From Hell to Purgatory. Work was hell. The Persian Bitch showed her true colors peacock style yet again. Why no one has killed her yet is a surprise. I almost feel like it should be up to me to remove her from the rolls of humanity, but being a John the Baptist type, I know the true ‘one’ will arrive and do the job properly.

Yes she is female genital slang, and words are whispered that her time is a coming. I laugh and mention to a few people that I am pissed off enough that I am close to walking out.

It’s noticeable and some people say I should go out and have a smoke. I had gone out several times by then, and feel one or two more won’t kill me. Actually they will, but I don’t care. Listen up people, I like to smoke. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. I really do love ingesting nicotine into my lungs. Right now don’t care much about it. Who knows? If I make it to another twenty years I could be lecturing young folk about the hazards of smoking. Right now, it’s smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

I went out at lunchtime and smoked a crap cigar, offered to me by a vendor. Of course I took it. I love me my cigars. This was a crap cigar, bad draw, ill taste, not much happiness involved. But it got me out of the office and enabled me to be alone since very few people like to be around cigar smokers.

I did have a plan to go out after work. I am on a mailing list for HX Magazine, a magazine that gay guys read not for the articles or the pictures but for the ads for bodywork and escorts in the back. No nudity, but a lot of bulges. Enticing indeed. If you have 150.00 to spend and don’t want to be alone, you can hire one of these studs for an hour and they will do whatever you want them to do. It’s shopping for sex. You get what you pay for.

So I get an email from HX telling me about their networking party tonight in Times Square. I begged off a few times already and decide its sink or swim. I swim. I leave work after dawdling around, light up a Padron and stroll around midtown not wanting to be the first at this event.

I brave the masses of tourists roaming around Times Square looking up and arrive at the destination of Tourist Mecca, Planet Hollywood. I walk in and mention I’m here for the HX Connex event, and get quizzical looks. Someone figures it out. I’m a fag. Send me to the fourth floor.

Yes a fag. A Fag that looked sharp this morning putting on the suit, by 6:15PM the suit can only be described as rumpled. I decide to climb the stairs rather than wait and wait and wait for an elevator that doesn’t seem to be coming though some of the men waiting for it do. Up towards purgatory.

Arriving at the fourth floor I am greeted by volunteers for the Men’s Event. That’s what it’s called. They ask what field I work in and I say ‘Finance’. They ask if I’m spoken for or available and I say spoken for. I get a red dot on my label that I peel off and put on my suit jacket. No one else has red dots. No one else is spoken for. They’re all available. I wander around, and find they pour Guinness. It’s not all bad. I talk to a few guys pushing whatever it is they’re promoting, Gyms, HX Magazine, Lava Lamps for Jesus. These guys shmooze. I shmooze. Everyone else cruises.

A lot of these guys look like Tommy Krieger. Tommy was a flaming son of members of the VFW. Flaming before I even knew what flaming was. Twink like. I met Tommy way back in the seventies. A real Mama’s boy. These guys have his look and mannerisms down pat. I wonder if Tommy Krieger patented that.

My label keeps falling off, the story of my life. I get fed up and toss it away and make my way for another pint. Not a real pint, just Guinness in a taller glass. No one else drinks Guinness. They drink Apple-tini’s or Cosmopolitans, maybe a Stella or a Corona. I wander, smile, and sit contentedly texting messages to myself so as not to forget anything I might be seeing.

One of the organizers notices that my label is missing. I tell him it fell off. He says, while obviously showing his enthusiasm for me, that he shouldn’t do this, and writes up a new label. He asks what I do and I say ‘Freelance’ He writes it as ‘Free Lance’. I make a joke about how we have got to get Lance out of jail soon. Imagine if I said Free Mumia.

I would’ve made a Lance Loud joke but it would have gone way over his head. It’s not that much of a change from Finance to Freelance. I am available by default since it’s the guy’s only label. I miss my red dot, but since no one talks to me the green dot might as well be red.

I wander around some more, just smiling watching videos from the 1980’s. There is no networking going on. Just groups of friends talking to each other and those without friends looking desperate. I just watch.

I think about how if Bill was there with me we could create a scandal and just sit there and make out. That would be cool and ruffle some plumage. But he’s not and I finish off the fourth ‘pint’ in one hour. The event is humoresque.

I’ve had enough. I get my coat and leave. It was an experience but I’d rather be home. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I ventured and gained nothing. I hop over to the bus terminal and I am second to last on the bus about to head out. I plop down and listen to Nick Lowe.

And so it goes. But where it’s goin’ no one knows.