Do You Want to Dance?
If you want to dance, you have to pretend to be confident and just ask her.
I was at the after party for the Lady Parts Justice League 2nd Annual Golden Probe Awards, awarded to the politicians who have done the most to advance (?) women’s health care and reproductive rights. My friend was one of the presenters, and naive in the ways of show biz. I informed her that talent in a show gets comp tickets. Can I get one?
She got one for me and one for Jack, another friend of hers. We were invited to the pre-show red carpet and reception suite, and Jack wanted to know what to wear? I told him that I don’t have a tux, so I am wearing a black suit. Jack is gay, but obviously not very gay. He is from Iowa, or maybe Idaho. States that I have seen through the plane window.
Jack and I arrive as the red carpet is winding down. Wine and cheese are seriously running low, and eventually I am forced to take extreme measures, liberating Chardonnay from the crush bar. C’est la guerre, and I am in the #resistance. Jack is suitably impressed, I will make an activist of him yet
Time to go in, and we take our cordoned off seats, right behind Jordan Klepper, formerly of the Daily Show. Wonderful show, totally stolen by Stormy Daniels, a consummate professional who is completely unfazed by technical problems. We laugh, we applaud, we keep up the energy during the retakes for the webcast a week later. The house laughs when someone shouts “will you marry me Steve?” to the harried stage manager. Oh wait, that was me.
For some reason none of the recipients of the prestigious Golden Probes are there and ready to take it themselves.
On the way over to the after party (my presenter friend has also never heard of after parties), Jack talks about growing up in Illinois in the closet all the way through high school. Or maybe it was Indiana. I tell him I don’t understand how he managed that, he set off my gaydar all the way in New York.
Suitably amused, he asks me if I want an Altoid. Sure, I take one, though I didn’t remember them being pink. Doesn’t taste like an Altoid either.
We get to the party, and I am feeling really good and ready to go. The DJ is all in, we have beautiful young people, everyone is riding the high of a show that went well.
But no one is dancing, and I am totally ready to dance. No one in my party wants to dance, so I start scanning the floor. I am looking for someone who so much wants to dance they are ready for me.
I spot someone across the floor. As she talks to her friends with her back to me, she is bopping to the music. I overcome my limited remaining inhibitions, and go over and ask her if she wants to dance with a short fat balding guy who she will never see again?
It’s a pickup line I may use again. Once we get to the middle of the floor the room erupts in dancing. Her friends step in and start spinning her in her wheelchair in ways that I would never have dared. The party has truly started. Even my friends eventually join in.
Inevitably the party winds down, and I get a car for Jack and myself to the nearest subway station. Where I realize that Jack wants to continue the party with his tongue in my ear as we hug goodbye.
Later that night I realize that I should check out the meaning of “Do you want an Altoid?” in the Urban Dictionary.
