kris and i went out dancing last saturday night.  i was pretty wasted from
my race, so we napped for a few hours, had dinner, took our time getting
"slutted up," as whitney would say, and headed out.  i actually spent a
minute or two putting on make-up, if you can believe that, which i don't
think i've done since cleveland.

kris had on what i would characterize as "evening" make-up, a
spaghetti-strap black dress that ended mid-thigh with slits up both sides,
and these cool strappy black heels reminiscent of the ones i bought in
denver for the wedding reception in cleveland.  she considered this to be
"conservative."  i had on my standard going-out attire, dk blue jeans,
tank top, docs.

i had some kind of a moment or something where even though i intended to
go to mass ave, i started heading toward 93.  i tried to get back toward  
mass ave by sullivan sq, but gave up and went back to 93.  then i got off
at fenway and drove around boston for at least 1/2 an hour before finding
landsdowne st.  we couldn't find parking so we went around again.

it was quite sad, because by the time we got back, the naval officers in
summer whites were nowhere to be seen.

coming back on to landsdowne the second time, three people tried to cut me
off at once but i'm proud to say the cycling aggressiveness kicked in and
i forced them all behind me, even the guy in the big suv.  like mark a
says, as long as your handlebars are in front, everyone else has to
submit.

we chose a club with no line (axis), paid an exorbitant fee to get in, did
a lap, and got some drinks.  we sat around for a bit but then the dj
started playing "sleep now in the fire" which is a kick-ass song even if 
rage against the machine are a bunch of commies.  if they'd played music 
like that all night i would have been perfectly happy but of course it 
soon settled somewhere between techno and rap.  blech.

my sister and i, unfortunately, dance like a couple of white girls.  and
kris gets this fabulous "think of England"-type look on her face.  i spent
all my time staring at everyone to amuse myself.

so one thing that kris concluded from her visit is that i don't meet guys
because i don't notice when they're acting interested.  this may or may
not be true, but i pointed out that i'm sure we were getting attention
because of _her_.  (those of you who met her would understand.)  although
i'm willing to entertain the idea that my particular brand of blindness--i
can't see the bike that a customer wants to pick up, i've learned to stop
noticing world news at work because our audience "doesn't care"--could
also affect my guydar.

anyway, whatever it is, i had no clue what was going on while we          
were dancing and relied on kris to provide "color commentary."  "we're
getting double-teamed right now," she would say, or "that guy followed us
all around the dance floor."  in general they were mostly nasty and
flinging full beers all over the place.  one guy was bugging kris so we
quickly moved away as i entertained fantasies of hurting him with my
docs.  (one, in high school, i temporarily lamed one my JROTC comrades
with a well-aimed kick with a combat boot.  in the shin.  unfortunately
docs are softer.)  i missed the nice clean gay men at man-ray.  i saw a
couple of cute guys, but who cares unless they're on bikes?  at least they
provided some eye candy for my tall preppy clean-cut white boy fetish.

we finally quit after a couple hours.  my hearing was impaired all the way
into sunday afternoon, which was scary.

i'm sure, in this story, there is some sort of metaphor for the aimless
ADD-addled angst of my generation, but if i really cared about that i
would have been at home smoking and writing angry poetry and             
mutilating myself and purging instead of peeling my boots off a
floor sticky with spilled beer feeling my bones resonate with
crappy music.