My cover has been blown

The Eagle in downtown Minneapolis tempts me each Friday with its three-fer-one drink specials until 7:15 pm. I imbide in a few longnecks in the conference room at work, kevetching with coworkers huddled around the lava lamp and then skip across the street to the local leather bar.

Hirsuteness, cigar smoke blown in my face, pushy barback boot boys. I like it a lot. Tom joins me with his boyfriend. Nice men pull at me as I walk past and rub their walrusy moustaches against the back of my neck.

The Eagle has a big smoking patio, and because of the smoking ban (and the impending subzero weather about to hit us), they've built this giant plywood shed in the middle of it. It seriously looks like the place you'd store your lawnmower for the winter. Inside you are confronted with heatlamps, crotch-grabs, and aggressive stares. It has the potential to be the archetypal Minnesotan gay backroom. February, ten below out, and you are kneeling in snowdrifts sucking off a leatherbear in a plywood shed.

Last night we were joined by Jessica and her girlfriend. I met Jessica about a month ago at the Xiu Xiu concert. During one particularly quiet moment she screamed out, "Stop taking fucking photographs" to some douchebag in the front row with a digital camera and I instantly fell in love with her. Later at the 19 Bar a caterer in town for Cirque de Soleil told her she was going to break up with her girlfriend and another man stole her drink. She has bad luck out in public but you know sometimes I think she brings it on herself. A few weeks ago, someone posted a comment to my blog. The name was Jessica, the comment indicated she knew Tom as well, and she provided a link to a blog on which this Jessica writes about her job as a tech person. Assuming it was the Jessica I know (who also works as a techie), I started spreading rumors around town about her based on what I was reading from her blog. For example, the blogger Jessica broke up with her girlfriend. And when Tom and I were walking around near the 19 Bar one night and saw the real Jessica's girlfriend, I hustled him past her..."You know they broke up! I read it on her blog! The carny was right!"

Now apparently this is a different Jessica who is blogging, and my rumors are unfounded. All is well in Dykeville--Jessica is still with her lady-friend.

Tom totally blew my cover, alerting the men who flirt with me that I am not really "into" bears. I totally expect my invitations to nude bear pool parties to slowly dry up as a result. Damn you Tom!

We ended up at The Magic Numbers show, which was good. No, we ended up at The Brass Rail after the show, where Jessica threw our beermats on the floor, I lost my earring, and we all felt sad for the old male strippers who were dancing below t.v. screens that were for some reason showing reruns of The Golden Girls. We barely had enough money to buy bottles of Rolling Rock for $3.75. John Berryman would have been driven to drink by the state of the place.