“in the company of strangers with some vulgar shit to say”

We had an out of town show this weekend, which involved, among other things, frittering away money and having a nice weekend in a hotel with Jamie. Also –

Jamie wanted to play somewhere that seemed entirely unappealing to me, so i took my complete works of Shakespeare and found a nice coffee shop. By itself that would have been perfectly good entertainment for me, but it turned out that something more interesting was lined up in the form of the guy working at the coffee shop. He was bitching about the stimulus package when i ordered. Naturally, i responded. So we talked politics for a while. I pretty well agreed with him that throwing money at the big corporate idiots was not the best solution to the economic woes, and am willing to concede that – although i do like Obama – no politician ought to be trusted too much. I did have to politely disagree about the idea that we ought not let anyone become a US citizen from now on.

We moved on to religion, where our main sticking point was my insistence that science and religion are not mutually exclusive, and, no, not all scientists are atheists. Also, not all atheists are immoral – he was kind of willing to give me that.

Then there was the bit about how it’s a shame that a woman would give up on men entirely just because of some asshole. Also, damned if he doesn’t understand why some gorgeous woman would go off and date another woman. I laughed out loud. And pointed out that there are, perhaps, other reasons a girl might be gay. Like, say, the gorgeous women. I didn’t mention the handsome butches at this point. My defense clearly also had no effect on his certainty that i was straight.

That came when i told him that i was in town for a show – a drag king show. Well, first i explained what that is. And then, after the triple – was it quadruple? – take he conceded that that sounded pretty cool, actually, and asked “So, does that mean…  …  …” I also laughed at that – i always laugh when people can’t manage to spit out that question. “No, doing drag doesn’t mean i’m gay, but yes, i am.”

Those were, at least, the highlights. Oh, that and that a cold is your brain’s way of defrosting. It was excellent. I love talking to strangers.

In fact, sometimes it’s a hell of a lot better than talking to my friends. Who are, these days, just talking about each other. I’ve had about enough of it.

There’s a self-examining theoretical side to all this, but i’m rather out of time. This version was probably more fun anyway.

Lady Brett

"You Miss the Point Completely" - Harvey Danger