Justin's Life... December 26-31, 1997


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December 26, 1997 - Friday

6:35PM

The days of subtitling a diary entry "From My Notepad" or the like are gone... I got a Velo 1 handheld PC (about the size of a VHS videocassette) for Christmas and although it's taken until today for me to find a unbelievably small screwdriver to remove the back panel and install the 4 meg RAM card, I really like it.

11:56PM

I spent most of today catching up with friends from high school. This afternoon, Larry and I had lunch with Amanda and Mike (who are also back in Kentucky for Christmas) then earlier tonight, Larry and I went to see Scott and his wife Michelle so that I could give them their Christmas present. Overall it was just a nice, pleasant, and necessary recuperation from Christmas Eve and Day.

December 27, 1997 - Saturday

2:33PM

Well, last night was spent doing absolutely nothing. Larry and I watched Austin Powers on Pay-Per-View and that was about it.

Today, I'm not sure what the plan is. This afternoon I think I'm going with Mom to run some errands then tonight I think Larry and I are going to see Titanic with a couple guys he met on AOL.

In other news, I've really noticed the abundance of red headed guys this time back. They seem to be everywhere and I'm sure they constitute a much larger percentage of the population here than in LA. Of course, the much larger red headed guy population has really been causing my eye to linger... and for me to do some non-serious window shopping. I mean, red headed guys, and cute red headed guys ('cause we know that's a whole other category), have really been nearly everywhere. Like yesterday, there was one at Radio Shack and then a couple at Wal-Mart then another at Lowe's.

Yet, ironically, since Larry got here on Monday the desire for that cute stud muffin red headed doctor-to-be boyfriend who would sing to me in public and protect me from would-be killers has lessened by quite a bit. I told him, "I didn't miss you until you got here," and that was the truth. We even talked about it a little further as we were eating lunch during a shopping break at T.G.I.Friday's on Wednesday. Larry said that he really thought it would take me ten failed relationships before I could appreciate what I have with him... and maybe he's right, but the important thing now is that he understands where I'm coming from.

December 29, 1997 - Monday

7:36AM

Well, I ran those errands with Mom then we hurried back to the house so she could prepare for the company that was coming. At around 6PM, my uncle arrived then a few minutes later, his daughter. As kids, she and I were the ones who always hung out together. We were the oldest and the rest of the younger cousins were all "manly men," living for sports, hunting, talking incessantly about female body parts.

So, anyway, we hung out a lot as kids... but when puberty sat in for her, it sorta took over. She was a mother by sixteen and a mother of two by eighteen. She dropped out of high school and basically everyone thought she'd committed herself to white trash status forever.

But as time passed and I went off to college in Boston, she started paying off that white trash debt, until now, where it's almost entirely gone. Of course, that brings me back to my original point. I'd talked with her a couple times since I'd started dating, but the "g" word had never come up... well, rather I dodged the questions like, "So, you gotta girl up there in Boston?" But this time, Larry and Katie were at the house. Larry alone, with his 24 plus years on me, is something most people don't readily figure out. (Twenty minutes ago, the flight attendant asked Katie if I was her brother.) And if someone does figure out that Larry and I are together on his own. He often has problems putting Katie in the equation. So, knowing my cousin's not quite cultured (read "tolerant") attitude from before and knowing that her husband came from the hills where things are exponentially less cultured, I wasn't sure how things would go down when she asked, "Who's he?" I mean, this was the cousin whose husband (the one from the hills) shot a hole in the side of their trailer when he blew up the caller ID one night after she nagged him about who was calling.

Yet, Larry and Katie got introduced to everyone and no one asked how they fit into the picture. Katie played with my cousin's daughter and when I talked about Larry, I didn't make him sound as though he was some person I barely knew, but just the opposite. I can't help but think they all (my half sister and half brother arrived a little later) figured it out.

9:16AM

Well, Larry and I did meet two guys from AOL just to hang out, but it wasn't quite what we'd expected. That said, we weren't really expecting anything in particular, just average Joe gay guys who, from the voices on the phone, might have been flickery.

So, anyway, as we were driving into Lexington, I called on the cell phone to get more exact directions to their apartment where we were supposed to meet them. It was like talking to dirt.

"We just got off of 75 on Richmond Road and are heading towards Lexington"
"Yooo seee a Waul-Mart up on yer left?"
"No, we just got off the interstate"
"Is thair a Waul-Mart up on yer left?"
"No, we just got off 75. Do you mean the Wal-Mart at Richmond Road and Man O'War?"
"Tell me whut yoo see around yoo."
"There's nothing around us. We're on Richmond Road heading towards the Wal-Mart that's across from Hooters."

It just kept going on and on until I finally got some half-assed directions out of them. I asked at least three times for the actual street address, but all they could answer was the name of their apartment complex. Talk about LA's gym bunnies being vacuous. These guys couldn't turn on a light switch.

So, eventually we found the place and rang the doorbell. Down came the roommate. He was ok looking. I mean, he wouldn't win any beauty contests and had a hairstyle straight out of the trailer park, but he looked fairly normal around these parts.

When we got upstairs, though, we met the other half of the pair. He was busy back in his room combing the poofy red wig of the drag queen who was sitting in front of him. The two were bickering nonstop as if they were playing a scene straight from Priscilla. The guy in the wig already had his make-up applied by the time we got there, but before the guy we were meeting could put on the (blasphemous) faux red head's eyelashes, another drag queen arrived. This one was a six foot tall black "woman." For the next thirty minutes or so, the three of them kept making references as to how they were going to kill one another; a can of hairspray and a lighter, waiting until one fell asleep, opening up a can of whoop-ass on the other, etcetera. It was as though we weren't even there. I mean, the black drag queen said "Hello" and shook our hands, but the other one and the hairdressing guy who we were supposed to meet didn't even acknowledge our presence. They both just continued their insults and transformation.

Finally, at around 9:50PM. the hairdressing, belly shaving --The "red head" was wearing a mid-rif top and his chest/stomach fur had to be shaved.--, and dressing up had been completed. The unshaven, open-shirted guy we were supposed to go to see Titanic with went into the front room and drank from his beer while smoking a cigarette. He asked if we were still going to the theatre, then said that he thought he was going to stay there. That was fine by me. I was ready to leave a while ago, but Larry then said we'd see them at the bar later. I really couldn't tell whether he was serious or not. He already said something about it all being really interesting and he'd harassed me about basically being a little ball keeping to myself. He'd asked how I could watch Priscilla on the tv screen but wasn't comfortable seeing it in real life. I'd responded that it was behind a pane of glass.

So, not knowing whether Larry was serious or not, I waited until we started driving away before I told him that I wasn't going to the bar after the movie. He responded, "I knew that."

So, we went to the theatre and watched the only movie which hadn't yet started, Alien: Resurrection. When it was over, we headed back to the rent-a-van and headed home. On the way, we talked about the movie, but mostly about the scene in the apartment. Don't get me wrong. Drag's not my thing -- Why anyone would want to spend that much time getting dressed up like a woman is beyond me. --, but the guys weren't evil. They were just "different"... and for the most part, stereotypical. The only thing really wrong with that, like I've said before, is that people who don't know any average Joe gay guys assume that all gay guys are like that.

12:11PM

Yesterday, we all had lunch together in Lexington then spent last night packing. This morning, we woke at 5:30AM and hurried to the airport where we got on a plane to Memphis. We're now on the second half of the flight to LA. For those of you who are keeping score, I did not get the can

10:16AM PST

Nothing of note has happened on the plane today... except Katie is sitting next to a lady whose face has been surgically constructed. Worried what she might say something to the lady about it, Larry asked me if I thought he should switch seats with Katie when she first got on. I told him no, that her face wasn't different enough for Katie to really notice.

About five minutes passed then Katie began talking to the lady. They talked about Tickle Me Cookie Monster and Interactive Barney. Everything was going fine and Katie had been talking to her long enough that if she was going to say anything about her face, she would have, so Larry started reading his paper and I began typing here... then I heard, "Justin." I looked over and Katie said, "Is your face hurting you?" I glared at Larry with a "Oh-my-gosh. That's worse than we possibly imagined." look and his eyes widened back. I then said "No" to the joke she tells at least every other day and she came back with the punchline, "It's killing me."

Larry and I both knew, as it usually gets a laugh, Katie makes a point of telling it to each and every person in her vicinity. Imagining what was about to happen next, Larry quickly told her that that was enough and changed the subject