- I wore a new shirt tonight. It is a white cotton fabric that is nice for summer, but not very nice when it rains. I didn't think of that when I left, though... I was a block from my apartment when I looked down and wondered how long it was going to take before someone made a "pirate" joke about the shirt (now that I made it through a night without being mocked for it (at least to my knowledge), I feel that fear was irrational. But at the time it was all too real and if I hadn't spent too much money on it, I might have gone back and changed into something else.)
- I actually saw someone I knew on the street. It's a long, ongoing story with this person, and I won't get into the "why's" but in a twist of fate, the friend I saw tonight was the only friend I have that I would hesitate to say "hello" to preemptively. So I saw the person I knew walk by and I just gave her a half-smile and a nod. Kinda weird, I know.
- The first two bars were busts. Nice places, some nice-looking people, but I still am not in a position where I can just walk up to people and introduce myself. Someday, maybe. But not tonight.
- The karaoke bar was a little lighter tonight, and I juggled between the two singing rooms for the first time, so I got to sing three songs in my time there. The upstairs area has lower ceilings and gets a lot warmer. More dancing females and a cozier atmosphere. But bad acoustics and it can get extremely loud. Still was a fun change, though.
- My third song was probably my most (oddly) successful song I've sung in public to date. It was "Like a Virgin", and while I sang it reasonably well, it struck a chord with people, for some reason, because in the 3 minutes or so the song lasted, I had the following occur:
-- Three women came up to me while I was singing and started to dance pretty damn close to me, claiming that they "thought I needed some backup dancers" several times. They actually distracted me from singing for some seconds, which with my laser-like focus and business-like demeanor is hard to do.
-- One random drunk guy thought that I needed his help, so he kept leaning in and singing at random times. I wasn't too proud to share the mic with him, but I was amazed once again at what alcohol can do to people.
-- A woman ran up on me and took a photo of me singing (and, maybe, the drunk guy who was helping me out. I'd like to think it was me, but who knows...) - I almost made it through the night without feeling ogled by any gay men. Almost. I was about 75% of the way home when two guys were walking arm-in-arm towards me and I, being a relatively polite fellow, made eye contact with one and gave a half smile, which means "Hey. What's up." Well, in a move that is almost always captivating to me in a woman but an entirely wasted effort coming from a man, the guy arches his eyebrows at me, prompting me to have to respond because he looked so expectant. I offered a "Good morning." and he responded with a playful "Good morning" and we both kept walking. I don't know if it really elicited any specific emotion in me... not curiousity, and not disgust. Just weirdness. Like how two people can be so out of sync with the same input. Not sure that's an emotion, though.
- A minute later, I got some hetero ego stroking. I was crossing the last major street on the way home and a woman hooted at me from a car stopped at the red light. That's not a terribly uncommon thing given how much I walk around the city and the amount of alcohol that people consume on the nights I'm walking around, but this time I turned around and looked at her as I was walking away. She said something and I asked her to repeat it and she said, "You're hot!" and gave me a thumbs-up. I flashed her a smile and thanked her and kept on walking, feeling good that in the dark of night, with the rain pouring down, I can fool both straight and gay people into thinking that I'm cute.
- Speaking of the rain, I looked a bit ridiculous when I got home. My shirt held up better than I'd expected, but it had still soaked through. My jeans, which seemingly have about 10 pounds of indigo in them, decided to bleed a bit onto my legs, and I'm currently sporting the "bad circulation" look that's so popular with druggies and senior citizens throughout the land.
Overall it was an up-and-down night. I realized tonight that just when I'm starting to get frustrated, or just when I'm feeling a bit isolated and depressed in the sea of people churning around me, I see a cute smile from a young woman. Even if I don't go talk to that person (meaning: even after I don't go talk to that person), it lifts my spirits and reminds me that it's OK that it's tough and it's confusing and whatever.
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