All Alone All By Myself

I'm having a hard time putting this weekend into words. Like if I keep it all inside I can keep it forever without it diminishing. And I know that's not how it works but I'm not ready. Everyone else has blogged about this weekend and their feelings and I've read them all and I get it and I love it and it makes the weekend feel a little bit closer but so very far away at the same time.

Bear with me. Bare with me. I'm just writing this as it comes.

I spent the whole weekend a bundle of self conscious nerves, but that is how I live my life. Sometimes it's better. Sometimes the panic attacks stay away and I smile and feel warm inside.

I spent more time going places than really being places this weekend, but I was always somewhere. Never in my life have I spent so much time with so many people I'd never met in 3D. In such small spaces. I drank more than I ate, slept very little in awkward ways, walked everywhere like I knew exactly where I was going (and I mostly did). I stood in the rain on Broadway talking with two girls I'd just met (but already knew) about everything and nothing for over an hour. I wore a bright pink sparkly cowboy hat in public (but not in the rain). I wanted to hug everyone all the time. Part of me wanted to hide in the corner. I'm trying to lose that part.

One time I went to Texas to meet a 2D friend in 3D. I went to her wedding. This was a totally different experience.

I briefly talked and flirted with a girl I had just met and will never meet again and I let her kiss me on the cheek and that is big for me and will probably not happen again for a really long time because I'm a big baby. But she did say she owes me a drink. Next time.

I still haven't told my parents why or how or what I went to New York for this time. They haven't asked. I haven't seen them since before I left but I will see them tonight and I don't know what they will ask or what I will say but I hope I say all the right things. Right for me though, not for them. Because I'm 27 and I'm queer and I intern for this great website and I met all these amazing people and we are friends in 2D and I hope in 3D sometime again and I don't want that to be a secret part of my life anymore. I don't want my life to be a secret.

I felt really old and really young this weekend.

I'm listening to our The Future is Bright Mix. The Pillow Fort & Beer Intern Army Ninja Pirate Pre-Party Party Mix is next. Even though we didn't actually make any forts. But we climbed out the window onto a secret balcony and talked about music and lube and where we were from and everything and nothing and I was only a little afraid to be up so high in the New York sky without a seat belt. I got bug bites and a bruise but I wouldn't trade them for anything.

I want to cry and I want to laugh and I want to do it all again. Except I don't want to see that old man get butt naked in the street and bend over to put on feathers again. I did not sign up for that.

One day I want to drink enough or feel free enough to dance.

Whaaaaat?

I want more than a handful of people to get that. Or maybe I don't. It's not the same without a megaphone anyway.

Tequila shouldn't be clear and liquor shouldn't glow green and taste like sugary rubbing alcohol. But it was and it did and we drank it anyway. I didn't do any shots. I drank a lot of beer. And ate Pinkberry. Soon we will have a Red Mango in Chicago but it won't be the same.

It was like, I didn't know these people but I did, and as soon as we were all in one place everything made sense and felt almost normal like we had done it before and will do it again. And I hope that we do. I've actually never been around so many openly queer female friends before. It was nice and I wish I had that here. To not have to explain myself so much. To look at everyone's shoes and hair and shirts and know how gay it all was and everyone knew how gay it all was and thought it was awesome and funny and ok. And real and right. There were more Tegan & Sara shirts and references and tattoos (well, just mine) than I'd ever seen in one places before. Except for that one concert I drove up to Madison for. I met a girl I'd never met in 3D before that day, too. But it was another totally different experience.

Now I don't know how to end this. Do I tell more specific details or share more abstract feelings or just start talking about something else altogether? Maybe I can put names to things. Cute moments.

Laura made a nest of pillows and sheets on the hotel floor and made really awesome cookies. Asher said underpants because she hates the word panties, and rode the bull. Also, she was Sooo Wasted. Tirna got drunk and silly and made faces and slept in the most awkward position on the floor. Duck was Duck. With a megaphone and an accent. Heidi filled the bathroom garbage with beer bottles and found the pleasure pack in the minibar. She's also a new queer. Emily and Katrina were one person. Emily had the same tshirt as my tattoo. We say Montreal wrong. Katrina threatened to give everyone alternative lifestyle haircuts and said flavored lube is bad. Lex also had a Tegan and Sara shirt and she lay down in the middle of Manhattan. She and I put on the Autostraddle temp tattoos. I didn't spend that much time with Lola or Nicole or Jess but they were still fun to talk to. Carly and Riese had this exchange while waiting for the parade:

Riese- Let's play strip poker.
Carly- We don't have any cards.
Riese- Let's play strip.
Carly- That's not a game.

I hardly talked to Brooke or Robin or Natalie (the token straight) but they were so sweet. Stef means business, she gets things done. Also, she is fun and interesting to talk to. A;ex is adorably concerned for people. She never seemed to pass me or any intern by without checking up on us. Which is extra funny if you consider that I'm older than her. I found out how Carly knows Josh which is still weird to me.

There are more feelings and moments but I can't share them all. My pictures are here. I've run out of steam for it. I don't want to share anymore. The rest is mine. All of this is mine and maybe you won't get it or it won't seem that awesome to you but it was. It was one of the best experiences in my life. All the love and the fun and the good.

Let's do it again. My door is open.