Where Dustbunnies Go To Die

I just got home half an hour or so ago from what may be the oddest event ever held at a Gay Pride celebration - a Buffy singalong.

They had a screen and sound system set up in a parkette on the north side of Wellesley between Yonge and Church. Just as I arrived, someone I know from the Gay Geeks email list showed up, so we ended up sitting together. Overall, I'd estimate that there were about 75 people there... many of whom ended up with Polaris flyers. *grin* (One young couple ended up with two each because they said they had friends who would be interested.) When I mentioned that we would also be having a Buffy singalong, that really got people's attention. (I think some people thought we'd organized this one.)

cuteteenboy was supposed to come with me, but he thought it was tomorrow night, so when I called around 9:30 to ask him where he was, he was still at home. I knew I should have called this afternoon.

andromakie, I was surprised you weren't there. Did you not hear about it?

Anyway, it was great fun. The barely-20-year-old guy on my left (part of the couple that asked for extra flyers) got a good laugh from the crowd when he shouted, "Shut up, Dawn!" just as "Dawn's Lament" started. :)

I ran into a couple of other people I know this evening - indydark was visiting friends in my neighbourhood, and I bumped into him on my way to the subway. Then I ran into quedralox on Yonge Street afterwards. (City of six million people, and I keep bumping into people I know...)

Today came on the heels of another Polaris promotional event - a bunch of us went downtown last night and put flyers up on poles from Wellesley subway over to Church, down Church to Carlton, and back over to Yonge. (Another group had done much of the rest of downtown earlier in the evening.) After that, we ended up at Fran's, where I did my lactose intolerance a world of good by having a milkshake and a sundae. While we were there, a group from Serial Diners came in, leading to more of the usual "Lance knows everyone!" comments when I started saying hello to the ones I knew. I replied, "I only know three of them!... er, four," as another person I knew came in. The amendment of "three" to "four" caused great hilarity.

I came back home after that and decided to go back downtown after dropping off my stuff and changing into shorts. I got into the Woody's line and got in around quarter to 2 (the bars stay open until 4 this weekend). I'm not really sure why I bothered - being in close proximity to hundreds of guys, all of whom look at me and then run screaming in the other direction, gets me depressed, and lately I've been of the opinion that I look like shit. (A picture rockgoddes posted on Facebook the other day didn't help.) I didn't end up getting home until 5 this morning, woke up around 2, and spent much of the afternoon dealing with yesterday's and today's emails.

Maybe it's just as well that I have to be up by 10:30 tomorrow to go to a meeting, as it'll force me to stay home tonight. (I realized tonight that I haven't actually seen the parade in four years. I was in it three years ago, as part of the Gaylaxicon group, and missed the last two because of meetings.)

I was supposed to be downtown for 10 this morning to help out with the Polaris flyer crawl, but since I didn't get to bed until 4, I didn't wake up until 11 (which was still surprisingly early under the circumstances). As I left my building, I called kaelsu2 to ask what was going on, and she told me that the group was down at Nathan Phillips Square, so I made my way down there to join them and find out what remained to be done. They hadn't yet covered Church Street, so Declan was voluntold to join me in posting flyers over there.

We made our way over and started around Church and Gerrard, posting flyers on hydro poles on either side of the street as we made our way up. We also got permission to post a flyer on the inside of the window at Timothy's (which, for the non-locals, is the coffee shop that everyone goes to after the bars let out, since the Second Cup up the street with the famous steps closed), and we posted one on the door of each of several Johnny-on-the-spots that were set up for the Pride festivities. (Hey, where there's a captive audience... if people have to stand in line to pee, they now have something to read when they get to the front of the line.) We also gave a couple away to people whom we noticed intently reading the flyers after we'd put them up.

While we were working on Church Street, I spotted a booth that was selling something I just had to buy for someone. I knew that there was a badge laminating party for Polaris taking place, so I called twiddler and asked him, "Does anyone there know what size t-shirt (name deleted because he might be reading this) wears?" When I told him why I was asking, his laughter nearly burst my eardrum. This should be amusing at tomorrow's concom meeting. :)

The Dyke March started up on Church just north of Wellesley while we were working, so we followed the parade route up to Bloor, across to Yonge and back down Yonge, posting flyers as we went. We were posting one on Yonge when I suddenly realized that the woman standing next to us, watching the Dyke March, was someone I know from the bowling league, so I said hi, confirming to Declan that I know everyone.

I was also stopped on no fewer than five occasions because I was wearing my True Colors t-shirt today. Everyone wanted to know if I was at the concert. (No, I mugged someone afterwards for the shirt...) Nearly all of them wanted to know if the Dresden Dolls sang "Coin-Operated Boy", though one person did ask about Erasure and Debbie Harry as well.

As we were running out, we came to the store where the guy I met last night works, and Declan said, "Well, go on - get in there." He was on a stepladder dusting, so I walked over and said, "I said I would stop in and say hi, so here I am - hi!" I also gave him a flyer, so we'll see if he comes to the con at some point... we didn't stay very long, though.

After we were done, Declan headed off and I called Doug to find out what he, Ken and Scott were up to. They were having lunch, but said that they'd call back later when they were done. In the meantime, I wandered the stalls on Church to see if there was anything I wanted, but there wasn't - I didn't care for this year's t-shirt design. I did see a few interesting things, though:

• The RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police and Toronto Police all had recruiting booths. I don't normally find police officers all that attractive, but they sent some real cuties this year.


• Toronto-Dominion Bank had a booth where people could fill out Visa card applications. They had four or five extremely buff guys wearing nothing but Speedos (in the same shade of green as their corporate logo) working the booth.


• Motorola had a booth where they were selling cell phones, and they had a bunch of young guys walking around shirtless whose upper bodies had been painted in the same shade of red as their corporate logo. That was only interesting because I wanted to walk up to several of them and offer them a sandwich. Motorola is obviously the cell phone company of choice for anorexics.


• Trojan had a booth - I'm not sure if they were selling condoms, or giving them away. But their staff was composed of several buff young guys wearing Roman soldier outfits. Yummy.

Yeah, I'm a slut-wannabe and can be as shallow as the rest of them when I'm looking at cute boys. But you all knew that already, I'm sure...

Doug called around 4ish and invited me up to their hotel room to hang out for a bit, so I did. We then decided to go out and wander around for a bit and do some shopping, and we ended up going to Fiddler's Green first for a pitcher (okay, three pitchers) of beer. I hadn't eaten yet, so I also had a club sandwich while we were there, for which someone apparently picked up the tab while I was in the washroom. Following Fiddler's Green, Doug went back to their hotel to get ready for some big event tonight (a leather ball, I think it is). Ken, Scott and I ended up going to Pegasus for yet another beer, where I ran into Troy, Clint, Rick and Michael from bowling, proving to Ken and Scott that I know everyone. *sigh* We sat by the window so that Ken could take pictures of all the hustle and bustle (and the other kind of hustle ;) ) going on outside.

They decided to head back to the hotel to get ready for tonight around 9, and invited me to come along, but the whole leather scene isn't really my thing, and the alcohol I'd consumed was starting to assert its presence, so I decided to come home. They then invited me to join them tomorrow night for dinner after the concom meeting, so I'm thinking I'll probably do that. I was thinking that I might go out again tonight after I've gotten some rest, but the lineups to get into the bars are going to be horrendous, and I do have a meeting tomorrow afternoon. Not to mention that I've already had four pints of beer in the past six hours or so...

My first big accomplishment this weekend was that I went through my Inbox and got rid of a lot of emails that had been sitting in there waiting for responses. Most of them, it turned out, didn't need responses at all, but my pack-rat mentality had me keeping them around in case I thought of something to say. So I got my Inbox down from 330 or so messages to 74. Most of the recent ones were Polaris-related, and I answered some of them, but there were a couple where I thought ennisdl might have handled them outside of the group email account, so I sent him an email to ask about that as well as a couple of other items. Around 10:30 my phone rang, and I was reeeeeally tempted to pick it up and say, "Hi, Dave." I just had a feeling that it was him... and it was. When I told him, he said, "Who else would be crazy enough to call you at this hour on a Saturday night?" (As I said in response, there was about a 10% chance that it might have been cuteteenboy... which is the reason I didn't answer the phone with "Hi, Dave." It would have been embarrassing had I been wrong.)

Then I spent today... well, spending far too much money. No, I didn't go to the Paradise Comicon - I'm not a big comics person, though I've been known to buy a few over the years - I went to Yorkdale Mall. I finally got around to buying a new pair of jeans, as the ones I've been wearing have pretty much given up the ghost. In fact, when I went to reach for my wallet, there was a big hole in my back pocket that I'm fairly certain wasn't there when I got dressed today, so my timing was good. But it turned out to be more difficult than I'd expected - since when does Tommy Hilfiger not sell black jeans? Though I spent so much time in there, and Sears, and a couple of other places trying on various pairs that by the time I made my decision, the mall was closing and I couldn't go back to the Levi's store to check out their selection. (I ended up getting a pair of blue jeans and a pair of cargo pants - described on the tag as "coconut brown" - at the Tommy Hilfiger store. $120 - ouch. And I still want a pair of black jeans.) The guy who sold them to me was trying to talk me into trying a pair of low-rise jeans, too. I said, "No, thanks, I'm too old to show off my underwear."

I also got my hair cut today (another $120). Jozo, who has been cutting my hair for about eight years now, shared something kind of amusing - it seems that four years ago, when he highlighted my hair for the very first time, he'd been cutting the hair of a friend when I arrived. Apparently they saw me later that afternoon at the Word On The Street book festival down on Queen Street and called him to ask, "Did you give him highlights? It's quite a change!" (redeem147, that was the same Word On The Street where I ran into you and senexmacdonald, and one of you had said to the other, "That looks like the back of Lance's head, but it's blond..." :) ) Until Jozo shared the story with me this afternoon, I hadn't really thought about it, but yeah, I've been blond for nearly four years now (that was just before Torcon), and he's been cutting my hair for something like 8 or 9 years. Where does the time go?

Oh, the other semi-amusing exchange happened when he asked me how long it had been since I last got it cut, since my roots had grown out quite a bit. I told him that I had to get Lee to cut it while he was away on vacation because I had a job interview (which means it would have been February or March), and he said, "That's okay, I've cheated on my hairdresser too."

So now I'm all pretty for Pride in two weeks. Assuming I actually go, since we have a Polaris meeting on the same day as the parade (second year in a row that's happened). I'll still probably go downtown on the weekend, though my sense of commitment is too strong to allow me to blow off the meeting for the parade itself. (Whether or not I'll have gotten any sleep the night before the meeting remains to be seen, since the bars on Church Street stay open until 4am that weekend. :) )

... but I went to Woody's tonight.

Hey, it's Pride, gimme a break. :P

I was standing in a corner by myself, near the doorway from the side of the bar that's called "Sailor," when a hot guy stopped by me and asked me where the washroom was. So I pointed it out to him. An hour or so later, he came up to me and started up a conversation. It turned out that he actually picked me out of the crowd because I was so obviously by myself and looked like I needed some kind of interaction. So he started to work me over (no, not like that!) and eventually convinced me that it's not that hard to walk up to a total stranger and strike up a conversation. In fact, he (his name was Jarrod) dragged me along while he did it himself - with three guys who were visiting from Cleveland. He then told me to pick someone out and start a conversation with them. Well, I could hardly refuse with him right there... so I did it. It wasn't that hard, in retrospect - though the guy turned out to be there with his boyfriend (who was up at the bar when I started talking to him). He then made me do it again, so I picked out a guy who seemed to be by himself, and we ended up talking for about 45 minutes, right up until last call - and I saw him again a little while later, so I actually ended up leaving the bar with him (don't go there - my apartment's a mess and I'm not having anyone over until I have time to clean, and he didn't invite me home with him).

I said to Jarrod at one point, "seeing as how you're so good at motivating people, how come you haven't written a book and become a millionaire yet? If you can get me to do it, you obviously know what you're doing." So he gave me his email address (I'd previously mentioned that I know a lot of writers, and perhaps one of them might be willing to enter into a contractual arrangement with him, since he said that he himself can't write worth a damn). The catch is, I'm not allowed to use it until I've gone back to Woody's twice and spoken to at least three strangers each time.

Heck, maybe I should work with him. I know I'm not a published author or anything, but I think I'm pretty good at stringing words together... I may not be another Robert J. Sawyer, but I'm not terrible. I'd be even better if I didn't write most things (like this LJ entry) off the cuff, and actually took time to work on the prose and edit it.

The interesting thing is that he actually did have some kind of effect on me. There's a guy that I see in there pretty much every time I've gone in there whom I think is kind of cute, and while we've never spoken, at one point I saw him near me, and I looked at him and nodded "hello". He didn't respond at all, but then again, I didn't actually speak to him...

Oh, and why, if I think Jarrod was hot, and he seemed interested enough in me to talk to me and get me to talk to multiple total strangers, did I still end up coming home by myself? Turns out he was in there with his girlfriend. Yeah, a straight guy - from Calgary, no less - in Woody's on Pride Weekend. Go figure.

Anyhow, I'm off to bed now that I'm a little less drunk...