I almost forgot to mention this week's parties. On Tuesday I was going to an early holiday party where there were to be a bunch of normal gays. Not normal as in 'soulless, brainless idiot drones who hang out in clumps', but normal as in, 'people less defined by their sexuality than by their careers and hobbies'. Regardless, I didn't go. I like to think of myself more like them (even though the world's consensus may lean towards brainless and soulless), so if I went and found that this crowd, too, sucks, it would mean that I officially don't fit in with anybody.
It's not easy being popular and also very very special.
Instead I headed over to Levende for The Guardian's holiday bash. We were each given two drink tickets which was good, because I needed to go home and get some more work done. Then someone gave me an extra ticket and I wasn't about to say no to a free drink. Then someone else gave me two more so I had those too, then one more to sneak one in before last call.
Fans, sometimes special is another word for retarded.
On Thursday (almost caught up now!) I went to the Mechanic's Institute Library members' holiday party. Mostly I went because I knew it would be packed full of the members, the majority of whom are over 70. But I usually go to this library during the day when people not yet of retirement age are still at their day jobs, so I was curious to see how many people under 40 would show up for the party.
The answer: 0. Well, that's not true. Two people on the staff were probably in their 20's, and it looks like a couple of the members brought their grandchildren. Then there was me and people in their 50's on up. I expected someone to confuse me with the catering staff.
The party was packed full of people using canes and hearing aides and it looked like a field trip from the Jewish retirement center. The people are apparently unused to waiting in a line for drink at the bar so they just stepped right up to the front, and they couldn't hear you even when you yelled at them.
But this party was more like the Christmas parties of my youth- yelling at old people, stealing drinks when nobody was looking, and wishing I was someplace else.