Cherry Grove Sunday
Normally on holiday weekends there’s a whole crew of us that goes to the Grove. The participants vary, but usually it’s at least me, Blanche and Dita. This year, each of them brought a friend, Lydia and Maryann, each of whom know each other and each of whom know Blanchie and Dita separately. I’d met Maryann before…I hung out with her a couple of times with Rich, and she’s pretty cool. I never met Lydia before, but she seemed cool enough.
The four of them had all had dinner together recently and apparently one of the subjects at the dinner table that night was sex, and so on Sunday none of us had to mince our words. We joked about the tricks we’d had over the years and how many we’d see over there, and of course it seemed right from the beginning that I was the Blanche Devereaux of the group. As soon as we got off the ferry I saw one of mine, and so it began. As usually happens when I go over there on a holiday weekend, I run into a lot of people I know, some of them expected and others not, and this Sunday was full of surprises.
Blast from the Past
We had planned on having dinner before hitting the bars, so right when we got there we headed towards the beach, where there’s a restaurant. We walked on the dock to look at the beautiful ocean and almost immediately we saw friends of Rich’s niece Erin, with whom we hung out with at the NYC Pride Parade. Erin’s best bud Steven immediately saw us and began to make his way off the beach to greet us. The others followed…that was when I saw him.
His name is Nick and we kinda sorta dated for a little bit about two years ago. It didn’t really end well back then and I never thought I’d see him again, yet there he was standing right across from me with Erin’s friends. It was madly uncomfortable, to say the least. The two groups soon parted ways, with them heading off to the Ice Palace and us off to dinner, and my strange evening had just begun…
The Mayor
As things turned out, Lydia and Maryann weren’t as fun as I had expected them to be. They were pretty laid back all night long, even though I tried getting them going on the dance floor. Since I hang out there for more than just the holiday weekends, I know a lot of people, and they were all there that night. There was my new/old religion class friend Lisa, my other buddy Laurie, my writing friend Michael, Paul, Christian, my old Chilean buddy Sebastian, the other Michael, and so on. I even saw Katherine, who I had met a couple of weeks back see Lesbian Matchmaker). I was just having my usual fun, dancing around with all of them, spreading joy wherever I could, like I always do. The girls (all four of them, lol) came on and off the dance floor every now and again and at one point Lydia came over, pointed at me and said, “You’re the mayor.”
I guess I took that as a complement. I’m a little different than most people I know, okay, probably a lot different! I never go anywhere with an agenda. I’m not looking to pick up guys or anything like that. I just like to have a good time. I dance with people I don’t know, smiling and singing along to whatever song is playing, and I usually get the same reaction back. It’s all great fun to me, but I’m afraid that when Lydia said that she was thinking that I was something else. I’m afraid that a lot of people just don’t get me…I don’t always get the good reactions from people, even though I mean no harm. I’m not really sure, but whatever…
Drunken Monkeys
After dinner we went by the Ice Palace and we ran into Erin for the first time. She hadn’t been at the beach with her friends earlier because she was wanting to go in the pool at the Palace instead. We could tell that she and her friend Matt were about five sheets to the wind.
Now Erin is one of the funniest people I know. She’s a big girl, and she’s a sweetheart with an intense sense of humor. As we approached she tried to hide behind a measly branch of a tree hanging over the boardwalk and we all laughed at her silliness. Apparently her bartender at the Iced Palace gave her only a splash of juice with her vodka and she was hysterically and intoxicatingly funny, to say the least.
We hung out with the group on the deck at the Ice Palace for awhile. It was crowded and the music was good, so we danced and laughed at all of Erin’s antics, especially when she did the bump n grind on all of us but Rich (he IS family, you know!). Matt was just as bad, speaking drunken truths to us and hugging everybody constantly. This group of friends are great though…they look out for each other and a couple of them especially were trying to take care of the two of them, eventually getting them home on an early ferry. Nick was still with them and it was still uncomfortable.
Cherry’s
Cherry’s was the place where we finished the night, as usual, dancing with all of the lesbians to the great music. Of course there were guys there, even cute ones, and I had my usual good time. Towards the end of the night, I was dancing up on the stage and Nick finally approached me. He asked me if I remembered him. Of course I did! I really liked him at one time. We danced together for about an hour…he was impressed with the way I look these days (which only served to make my head a little bigger, lol!) and we exchanged numbers before I headed off onto the ferry with my buddies.
Of course there’s a lot more to the story of Sunday, which continued on through yesterday. I’ll leave those to your imagination, but I dunno, right now it seems like it’s going to be a crazy, weird summer!
Here are some photos from Fire Island a couple of years ago:
Me, Blanche and Grazyna (feel better sweetie! We missed you!)
Erin and Grazyna
Me and Erin getting down!
Me and Matt
...she's gonna kill me....this one's from the Pride Parade last week...I didn't want to chance putting it up on Facebook, but it shows ya how hysterical Erin can be, lmao...
A Post Script
This morning I received a message on my Twitter account from Long Island Newsday, Long Island’s newspaper. As it seems, they’ve been following my activities on Twitter and they wanted to feature me on their “Featured Long Island Twitterers” page. They called me for an impromptu interview over the phone and they told me to watch for it in the paper. How cool is that?
Here's one of the great songs we danced to on Sunday:
Let me introduce you, to my party people...
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