Hawaii, DC, NYC, and Ptown

It's been a busy week for me.

The flight back to DC from Hawaii was okay. I upgrade to business class which made it bearable. Nothing like a 2 hour storm delay in Chicago to make your day. I left Hawaii @ 8PM on Friday and got back to my place @ 8PM on Saturday. Good times.

Sunday AM and I metro-ed to Union Station and caught one of the regional trains to NYC. Museum Man met me there and the first thing I did was find some cold medicine. I had started to get a runny nose and I could feel a sore throat coming. Again good times. NYC was fun. I rode the subway for the first time. It's pretty easy I guess. Dodging the rain (or attempting to atleast) we went down to the Pride Parade which was just insane. Even with the miserable weather it was just fabulous. So many people out, everyone having a good time. It was great. After the parade, we started making our way over to the piers, stopping by the Dugout for a quick beer. The Dugout is a bear bar I've heard about from Joe.My.God. It was packed. And in a bad way. We had one drink and the motored on. After walking through a very strange and loud crowd of young blatino lesbians and their admirers, we actually ran into Joe, also heading for the Pier Dance. The Pier Dance did rock! Lots of great music and lots of hot, hot, hot men. Oh, I saw my porn star "friend" again. Again, which is no surprise really. I think every A list gay in NYC was at the Pier Dance. The surprise guest was Jennifer Hudson and needless to say the gays were shrieking like little girls. She sang three songs including "I'm No Going" which really rocked the pier. We stayed for the fireworks which were pretty cool and then trekked into mid-town to find a late night bite to eat. After a taxi detour, we made our way to the Saint-At-Large party at it's *new* location! Apparently on Friday the cops had raided the original location and shut it down, so the producers of the even jumped through hoops to find a new space. And they did. A fabulous space that I thought they decorated pretty well. At 1230AM when we got there it was just getting started. Well after dancing on concrete for 5 hours, I needed a little rest, so we sat and listened to the music and watched the hot men for awhile. We did hear one good song, surprisingly by Mariah Carey. But then we left around 2AM when I decided that I did need a little sleep. And a little sleep is what I got as I woke up at 445AM to take the subway back to Penn Station to catch the 0605AM train back to DC.

So in addition to just being tired, I'm also sick as a dog at this point. I've got a full on cold, aches, pains, you name it. So my work week has been kind of crappy. I feel a bit better, but still . . .

Well I'm off to Ptown for my annual pilgrimage.

Here's the Mariah Carey song. Sort of mellow in a good trancy/loungey kind of way:

Renew

Hawaii has definitely changed since I lived here many years ago, but the magic is still there. Even though I've been working some long hours, I've still managed to make it to the beach for sunset. To watch the surfers, the tourists, the locals, etc. It really is amazing here.

I've got to say that my random choice of hotels was amazing. I picked a hotel that was close to where the other people on my trip were staying, and let me tell you, I lucked out. Hotel Renew is a small boutique, modern hotel just a half a block from the beach. It's very W-ish. So cool. And relatively affordable. If I have to come back here again, I'm definitely going to stay here. So very cool!

So I've got one day to lay on the beach. I did grab some beach time yesterday and it was nice to just veg and chill. I really needed that. Not looking forward to the flight from hell back to DC.

But, thanks to Joe.My.God, I've got tickets to the after pier party dance in NYC. Yes, after I arrive Saturday afternoon, I'm catching a train to NYC to attend the Pride Pier Dance. After the pier dance, then it's on the Champions Party.



Which ends at 6AM, which conveniently enough is when my train back to DC leaves. So I just won't sleep.

Post Pride Ponderings Brought To You By The Letter "P"

So my weekend was as expected, slightly disappointing with a couple of redeeming points.

The call to the parental units went okay. I had to tell my Dad twice that I wanted to speak to him and Mom at the same time. They don't play on the phone together nicely. There was no histrionics, but lots of concern. And I'll probably have Mom come out whenever I have to go under the knife.

I had really wanted to go out dancing Friday night, but I got told by TwigBoy that BeBar has a microscopic dance floor, and then the rain came, and staying home and nursing my depression sounded so much better.

Saturday, after the gym and a little pool time, I had a Pre-Pride Parade Party. So like 6 people RSVPed to my invite. And like 12 people showed up! Which was great since I hadn't seen some people in while. But I came dangerously close to running out of food. The beverage de juer was Fresca and Vodka. Very summery and light. And then we walked down to 17th to watch the parade. SuperLawyer had brought his children and there were a couple of times we had to distract them from some of the not quite appropriate scenes passing by. But overall it was fine. I was very glad to see that St. Thomas' had a big contingent in the parade and that Bishop Chane was there as well. My church rocks.

After the parade, and after losing some of my compatriots to the local drinking establishments on 17th St, we headed over to Levantes for dinner which was actually quite nice. But between the food and the previous alcohol consumption, the lure of my nice warm bed was too much for me. So no dancing for me.

Sunday, I went up to Woodley Park to have lunch with a high school friend who is here for a conference. He had come to my party, but we hadn't had a chance to really catch up, so it was good to have some quality time with him. Afterwards, GreekBoi and I went to the Pride festival. And that was fun. We hung out for a couple of hours and then I headed back to do some work.

So that was my weekend.

Oh, so I'm totally digging Fall Out Boy's: Thanks for the Memories! Kind of a weird video, but I'm loving the song:

Follicular Thyroid Carcinoma

So I found out yesterday and I go through cycles where I think of it and then where I push it to the back of my mind. I'm really too busy to be sick. And I'll just say sick instead of the C-word.

The good news is that it's the second most common kind of C-word. And one of the most curable. I've been doing a lot of research online in my spare time. And of course a part of me is going, "Finally! I can be the drama queen I've always wanted to be."

Talked with my sister who I just adore. She was good.

Going to call the parents tonight and talk with them. Not a conversation I'm looking forward to.

If you haven't made it over to Joe's to read his Pride blog entry, you must. It's amazing. And despite the C-word, I'm going out tonight dancing because there's a Madonna party and atleast I'll know all of the songs. Plus, I do think I need to get my groove on.