Ben There, Done That

There I was, shivering as the icy wind kicked up off the East River. It’s night in DUMBO and I am in line outside the Galapagos Art Space. I have been here so many times that I can’t possibly recall them all, but I do know that I have never waited in this long of a line before.

"Here we go again. Out at another gay bar."

Apparently the two guys standing behind me were straight (in Brooklyn it can be very hard to tell) and even stranger, one of them was clearly reading my mind. But while they hurriedly texted their friend Rachel, hoping she was already inside, I waited impatiently as the time dwindled away. With the new hours of my show and the rigidity of the Metro North train schedule, I don’t have time to sit idly by on Grindr chatting with Mr. Easy-On-The-Eyes-Even-Though-Mine-Are-Rolling-From-Annoyance. For this latest adventure, I had literally fifteen minutes and the thought of spending all of them in line to get into a club was not my idea of fun. 

My Submission To DouchebagsOfGrindr.com

The occasion was the third anniversary of Ben Harvey’s smash hit GUMBO party. Fittingly, this was my third time seeing Ben this week and my second night in a row out on the town with him. Last night, I was his ad hoc plus one for the Out 100 party at Milk Studios down in the Meatpacking District. If you are keeping kosher, you know Milk and Meatpacking should not mix and in this case you are right. The crowd was lively but the venue was too small.

Birth Of Elation

Birthday parties are for kids young enough to still count their years in fractions and the super elderly where each passing year is nothing short of a miracle. For the rest of us, birthdays should be politely ignored. I was slow to come to this realization, like all people do. When I was in my twenties, I didn’t mind having birthday parties at all. I mean, what’s not to love about a room full of people who are there solely for you? But now, birthdays just seem like a rote chore made more unbearable by constant reminders on social networks that every day is some birthday.

Tonight, I took my friend Adam down to the ACE Hotel for Corey Johnson’s 28th birthday party. Adam is visiting from Phoenix this weekend and I was much surprised on Wednesday night when I came home and discovered him propped up in the guest room bed reading his kindle. He is in town this weekend for my annual Cinco de Mayo party which for some reason in that moment I thought was next weekend and not three days from now. It is this kind of constant surprise about my own life that keeps my roommate Mike in a persistent state of agitation.

As soon as we arrived at the ACE on 29th street, we headed downstairs into the basement party room and waited on line at coat check. A nice young lady was working the table and a copy of “The Actor’s Art and Craft” was tossed casually on her chair. An actor prepares… to check your coat. We dropped our bags and started to head in when suddenly I ran right into that guy who insisted that I stop writing about him. I thought he was in Los Angeles! When I asked him if he was leaving already, he looked past me with solid black shark eyes, gave a negative response in a negative way and moved beyond me in every sense of the word. It was a chilly reception with frosty on top.

Inside, the party was jumping and the boys were hot. As I looked around for Corey, Adam asked if the crowd was here just for his birthday or if this was normally a bar. Adam was dutifully impressed when I said they were all just for Corey. “I could fill a room like this too if I wanted,” I said confidently, but that was a lie. I’m that guy still haunted by the accurate portrayal of his childhood in Little Man Tate, where he is cast as the brainy kid with that kind of dyky warrior princess mom (before Xena made it fashionable) and who had a birthday party that no one came to. To this day, every time I throw a party, I believe that no one will come. The moment that invitation goes out I start dreading the whole decision and the misery doesn’t end until the last person goes home. But I keep throwing parties because little kid fears are no excuse for a life half lived.

I didn’t see Corey right away but I did see Andy Towle. Andy is so adorable and I never see him out. He is not a party animal and with his fabulous apartment and smoking hot boyfriend, why would he ever want to go out for anything more than the morning paper and a fresh bagel? Andy was so sweet to me as I gushed about his blog, towleroad.com, which is a twice daily must-read for me, first in the late morning when I wake up and then right before the show for updates and breaking news.

Wandering off to get a drink at the bar we ran into Corey, twirling through the place with a tiara on his head. He was beyond drunk and everyone was grabbing at him like a pair of twenty dollar Ben Sherman jeans at the Barney’s Warehouse Sale. And then in an instant he was gone so we continued on our journey. Near the bar we settled in with Chris (sans Cub) and Henry. I gently ribbed Henry about the recent photos of him on Facebook paying dodge ball. Chris was missing Cub, who was down in Atlantic City headlining a bachelor party weekend for a straight friend.

I fell in love with Cub all over again when Chris told me that Cub is very down on the whole Fire Island business that, as it launches each spring, grips the Manhattan gay scene annually like a toxin. I just don’t understand the notion of going from the island of Manhattan to Long Island by train, transferring once along the way. Then taking a cab to a boat dock where a ferry takes you to an overpriced, deer tick riddled island filled with all the gays you see all week long back in Manhattan. Of course out on Fire Island, you get to see them in unflattering direct sunlight and ill-fitting Speedos while they rant about their housemate who never does dishes and used all their lube without asking.

It was then that Chris got a happy text from Cub that he had located eternal FM radio personality Delilah on his drive down and my love for him faded away. Delilah and her maudlin love songs and dedications from women who pine away for male co-workers who don’t know they exist and prisoners reaching out to touch in a new way those they have stalked is the quintessence of everything I hate about terrestrial radio. Oh well. I guess no one is perfect.

Then again, I started developing my own weird music obsession recently myself. I noticed a few weeks ago that the music at the supermarket was better than it used to be and then I realized, it wasn’t better, I was just older and the music was targeted to me. And then it hit me. That is how everything is now. Everything is made and sold by people my age, so everything in life is now pitched perfectly for me to experience. It is almost like the whole world is created personally for you, which makes all of life feel like Disneyland to a five year old. So growing uglier sucks and suddenly feeling pain in places you never felt before is always a bad omen of things to come, but all of that is masked nicely by the warm comfort of knowing you are the target demo of modern life.

Even though they have longed for an invite to my house, Cub is in Atlantic City and Chris is using the weekend to go down to DC and neither of them will be at my party. Henry is listed on my Facebook invite as a Maybe but I am certain he isn’t coming. I didn’t even bother asking him. Although his boyfriend Dan did tell me tonight how excited he was when he went to fabulis.com and saw me in the top ten. “You’re number five in the world! I can’t believe I know someone ranked so high,” he beamed even though I never got higher than eight. “I’ve slid since then.” I assured him, my rank now hovering at a still impressive 32 though long since overwhelmed by obsessed college kids with nothing to do in their permanent state of unemployment but vote each other up on the list.

However artificial a popularity contest like the Fabulis list is, it does feel good to have so many votes. Sure it isn’t the same as having a house full of people, hearing your favorite song in the cereal aisle or filling a club on your birthday, but these days you have to take your kudos where you can get them.

New Now Next!

Ah limbo! Yes, the Catholic Church abolished it years ago but that doesn’t mean it no longer exists in the world of celebrity. If anything, it is thriving there. Tonight we did a live broadcast from backstage at the New Now Next awards, which will air on LOGO on June 7th. It was a perfect limbo opportunity for us, not really press per se nor celebrity, we got to exist in the nether regions of the media room shuttled off in a dark corner of the MTV studios. We weren’t the only ones in limbo. As I pointed out with my previous GLAAD adventure, there are tiers of celebrity, and once again, we were on the bottom rung.

This is not uncommon for us and it is a fair trade off for the life we get to lead. On the one hand, we are reasonably well known in the rest of America (I was just named Grand Marshall of Indy Pride 2008!), but in New York City, we aren’t even a blip. The upside of this is that we can walk the streets of Manhattan unmolested by fans. The downside of course is that all of the glamorous trappings that would normally come with celebrity (namely invites to fun parties filled with free liquor and other celebrities) constantly elude us. However, in this case, we were able to be reasonably unknown and hang out with celebrities and drink free booze.

The awards themselves I will leave largely shrouded in mystery, lest I give away any winners accidentally. Suffice it to say, it was eerily reminiscent of past MTV events, such as the MTV Movie Awards, which should add a level of familiarity and comfort to viewers even if many of the presenters and winners are as yet unknown to them. This I think is the idea though. It is called New Now Next, with the emphasis on introducing new talent as opposed to rehashing past stars and straight allies, a cornerstone of the high end GLAAD awards for years. I applaud the effort even as I worry the outcome.

Many of my favorite people were there, including the lovely Andy Towle, whose blog I am hopelessly devoted to. We even got him to spend a few minutes on our show, which is a little bit like get later years Howard Hughes to trim his fingernails. Jack Mackenroth was there, along with Kevin Christiana and Christian Siriano from Project Runway. Jack is a ray of bitchy sunshine and pound for muscular pound the best cocktail chatter partner money can buy. I only wish any sliver of our conversation could be repeated in print, but rest assured if Disney’s Lady and the Tramp ever comes to Broadway we could play the Siamese cats, only drunk and real cunty.

Things really moved into high gear once we hit the after party. This is where the other bank of celebrities existed, the bank we would have been with if we hadn’t been live on the radio. LOGO invited two sets of guests: those who would be on the TV show and do that press line and those who would watch from the after party room and do a different press line. Here we found lovely friends like Josh Zuckerman and Keo Nozari, patiently waiting out the evening for everyone else to join them. They spent three hours with the who’s that of New York gay society swilling cocktails and eating pigs in a blanket and mini grilled cheese sandwiches (the hot Hollywood hors d‘oeuvre du jour ten years ago). Later after the on-air celebrities appeared, sushi was thrown into the mix to remind everyone that better people had arrived. There were even two sets of gift bags. Segregation may have been outlawed in the public sphere fifty years ago but it is beloved in entertainment circles.

As the other stars drifted upstairs I finally got some alone time with the fabulous God-des and She, who looked great and were sad that they missed my cinco de mayo party. Michael Carbonaro was there, auditioning for a comic relief role on Mad Men while Peter Stickles stood by, serene and beautiful. His skin was so perfect I wanted to scrape off a sample and send it to a lab to be cloned and then grafted onto my own face. Caroline Rhea who earlier had done the show, still couldn’t get over how much I looked like her gay high school boyfriend. She kept touching me wistfully and then running away.

I thought that would be the weirdest part of the evening until Junior Vasquez’s mega Madonna mix sent a set of avant-garde performers into a frenzy of spontaneous nudity on the stage. At this point, I was standing with Jensen Atwood, who did the show while I was out in Los Angeles two years ago when our mutual friend Ben Patrick Johnson was co-hosting with me. “This is too arty for me.” I said, conscious of my eyes rolling back in my head. “I guess it’s what the kids like.” In my mind, I was already at coat check picking up my bag and backpack.

Security seemed to have the same idea as they sauntered up onto the stage to encourage them to put their clothes back on. But by then it was one a.m., the lights were coming up anyway and the bar was closed. The minute the clothes had come off, the party was definitely over. This may have been LOGO’s hot new edgy award show, a big gay coming out party filled with the gritty vim and verve of downtown Manhattan (aka Amanda Lepore’s fully functioning vagina), but the powers that be didn’t want us to forget for a moment that mama MTV is actively chaperoning this gay adolescent who still has a little more growing up to do.

Claymation

As I write this, it is Clay’s birthday. It was at my suggestion that he came to New York this weekend. I hope he is enjoying himself. At least I know he is making money. I am an extremely lucky person, and the people who are around me tend to have even better luck when they keep me close. What can I say? I make things happen just by being. Some people get scared by this kind of personal magic, but men like Clay relish in it. Every time Clay flies off to see me, he makes money. Unlike Broadway, where I am the kiss of death, elsewhere I am just what it takes to close the deal. So even though Clay’s flight was horribly delayed coming in last night, he did have the satisfaction of knowing that once again, a visit with Derek means a property sold.

I guess there are worse ways to spend your birthday than making money. I spent today covering my dining room and kitchen with primer, in day one of a three day painting process that will soon spin shimmery gold into Sandstone and Windsor Gaze. The bulk of the day was spent putting masking tape in places that hadn’t even been cleaned in the seventeen years preceding when I bought the place. When I say we found a 1968 Swedish quarter under the fridge when we moved it, you should express the same lack of surprise Roommate and I did when it appeared in the dustpan.

I gave myself a Silkwood shower before I left the house but my hands were still doused in white flecks as if I had been soaking it in at the cruel behest of Madge the manicurist. I hate painting for this reason. It is virtually impossible for me to get paint off my hands and it always makes me look unclean in public. I may not wear more than twenty bucks worth of clothing at a time, but I do like to be clean, at the very least. This is especially true when heading off to gay places because our community can be very mean spirited. It is bad enough that I don’t live on the island of Manhattan. One or two other “problems” and one might be banned permanently!

I dropped my hideous free Gay.com backpack at the office and headed off to meet the original Jonathan at Vlada. I had thought about not even bringing a backpack to the city since it is usually such a drag to drag around, but my train ride home is always the best time to blog the night’s adventures. Without my laptop, a perfectly sensational evening could be lost forever. So in compromise, I just ditched the bag at my office. At Vlada, the doorman asked for my ID which caused me to laugh a fake hearty laugh, but secretly I was desperately flattered, especially as I saw him later wave other, younger people in without checking.

Initially, I was alone at the bar which I can’t stand. I feel so self-conscious standing in a lounge like Vlada without anyone with me. As I always do in these situations, I immediately panicked and started running through the bar like Liza Minnelli finishing a box of Girl Scout cookies, desperately picking through the crowd hoping to find a familiar face. Of course my friend Corey Craig was there DJing, as he had been last night at the Chelsea Hotel. We had a nice conversation and then I left him to see if Jonathan or perhaps Clay had arrived yet.

Jonathan finally arrived with his very drunk but still cute friend Will. Will was as buttoned-down and Type A as the last time I saw him at Therapy. In our previous encounter he dodged me because he thought I might be looking for representation, but this time he was too drunk to run. His focus was much dedicated to a cute guy in a red polo shirt standing in the eye of a cluster of equally preppy friends. Will thought he looked familiar but it might have been the five dollar Stoli cocktails that were jogging his memory.

As usual, I was far more courageous in the service of a stranger than I ever am in myself. I walked over to the stranger and told him that my friend Will and I thought he looked familiar but couldn’t quite place him. As soon as I went over to talk to the handsome stranger, Will turned his back and struck up as intense a discussion with Jonathan as anyone has ever seen.

It turns out the stranger was named Kevin, he works at the United Nations and even though it isn’t a requirement of his job, he speaks French. And, since he mentioned it six times, he also lives in New Jersey. Apparently he is quite sensitive about the cruel rejection he gets from picky Manhattan gays. “Well I am sorry I don’t remember you from before,” he told me, “but tell your friend my name is Kevin and I say hi.” A very clear good bye to me and hello to Will, which I promptly delivered to him. Even after that opening he was reluctant to talk to him, but after I had abandoned my cocktail to make small talk with this guy I told Will I was going to kick him in the leg that instant if he didn’t walk over and talk to him. They talked.

Clay had arrived by this point and was having a good time at Vlada. Still hoping to resurrect the planned triumvirate from the previous night that had gone bust, I sent a txt message to Matt to get him to join us at Vlada. He was at G for a split second with Brian, but then headed over to Andy Towle’s apartment, when he was currently trying to get us to go. This intrigued me. I think Andy is awesome and I read his blog every single weekday without fail. He is my primary gay news source. Plus, I saw him the night before in line at the Chelsea Hotel. If I managed to see him twice in one weekend, it would be double the number of times I saw him in 2007. And I was still anxious to at least make out with Brian after being thwarted the night before.

I dragged Clay out of the promising and vibrant scene of Vlada and piled him into a cab to Andy’s apartment. Once we arrived there, it became clear that Matt had created an impromptu party. There I discovered a pair of tall, built, generically attractive gays headed out as we walked in. They had the gentle, easy gaze and gait of giraffes. I only heard one name, promptly forgotten, and off they went like something delicately animalistic from a National Geographic Special, undoubtedly headed two by two to gay Noah’s ark or some happy gay hunting grounds in the Serengeti. Clay also didn’t stay long, wanting to return quickly to Vlada in hopes of recapturing the earlier magic of the evening.

Matt was all kinds of sweet and apologetic which I assumed was based on what he had read in my blog from the previous night. When I presented him with the news that he (and Brian, and Andy for that matter) were already committed to the internet, he exploded into a manic panic. “We’ve already been blogged!” he yelled, tugging on Brian’s sleeve. An ocean of calm, Andy offered me a drink and we settled into a polite conversation in the living room, while Matt and Brian searched the web.

Andy asked me about my blog, which he hadn’t read before, and we talked about moderating comments and what happens to gay men when they turn forty. It was a lovely chat and I wanted to tell Andy that I had recommended him to go on Bill O’Reilly when FOX called our office looking for a guest to discuss Jay Leno and Ryan Phillippe’s gayest look. But that conversation was not to be as Brian settled down next to me, iPhone in hand, to read aloud from my previous blog entry.

I can honestly say that no one is more bored by my writing than I am, and having it read aloud is a special kind of hell. About ten minutes in, Andy pulled out his own iPhone to skip down to the part he was mentioned in. “It’s an epic!” he declared but not in the happy way that a film reviewer might gush about an Oscar contender. Matt was tickled by the whole recounting of events, though Brian was quick to agree with Matt that “no one who doesn’t know us will care about any of this.” Oh contraire!

Everyone seemed to approve of how they were represented in the blog, which didn’t surprise me, though Matt was anxious for a more favorable mention tonight. I like to think that I fairly accurately depict people and events, especially since I usually write it within minutes of it actually happening. Brian was mildly irritated by the word “promise” being associated with him, but I really meant the promise of something between us, forever interrupted by late trains home to the suburbs, not some kind of sunny upbeat demeanor I have yet to see him display. He asked me if I really thought he looked like he might eat someone. Yes! Funny, he didn’t question my description of his former paramour Dallas as “statistically handsome.” I guess that didn’t bother him as much as the prospect of being perceived as a cannibal. Don’t worry, Brian, no one reads this anyway.

I wanted to stick around all night at Andy’s place. I loved the low key vibe and as an ardent fan of his blog, nothing would thrill me more than talking about his work. I wish he would come on my show. I ask him all the time, but there is no reason for him to come. His blog is immensely popular and he hardly needs the publicity. Still, when I like something, I do like to shamelessly promote it on my show. After all, what is the point of having a radio show if you can’t boost your friends a little? I guess I will just have to settle for a semi-annual visit in person instead.

On my way out, the topic turned to my long train ride home. Andy was familiar with the trip, having made it many times, much further up than where I live. He did not have fond memories but I enjoy the ride along the river, especially since it gives me a chance to collect my thoughts from the evening and commit them to the permanent record of my epic (sorry! I am a terrible editor!) blog.

After the door closed to Andy’s apartment, I heard Brian’s booming voice chanting the names of some of my stops along the way. But it didn’t bother me as I raced down the stairs and out into the street in search of a cab. After all, I love my little life in the suburbs. Kevin may be sensitive about living in New Jersey but I adored my day today eating slices of pizza in the Adirondack chairs and watching deer grazing in my backyard. I don’t live my life for anyone else. Even though peer pressure may work on some people with no self-esteem who like to iron things, it doesn’t work on me. And as always, I get the last word. So while Brian may do his best to define me in the moment inside Andy’s apartment, I get to define him for all time right here.

I wonder what it will be like when he finally does eat me. It might be pretty good. You know how people around me tend to get lucky.

Show People

An occupational hazard of my job: I know a lot of people from reality TV.

This is a complicated situation for me because I already have a lot of trouble distinguishing the difference between reality and fantasy as it is. Just today, a listener sent me the Derek doll, lead vocalist from the short-lived Barbie and the Rockers (circa 1985), and even some people at work had trouble believing it wasn't an elaborate trick. We look so much alike, and even share the same name. It begs the question: Am I, with my unchanging hairstyle and sparkling blue eyes, the living promise fulfilled of a hunk of Mattel plastic or am I in actual fact the basis for it?

In much the same way, Reality TV is the ultimate blurring of life imitating art imitating life, and sometimes I wonder if the people who appear on television even know what to do with the resulting by product. In some ways I assume it is like when someone tells you about a dream they had where you played a prominent role. Obviously they recognized you quite vividly in it, though you may feel the portrayal is entirely subjective and personally unfamiliar.

Tonight on the show, our guest host was Shaun McCarron from the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, a guilty pleasure of late-middle age histrionics blended smoothly with ample supple human flesh. I shamelessly admit that I am a fan, mostly for the flesh parts. Shaun and his equally well-constructed boyfriend Paul are underwear-clad favorites and two of the few openly gay models on the show. I met them both some months ago when they joined the show as guests and since then have struck up a friendly rapport. They have SIRIUS so I often get random text messages from Shaun about the content of the show while he drives to and from the gym. What I like about Shaun is that he is a smart guy (Master’s Degree!) with a relaxed, comfortable Southern demeanor who understands completely the time and place he exists in and uses it as fully to his advantage as possible. Also he looks amazing in his underwear.

Knowing that he would be in town and would want to go out, when another reality TV veteran (Clay from The Apprentice) wondered aloud how to spend his birthday weekend, I happily suggested New York City. Even though I will be busy painting my kitchen and dining room this weekend, I figured I was still hearty enough to juggle both social obligations with visiting hotties and reconstructing suburban domestic bliss at the same time. To help, I enlisted the ultimate Manhattan party figure: Matt. Our previous Friday and Saturday adventures had been successful enough, even though Gary lost his camera and I was sick for four days. Clay and Matt were already friends so I knew he would be on board for another exciting set of adventures.

The evening started earlier for Matt, who joined Charlie at his apartment for pre-cocktails before heading to Chris’ birthday party at Kelley and Peng down in the Bowery, while Shaun and I were still in Rockefeller Center wrapping up the last few minutes of the radio show. Shaun had just found out before we went on the air that fellow Modeling Agency alum J.P. Calderon was in town as well, headlining an Instinct Magazine party at SPLASH. I met J.P. at Gay Days in October and he might have been on the show once, but for the life of me I can’t remember a single word that has ever come out of his mouth. But since that party didn’t start until after 11pm, we endeavored to head to the Bowery first and then see how things went.

Chris’ birthday party had a nice mix of cute, laidback guys and adorable preppy guys, prompting me to send an enthusiastic text message to my roommate to encourage him to join us. Matt was already there with Charlie and Brian. Brian’s friend Warren, a tightly built South African who is an arched eyebrow taller than Matt, was also there, along with Matt’s friend Will who I have met several times before, yet always greets me with the same spreadable cream cheese expression of blissful and totally willful ignorance. We all had a drink and settled into polite cocktail chatter.

Matt was in a particularly sparky mood, greeting me with open arms and legs, and constantly poking me with excited jabs. He also displayed again his enthusiastic applause mixed with excited laughter, a signature move for him which Brian referred to as his persistent clap (then added, “and I don’t mean that recurring case of Chlamydia either”). After Matt playfully punched him a little too hard in the sternum, Brian’s own enjoyment levels plunged woefully and desperately out of kilter with his own. I reconnected a bit with Charlie who I hadn't seen since his last appearance in my blog in November. When I brought up my blog, which previously had so tickled him to be mentioned in, he waved it off with the haute faux maturity of a fourteen year old girl who insists quite calmly and matter-of-factly that she is now a woman, then asked where Ben Harvey (the reigning king of blog mentions) was. For the record, he is out of town.

Already a fairly low key guy, especially when compared to his vibrant peacock boyfriend Paul, Shaun had settled into a glum trance of text messages and cocktails off to the side of my friend hopping. I don’t think he was having a very good time, but it was hard for me to check in on him and chat up roommate and grasp bits of conversation with Brian and Matt just so I would have something to blog about later. I was jumping around from person to person as if they were all plates that needed to be kept spinning in mid-air at all times. Perhaps I was over my head trying to have it all.

We decided to decamp from the party, with Matt leading the march toward the basement of the Chelsea Hotel, the site of my last public humiliation some weeks ago. On our way out, I charged over to a familiar looking blond man with a scruffy face and no visible ass in his baggy slung jeans. “Haven’t we met sixteen times before?” I asked, to which he replied with hand outstretched, “Yes sixteen.”

Turns out his name is Henry and we met through Cyd Zeigler and the gay football league. Suddenly I remembered where I first saw him (though not where I last saw him): doing his best (worst?) chocolate covered Kimmie impression at a karaoke bar in Harlem. Quite possibly the worst singer I have ever seen belt it in public and yet the bar was filled with adoring admirers by the time he had brutalized his last note. He was there tonight with his friend Patrick, who looked like a younger, slighter version of Jeff in Boston, and another guy whose name I don’t recall because I maxed out the number of names I could remember for the evening. Just then, Will swept into the conversation and when Henry started to introduce us, the continued blankness of his stare made me think he had already, in just thirty minutes, forgotten again that we had already met. It was time to leave.

I grabbed my bag and searched for Shaun who had since disappeared while Matt and Brian went downstairs. Moments later, Mike and I went downstairs only to find Shaun was there, but Matt and Brian were nowhere to be found. Shaun told me that they had already left for the Chelsea so the three of us hopped into a cab. I spotted Charlie on our way out, so I assume he decided to stay at the birthday party, which in retrospect turned out to be the right choice. After the world’s slowest cab ride, we arrived at the Chelsea Hotel to find Matt already inside and a hefty line outside. Matt’s cell phone having died at Chris’ birthday party, there was no way to contact him.

Since it was already Midnight, Mike refused to stand in the line at the bar and opted instead to just make an early trip to the 1am train we had planned to take home anyway. Shaun and I braved the line for fifteen minutes as a series of people he knew wandered up to us in line. It turns out he knows more people in New York City than I do. With time running short and the line just getting longer, Shaun left with his friends to go to G, also in retrospect an excellent idea, while I stood alone in line at the Chelsea Hotel.

While waiting, Corey Johnson arrived with Andy Towle and for a moment, I thought I had been rescued from the line. Unfortunately, moments later, they were in line behind me. I don't know what was more surprising to me: that they couldn't get in either or that Corey had somehow coaxed the reclusive Andy out of his apartment. “Aren’t you someone?” I asked the former high school football captain.

“Not anymore.” He assured me.

“What about him?” I asked, gesturing to blogger Andy Towle, who reaches more gay men in America than Out or the Advocate. Corey just shook his head, then offered politely. “You’re someone.” But clearly that was a reality that only exists inside my own fantasy world.

After waiting forty-five minutes, I was finally ushered in. This left me only enough time to tell Matt that I had to leave to go home. I was furious. Of course I found him and Brian, dancing in place in front of my friend Corey Craig, the DJ for the evening. I immediately swatted Matt in the back of the head. I recapped my horrible experience in line and put all the blame on him for blithely leaving us at the other party. More importantly, after his phone died, he put me in charge of keeping tabs on Clay’s arrival (his plane was much delayed from Texas) then made no effort to stay close to me. At that point, Clay was on his way over but I was out of time to wait for him to pass him off to Matt.

“He is on his way now! Go upstairs and get him!” I yelled at Matt and then as payback for Brian’s sore sternum and my own irritation, punched him in the stomach. Matt looked hurt, but not from the sock in the gut. Matt and Brian both entreated me to stay, and then stay over for the night in the city. But that was an impossibility. I was trying to have it all, and in the process, was watching all of it unravel before my eyes in a fit of bad timing. If I left, I was a quitter in the party scene of fun, leaving three handsome men and who knows what else behind. If I stayed, I would just be proving myself and my roommate right that I can't stay focused to and finish anything that I say is really important to me. So I left, Matt and his hurt feelings, Clay who hadn't even arrived yet, sexy Brian and all his promise, and walked up the stairs to the sidewalk.

"That was the best minute and a half I ever spent in a bar." I yelled sarcastically to the appreciative door staff as I crossed the sidewalk to hail a cab. It was a short ride to Grand Central but it didn't take me long to realize I had made the right decision. In the choice between fantasy and reality, as tough as it is for me to face sometimes, I really do need to choose reality more often. It is just that time.