Like Heterosexuals, But Different.

I returned to DC after Christmas and learned that Omega, DC's diviest gay bar, had folded unexpectedly.

Omega is the kind of bar with sticky floors, but where the stickiness seems kind of sinister -- like your shoes sticking to the floor might somehow end in hepatitis.  I had last gone in early December, before Christmas. I had been suffering from an insatiable desire for nachos, and my buddy Montana had come over for tacos, which are like vertical nachos but somehow with less guilt, and after two bottles of vinho verde and a pound of taco meat, Omega seemed like a great idea.

The highlight of Omega, which I always forgot and then was always horrified by, was the Men of Omega gogo dancers -- uncoordinated men of questionable attractivity who jiggle across the bar in horrifying g-strings. That evening, our fellow patrons assured us, the Men of Omega were in fact slated to make an appearance.

("You would think," said germaphobic Montana as one strutted by later that night, "that if they're going to walk on the bar, they would at least wear clean shoes").

The first dancer that evening was an unremarkable college student.  He was followed by a guy in dirty jeans, a cowboy hat and work boots, and then came the prize of the evening: a Latino gentleman with a time-worn face and a plush puppet -- puppy-shaped -- strapped over his genitalia. He had taken some sort of pharmaceutical erection enhancement to keep the dog's face upright, and was encouraging patrons to grab the puppet and stuff dollars in his socks. "Pet my dog," he kept purring.

Both of us tried desperately to avoid eye contact, but it was impossible -- there were only a half dozen people there, making blending into the crowd difficult.  That, and the dancer took a shine to Montana, gyrating in front of him for so long that eventual eye contact became inevitable.

The dancer grabbed Montana's wrist, shouted "pet my dog!" and ran his hand down the length of the puppy. This continued for a phenomenally awkward 20 seconds that were simultaneously very skeezy and not at all sexual.  There probably is a sub-demographic of the gay world that's into plush puppy penis puppets, but sadly neither Montana nor I fit that bill.

"Don't YOU want to pet my dog?" asked the dancer after deciding he was done with Montana. "No," I said, icily enough that he moved on.

After it was all over ("you're not gonna give him a buck? After all that?" I asked), Montana turned to me.

"I'm not sure things like that happen in straight bars," he said.

***

I ran into my old military commander from Afghanistan, an affable and charismatic naval officer with an easy grin and a sarcastic comment for everything, on the sidelines of the High Heel Races, DC's annual pre-halloween drag queen spectacular. I'm not normally one for drag queens, but the Drag Races are possibly the best people watching in America, and the costumes make it worthwhile.

This year's best costume was the Gay Barrier Reef -- four gentlemen with massive PVC pipe structures protruding well above them, covered in a sea anemone-like layer of waving ballons studded with stuffed Nemos and other cartoon fish. Almost equally good were the Ladies of The View, who dressed as Whoopie et al and ran down the street with a table and coffee mugs in front of them.

I was standing there with the Commander, taking it all in, when a gentleman strolled by in a leather vest and assless chaps, wearing a thong and not much else underneath. He had a hairy chest, a leather cowboy hat, and a serious air of We're-Here-We're-Queer gravitas.

"THAT," I said to the Commander, "is why we can't get married."

***

I was on one of the gay iphone apps, looking to see who was around, when I got message from someone named "Master C."

His profile, in part, read as follows:

NO HOOKUPS!
ACCEPTING NEW SLAVES!
ONLY INTO AGES 18 - 59
Be serious and real at all times!
Every sentence must end with "Sir!"
SINGLE MEN ONLY!
NO CYBER! NO GAMES!

I knew I was in for a treat, so I opened his message.

"Are you a single man that is ready to serve a master?" it read. "The only acceptable answer is 'yes sir' or 'no sir.'"

I didn't respond, though retrospectively I might've missed out on the single most blog-worthy date of the year.

***

I met a journalist buddy for Ramen in Adams Morgan. He and I had been in Afghanistan together, and he's one of those infinitely interesting people who's good to have as a friend. We ordered, among other things, some Oshinko -- japanese pickles -- to start.

"I went through a big artisan pickling phase when I was living in Beijing," I said offhandedly.

"Really?!" he said, almost lustfully. "I've really wanted to get into pickling. Everyone in Brooklyn is into pickling these days."

He's straight, so maybe not all quirks are reserved unto homosexuals.

All Natural: An Obligatory Christmas Post

My brother is the family champion as far as procreation is concerned, and he and his wife have produced the world's most laid back three year old. She is always happy; has no known vegetable phobiae; is perfectly distracted by crayons, making her a pleasant companion in restaurants; and does not cry ever, even at the harsh, three-way intersection of gravity, hardwood flooring and roller skates. She is, in other words, as close to perfect as a three year old can be.

My mother was understandably thrilled at the arrival of a grandchild. She had written me off -- disqualified on a technicality, you might say -- and had reached a point of frustrated resignation with my brother after years of pestering. The arrival of a granddaughter three years ago was the physical manifestation of all her Christmases come true.

The three year old is calm and quiet. But my mother, elated to have said three year old in the family, has somehow vacuumed up her grand daughter's latent loudness, leaving shrieking as her primary means of communication. She has for unknown reasons nicknamed the three year old "Girly Girl," a name she calls out in such a piercingly high-pitched tone that it puts an involuntary crick in my neck and causes my brother's elderly Jack Russell terrier to flee the room.

It's one thing at home. I can handle it at home. But in the cereal aisle of the madhouse CostCo in Denver, next to the nice ladies giving out free samples of mini quiche and Mediterrenean pizza and blueberry-pomegranate juice ("all natural," all three assured me) -- this aggression cannot stand.

***

My parents and I have generally agreed not to talk politics. I had spent most of October aggressively canvassing for Obama, while my parents have turned the corner from mad-dog republicans into full on tea party patriots.  "You never call," my mother said at Thanksgiving, but I had nothing non-partisan to say, and she takes Yes We Can -- Si Se Puede! -- as a personal affront. Communication by fleeting text message seemed the only solution.

("At dinner. Having crabcakes. Will call you this weekend," I would lie, hoping the crabcakes would distract her into forgetting that we hadn't spoken since September).

My parents are tea party patriots and suffer from the surfeit of rage that tends to plague Fox News's core viewership. Surviving any major holiday thus requires an IV drip-level of consistency in alcohol consumption, and the greater Denver area consequently saw a spike in sauvignon blanc sales during my time there. I was aided and abetted by my brother's wife's mother, whose veins run with malbec and who constantly reassured me that 11 is far from too early to start drinking. "I'm not sure why you waited so long," she'd say, corkscrew in hand.

The elections in general and the Obama campaign in particular provided a focal point for my parents' simmering rage. When November sixth came and went, dashing their hopes for a president who understands that taking money from the rich is unconstitutional (is communism; no, is quite simply un-American and is really just plain wrong), it left my mother's wrath in free-floating form, with no obvious target. It seems that said wrath has been redirected at my father, though not in any manner that would be deemed rational.

There was, for example, a brief moment during Christmas dinner when my mother verbally assaulted my father for passing food in a counterclockwise direction around the table.

My brother and I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and my parents both pretend to like to cook, though in reality my father installed a second microwave in their home so their dinners could be done at the same time. At one point my mother declared that she wants to break into vegan cooking, and my father, brother and I all simultanously asked why, lacing the question with a healthy degree of derision. My mother ignored my brother and I and whirled her head around at my father. "As IF I have to EXPLAIN myself to YOU," she hissed.

My brother tried to cut the tension: "The only reason to cook vegan," he said "is if you have a vegan friend who's become unbearably annoying about it."

It was just after 11 in the morning, and I poured myself another glass of sauvignon blanc. "It's all natural," I assured my now-vegan-friendly, tea party patriot mother.