On Being Magical...

And it was, dear reader. After a splendid afternoon hanging out with my friends, a few of us decided to go check out Rainbow Mountain's dance club...

It felt like coming home...

We haven't been to a club in years, mind you. With the buying of the house six years ago, my body's predilection toward evicting organs, and a myriad of other issues, the money just hasn't been there. Mind you, we'd go out to see the odd band, go to the straight event here and there (like Bally last week)... And they have been fun times...

But upon entering the dance club...

Home. Surrounded by hundreds of gay men and lesbians all there for one reason--to be together, dancing, drinking, and having fun. Celebrating life. I didn't want it to end...

One of the more mysterious things to me is how I automatically become 600% more attractive upon entering a club. (Seriously, it's not just the Long Island's and Snake Bites!) The cruising, the eye contact, the brush-up here and there, Rich symbolically "claiming" me by constantly touching my shoulder, placing an arm around my waist (you gotta love that jealous streak!)...

Oh, not to worry, dear reader! I use my powers for good! Dancing with the geek who just isn't pretty enough for everyone else. Pecking the older gent on the cheek who feels lonely sitting at the bar getting the cold shoulder from the twinks. Being the first to walk up and give the nervous male dancer a dollar when everyone else feels--shy? too "good" for that?--they'd be viewed as "dirty" or something... (Hey, get this--he's putting himself through medical school! He might be next in line to remove another organ from this aging body!) The best part is ignoring those who are in good with "everyone else," the "pretty group." Those same twinks who won't give Ray or Harold even a polite hello... The ones who are "too pretty" to be seen with the aged, the over-weight, the "unattractive." It worries me that they have not the foresight or the inclination that one day they might--or will be--part of that group. An accident, a medication, or just age, will place them at that lonely spot at the bar... That dark corner where those just wanting to be seen as human, congregate and grow bitter at the shallowness of young gay culture...

Granted, when I was new, young, and hotter than poached eggs on the scene, I had that streak--but it doesn't take long for some people to realize how the game is played, and if the rules should be followed... And lord knows, I've never been one to really follow the rules...

This is American society, dear reader. Obsessed with beauty, youth, sex. It's not just a trait of my subculture--just glance at the magazine rack, a passing billboard, and number of beauty shops. We have elevated unattainable beauty to even higher levels of perfection while at the same time allowing ourselves to become obesity capital of the galaxy, this United States. Held together by our views of beauty and love of cheeseburgers, the oxymoron is that we idealize what we won't be, worship what we refuse to attain, envy what we won't work for (take a look around you next Sunday in the pews...)--a very disingenuous magic, if I do say so myself. And while this part of our culture has been philosophized to the point of the proverbial dead horse, it is nice to be reminded that, while none of us will be the ideal person with the ideal body and the ideal life...

You can still have a wonderful, fun, vibrant, magical life...

As long as you learn to live your life with respect for everyone else and not just those that fit into your idea of "perfection"... What a piss-poor world this would be if we all were the same. I like to believe each individual life is made just a bit better, a bit richer, when we all take just a moment to acknowledge that...

One might almost call it magical...