Fireworks from Gasworks Park
Happy Belated 4th of July everyone! I hope everyone had a great weekend.
Today, I am being featured in the Simply Solo Spotlight. After you read this post, go check out my guest post over there. Thank you to everyone who participated in the Guest Blogging Poll. “SeniorPeopleMeet.com: My Mom Posts a Profile for Me” had won when I checked the results on Saturday.
My more conservative readers should be forewarned. Today I will be covering some topics a little more risqué than my usual banter. Cover your eyes, wait for a couple of days when I will be providing a recap of my date with Man #19, or proceed with caution. Your choice. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.
So this is what my life has come to:
For many years, Fourth of July meant driving down to the reservation to buy some fireworks, hosting barbeques in the backyard, shooting previously mentioned fireworks off with the kids, and hoping nothing caught on fire. When we moved to Seattle in 2003, we started heading down to Gasworks Park with a picnic and watching Seattle’s annual fireworks display. This year, with one son on a trip with his grandparents, one in college, and another teenager son too cool to hang out with me, I thought I may end up watching the fireworks on television while eating lentil soup. Pathetic.
I scored a last-minute save, however, by attending the birthday party for my friend, Dora, on Sunday, and meeting a fabulous gay couple who invited me to their annual 4th of July party. (Actually, Dora invited me, by saying that I should go with her, and the gay couple agreed.) That was that.
Now, I’ve been hearing about this party for the past five years, but I was never able to go because of the family obligations mentioned above. I jumped at this chance. Not only have I attended far too few parties this year, but this party is rumored to be FABULOUS on top of boasting great views of the fireworks on Lake Union.
Dora swung by my house to pick me up last night around 7:30 p.m. and we headed over to the party. She said, “You’re going to fit right in. There are so many different people there. It’s like the whole gay community is there. They have people in their house they don’t even know.”
I usually don’t worry about not knowing people. If I know at least one person, I’m fine. I’m not particularly shy, and gay boys tend to love me. Maybe it’s my eye makeup. Maybe it’s my shoes. Maybe it’s the fact that I have a slight potty mouth. Maybe it’s that with my low, alto voice and the fact that I stand 6′-2″ in heels I remind them of a drag queen. I don’t know, but I tend to quickly make friends with the gay boys. I wasn’t worried at all about not knowing anybody.
When we arrived, the house was packed. Dora and I made our way out to the terrace where we found a couple of other friends of Dora’s. We sat together, ate, drank, and visited until it was time to go outside to watch the fireworks.
The fireworks were good. I heard some people commenting that they weren’t as good as years past, but I’m never one to enter into such debates. I enjoy public displays of fireworks, and to tell you the honest truth, I usually can’t tell the difference from one year to the next. Personally, I’m just glad I no longer have to worry about grabbing the garden hose or ducking for cover should a home-launched explosive go astray.
A few of us talked about which fireworks we liked best, and expressed the usual sound effects, “Oooo, Aaaagh,” and “Pretty!”
When the fireworks finished we headed back inside and Dora and her friends headed back to the terrace. Having surpassed my one drink a week limit, (I had two) I was looking for something non-alcoholic to drink, and rumor had it that I would find something in a cooler that was situated at the north end of the terrace. As I approached the cooler, I heard a young guy talking to an older guy and I quickly realized that I might have just stumbled upon two of a small minority of straight men at the party. The young guy was saying to the older guy, “You gotta shave that shit, man.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman, I don’t like to go down on anyone who’s not shaved.” (Ok, maybe bisexual men.)
At this point, I couldn’t help actually looking at them, and I realized it might be the most interesting conversation I would have all night.
“Are you talking about manscaping?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said the young guy, “What do you think?”
“You need to shave that shit, man, or at least keep it tidy,” I exclaimed, looking at the older man who was about my age, and adding my two cents.
“See, I told you,” said the young one, obviously drunk and obviously relishing the fact that he was right.
“Like shave all of it?” the older guy asked.
“Well, you don’t have to make yourself look pre-pubescent, but you should keep it tidy,” I said.
It was at this point that the young guy divulged that he was shaved from his torso all the way down to his balls.
“Here, check it out,” he said, pulling his shirt out at the bottom, inviting my to feel his chest.
I reached up underneath his shirt, felt his abs, and both pecs, checking for any piercings and any trace of hair. None.
“Oh, geez!” grumbled the older one.
“Is that stubble, or do you need to exfoliate?” I asked.
“No!”
I removed my hand from the boy’s chest, and turned to the older one, “It’s just more pleasant if there isn’t a bunch of hair down there to deal with. Plus a guy can make his dick look longer if he simply gets rid of the half-inch of nappy pile at the base of it.”
“Well, I don’t need to make my dick look bigger,” exclaimed the young one, “I just don’t want to put a girl through that, going down there with a bunch of hair. It gets in your mouth.”
“Well, not only that, but hair traps smells. If a guy has hair and he’s wondering why he’s not getting blow jobs, maybe he needs to question how it smells down there.,” I said.
“I think things were different in the 80s,” said the older guy, “I always thought the perception was that if you shaved you weren’t as manly.”
“Well, I think you’re right, that hair wasn’t as big a deal back then, but it is now. I like a little chest hair, but you have to keep it under control,” I said.
Sensing that I might be closer to the older guy’s age than his own, the younger one suddenly asked me how old I was. (This younger generation and their manners! I tell ya!)
“Well, I have a 23-year-old son in college,” I said.
“Get the fuck out of here! You look like you’re about thirty-four!”
“Thank you.”
This launched the younger one to reveal that he was 24, his mom was 47, and he had been with two women older than his mother, one 48, the other 49.
“I struggle with the age thing,” I said, “I’m recently separated and I just can’t see going out with anyone younger than about 35.”
“Well, if you’re recently separated, you SHOULD go out with someone under 35,” exclaimed the older one.
“I just don’t know that a young guy would know what he was doing.”
This was the WRONG thing to say. The younger one suddenly went on a diatribe about how he had been with these older women. It was all about foreplay, and he knew how to do that and other things. There were some finger movements to illustrate his technique and he was REALLY selling it.
“You’re right about foreplay,” I said. He started talking about going down on a woman, and although I’m not ready to turn my blog x-rated, I will say that he almost had me convinced that he might know what he was talking about.
“Have you ever seen Nina Hartley’s How to Eat Pussy Like a Champ,” I asked.
He had not.
“Well if there is one take away from that instructional video, it’s this: Licking sucks. Sucking rocks.”
“Really?” said the older one. He was quickly making himself look like a completely bumbling, uninformed idiot.
“Yes,” I said, and I started to describe some of the mistakes men commonly make when travelling downtown. (I won’t bore you with the details.)
After a little while longer, I separated myself from the conversation, and went and found Dora. She and her friends were just about ready to walk back to the cars, so I ditched my glass of ice having never found my non-alcoholic drink and headed out with them.
I said goodbye to the hosts. They said that they thought I was FABULOUS and that we needed to hang out again sometime. I got home well after midnight, briefly took Thor out, and then Thor and I went to bed.
As intriguing as sexual experimentation with a 24-year-old may be, I’m not ready to go there.
For now, I’ll stick with the fireworks I know. Thank you very much.
My Dating Prescription 