, but there's something going on, there's an energy; I don't think it's just me. Thump-thump, thump-thump; man, I love yoga! And I love crushes, especially reciprocal ones!