![]() Hadn’t he heard? (Wow, what we thought, then.) At one point, when I was trying to decide whether I wanted to stay at the cozy, low-lit bar with a live singer with an incredible voice or move onto the riverfront beer place where we would end the night, Queer Chef ordered a beer. We traded cocktails, trying each others’ - it’s a thing that still gives me pause, no matter with who, after the first time I told a friend’s husband, in March of 2020, that no, I didn’t want to taste his beer. And heck, if it was my job, I’d want to avoid refills, too.Īfter getting to Bangkok, getting into the apartment we were staying in, and freshening up, it was evening the next day, so we went out for snacks…and more drinks. I looked at her when she said that, and she maintained the most placid smile and got me my ginger ale. Toward the end of the fight, the attendant, with a smile, just asked him if he wanted a double when he ordered another drink. On the flight from Qatar to Bangkok, they had “the good kind” of ginger ale with actual ginger, which, score. When I tried to point out something about Palestine playing on the news in the airport, he seemed unable to understand what I was saying to him. At our layover in Qatar, he got a Long Island iced tea while I managed to drink half an Americano. I had to keep reiterating it was “because I am trying not to projectile vomit all over that cute baby okay?!” For every cocktail he got after that, I got ginger ale or water. He seemed to periodically forget I was barely-not-barfing, asking me why I seemed so quiet. Besides, it wasn’t, like, worth it to get a hangover from a plane ride, you know? “The drinks are free” he reminded me while I fought back the queasiness I get from being on planes. On the plane, we both got a gin and tonic while I fiddled with the in-flight Wi-Fi for like an hour (it did not work). I planned a week in Bangkok, and we bought one-way tickets together, and then I planned a week in Japan alone following that because it is, due to the world being round, “on the way back” to the US. I’d wanted to travel somewhere alone this spring, because I enjoy the challenge of navigating novel experiences on my own, but also because I had felt so cooped up and choked by my surroundings (who can’t relate after the years we’ve been through?) that I desperately wanted to be somewhere I wouldn’t recognize. He’d have someone to fly there from Pittsburgh with and someone to hang out with in the city besides people he knew through work. What if I tagged along to Bangkok for some of his work trip, I asked, knowing full well it was cheeky to invite myself along, but he was delighted. We stayed in touch, and he let me know, one day, that he was coming back to Pittsburgh briefly before heading to Bangkok for training at another one of his boss’s restaurants (one of an international string). ***If you remember Queer Chef from the early volumes of Untethered, we became friends, but then he moved overseas for a work opportunity. This Untethered features some recurring characters, and while what happened isn’t the worst that could happen, it came a little too close. However, the downside to having different kinds of days, to breaking out, is that sometimes things can go quite south. I saw Laura Jane Grace and her wife play live in Pittsburgh along with incredible gay fucking opener Thelma and the Sleaze. ![]() I’ve tried new ways of moving my body and being present, have ventured to new places, and navigated the death of my grandmother with my family on my own - or as an “unclaimed jewel” as one of the nuns at her funeral called me. I made friends and felt exalted in those friendships, reborn and newly blessed. But I comforted myself, often, with: What’s the worst that can happen? It began as a personal project that - by way of living outside the confines of Life as a Monogamous Relationship-Centered March of Milestones - required I push myself to try new things, go new places, meet new people, make new friends. The events of the past few weeks have me looking back at the start of this column. If you put yourself out there, you might be healed, and you might get hurt. The Autostraddle Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema.LGBTQ Television Guide: What To Watch Now. ![]()
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