The (Lack Of) Rhythm Is Gonna Get You

 For more than a year, my social life has consisted almost entirely of mouthing "thank you!" and waving through a window at delivery people leaving near daily Amazon care packages on the front steps. As human contact goes, it is extremely unsatisfying  but then again, every day is in the manner of Christmas morning. Let's face it. In some ways, pandemic living is literally the gift we give ourselves. 

So it's some shit that after staring at a social calendar as empty as the calories in my diet I had two things to do on one night. First, a Zoom pride party for the show and then a birthday party for old friends. The Zoom was planned weeks ago when life was still more shut down. An opportunity to have a virtual celebration for those who didn't have anywhere in-person to celebrate. But now everyone is very "pandemic who?" and by the time Friday rolled around, it felt like the last Zoom ever. It's possible we turned the lights off by request as we were the last to exit. 

Code switching from virtual to IRL, I dashed a few blocks away to a gorgeous apartment in Hell's Kitchen where the birthday party was to be held. That I was instantly flummoxed and incapacitated by the intricacies of the auto entry system should have been my first warning of what was to come. In my defense, it told me to enter the apartment number into the keypad but I was going to the numberless penthouse! Fortunately, two nice, possibly already somewhat intoxicated people, Michael and Brandy, arrived right behind me and Michael, not taking my body blocking of the keypad for an answer was already on the phone to the host demanding in his best Albert Finney that the door be opened. 

"Open That Penthouse!"

Normally for me, circles one through seven of Hell are all the same: attending a birthday party where the celebrant is the only person you know. But in this case, it wasn't just Matt Kugelman and his side by side birthday pal Roy Haylock (aka Bianca del Rio) that I knew. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise that as I made my way through the party, every few minutes someone would call out my name and I would be instantly reconnected with someone I hadn't seen in years. Michael Lee! Even Chris Crisco, our former intern, who I thought was still down in Mexico. But I guess now, like the swallows returning to Capistrano, their gay counterparts have made their way back to midtown. 

The stars only come out at night

I spent some time checking in again and again with Matt's mom, who is a very sweet woman I have met numerous times on her many visits to the city and whose best gay party trick is her ability to tell you everything she is thinking after a single glass of Chardonnay. But she was largely tended to by Bobby of Denver who I trust was Good People, because that was printed on his tee shirt and you know how susceptible I am to advertising. 

But the good people I spent the most time talking to was Chris, who was handsome and looked familiar. At first I thought I had just met him before which in gay circles is always possible. But later I realized that it is infinitely more likely that I saw him recently on television. Because TV is more real to me than real life, I frequently see people out and about and think we went to high school together and it turns out to be Ryan Gosling getting a double shot at Starbucks. 

Chris and I were having a great conversation. Nothing like two people who interview others for a living to keep the banter going. We covered all my best subjects from Room Rater to eating at Wendy's to falling down a ski slope. I felt like a Jeopardy champion confidently clearing categories. But then I realized I was getting short on time. The trains stop running at a certain point and as usual I have no sense of time passing so I unforgivably rudely pulled out my phone to check the time. Ten to Midnight, like the awful Charles Bronson movie with the hot naked serial killer in it. Time to go. 

I made my abrupt, nearly mid-sentence good byes to Chris and dashed off into the party to find Roy and Matt to tell them I was leaving. When I had arrived earlier Roy joked that we had to take a picture fast because I would be leaving in twenty minutes. This is a running gag for us after years of me hanging out after my show at one of Roy's bar nights and then leaving the moment that he said he was about to hit the stage. But in my defense, his show would always start at 1am and my last train leaves at 1:50am. I can't alter time. Or can I?

Running into Michael and Brandy to create bookends for the evening, I explained I had to go and then made a big show of checking the train times on my phone. After all, the MTA has a habit of changing schedules around in unusual circumstances like pandemics and I didn't want to be off by thirty minutes. But when I opened the train time app, the schedule was blank. No more trains tonight. I had missed the last train! When I told Roy he rightly howled with laughter. After so many years of choosing the train over the party, I finally chose the party and missed the train. 

Matt made a very kind gesture offering that I could stay with him, even though his entire family was already splayed out Walton Mountain style on air mattresses in every nook and cranny of his new apartment. No No, Good Night Matt Boy, I insisted, I will just stay at my office and catch an early train back. But then after I left I realized I didn't want to catch the side eye from our building super who is very nosy about these things and decided to just check into a hotel instead. 

So roomy I could almost extend both my arms

So there I was, after 1am, no luggage, checking into the Club Quarters Times Square. No one to blame but myself I thought. The world has changed and as usual I refused to double check reality. It's been 20 years since I left LA, and I still never check the weather before I leave the house. So as I settled into my room, I decided to check what time the first trains would be leaving in the morning, so I could get back ASAP. My town doesn't allow overnight parking in the lots so I didn't want to add a parking ticket or tow to my already luxurious hotel bill. 

Open the train time app and there it is. Next train: 1:50am. 

It was 1:45am. I was stripped down to my underwear in a prepaid, non-refundable hotel room, more than five minutes but not much more than five minutes away from Grand Central Terminal. I had screwed myself. The train time app lists all trains by date so when I looked at the app at 11:50pm there were no more trains for Friday but if I had thought to look at Saturday which it technically was ten minutes later or had looked at the app at 12:01am instead, I would have seen I still had two trains to go. Just like always.

So it was my own dumb fault but in my defense, aren't we all a little out of sync? The world has changed, but also stayed the same, and how are we supposed to know which is which. I thought the most difficult thing would be the part where I had to talk to strangers, up close and in person. But instead, I was totally confident and at ease around people again, not just like nothing had happened, but like the after scenes in an anxiety medication commercial. "Look at me, full of life at this party now that all the medication in this ad has made me normal!" But I am clearly not normal. What a mess. Just when I think I have it all together, it all falls apart in my hands. 

The more things change, the more I stay exactly the same.