for the first time last night, and only briefly, i hung out in a gay bar. after our feminist discussion group, lana and i met jay at the dupont fountain and shared the tip that a woman at the group had passed on: a "dating game" type thing was to take place at Titans, if we were interested. at least lana and i were - jay allowed himself to be dragged. lana recalled a discussion we three'd held just about a year ago, as to whether being single life-long constituted "failure" in some form. we hashed out our positions again, somewhat changed over the interim.
the bar itself, a black metal staircase above a hamburger restaurant with enviable decor, was packed and dark, with robbie williams singing "mack the knife" on clusters of tv screens along the walls. after he finished, evil britney in a red bodysuit started making eyes at us. we shuddered and concentrated on the stage set up along one side for the dating game -- featuring one straight couple (an overweight, uncomfortable looking black man and white woman, in nursing skool together,) one lesbian couple (one dark-haired and aggressive, holding a beer bottle; the other blond, soft and self-effacing,) and one gay couple (distinguishable only because one of the medium-height brown-haired goofy-looking men wore glasses).

a towering man in drag plowed towards the stage past us shouting, "the jew, coming through!" made up as frighteningly as britney and sporting a huge crayola orange wig, she played the MC, and not very well. despite the amusing potential of the set-up, lana jay and i left after the first bit. people took as little notice of us leaving as they'd taken of us entering.
that was the cap to an extremely chill day where, taking advantage of our freedom from supervision at work (not that there's ever too much to begin with), we interns watched romeo and juliet and i got absorbed in a game of scrabble online.