Beantown roadtrip - day 1

On friday I called in sick, dressed myself conservatively in jeans and a crocheted sweater and headed east to Boston. On the way I picked up the lovely and smart film student Angela. We stayed in a cheap but adequate hotel in Bedford, MA, about 15-20 min. outside the city. Mother earth was also smiling down on us as the weather was perfect for both traveling and for hanging out in an unfamiliar city - nothing but sun and mild temps!

As luck would have it, Angela and I wanted to do a little shopping beforehand and there just happened to be a shopping center right next door to our hotel! With me still dressed and she in drab we hit a mostly old people/tacky clothes store that contained only a few gems and a payless shoe store where each of us found a cheap pair of shoes. We waited out what seemed an inordinate period of time while the saleswoman unsuccessfully tried to fix her register, finally making us pay cash when no fix worked. Then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the evening.

The plan was to get some dinner, head to Jacques and then possibly Manray after that. While getting ready, however, Jon of URNotAlone.com gave us a call and offered to take us out to dinner and then escort us out to Jacques. We quickly accepted his kind offer and headed downtown. If you've ever driven in Boston before and especially if you were just using a rather vague map to figure out where you were going, you know what inevitably happened to us. We completely passed the proper Turnpike exit and ended up in the Big Dig and then at the airport. Finally, after another frantic call to Jon for some direction as to the proper exit and then passing through way too many toll booths to justify the 4-5 miles we traversed, Angela managed to direct us into the city proper and weave our way down to the Theater District area, where Jacques is located and coincidently where Jon and the famous Vicky live as well.

For the night I was dressed in my maroon pleather pants and black sleeveless top with red and white flowers, along with my trusty black leather boots. Angela had decided on a black mini, a bell sleeve black and red goth top (which actually is mine, but she looked great in it) and her newly puchased little black mary jane's. We arrived at Jon and Vicky's very spacious and fashionable condo around 8:30 and quickly headed out to the restaurant. Coming along with us were a couple of Jon's very cool ts friends, the raven-haired Sara and the dirty blonde maned Sylvia. The restaurant, Deda's, which Jon frequents regularly, was only a half a block from the house and is tg friendly with an appealing mixture of post-modern and 30's style decor. It sits on the edge of the Theater district and is a bit of a culinary secret and so was not overly crowded. In between conversations about corvettes, lesbian bars and boob jobs (I couldn't help but admire Sara's nicely done work as she sat next to me too :-), we polished off a couple bottles of shiraz along with a fantastic meal. I had a very tasty and garlic-laden Ravioli dish with lobster pieces, and a couple bacon-wrapped scallops.

Next was the historic and famous Jacques! As is usually the case, it was smaller than I had imagined it, but that didn't take away from its charm one bit! Despite hearing more than a few negative reviews of the place from other girls, Jacques was very friendly and fun. There was a pageant going on on the far side of the club, but as we were hanging with Jon and the regular admirers and tgs who for the most part had seen all the girls many times before, I hardly managed more than a few furtive glances at the show. The girls hanging on our side of the club were all beautiful, some being "professional" and others not, but all nice. We also attracted a bit of attention from some solo admirers, including a very charming and handsome Delta pilot, and a visiting tall drag queen in drab. Our time at Jacques unfortunately went by too quickly because it closes at midnight.

Fortunately, with the surprising navigation skills of Angela, and with the drab drag queen in drag, we headed out to Cambridge to Boston's other tg-friendly nightclub, Manray. On this friday night they had a restrictive "black" dress code (excepting tgs of course) and half the club is dedicated to the goth scene. And when I say they were dressed in black, I mean it! There was very little else of the color spectrum in the whole place. Needless to say, I stuck out a bit in my non-black, but still goth-like maroon and flowery outfit! The other side was more poppy in atmo, but still a bit goth populated.

The goth side was almost all dance floor except for a long bar on the far side. It was also very dark and very loud. They were playing awesome music in there - a lot of very fast-paced goth/house/trance tunes, which is right up my alley. And I liked that it was dark - serving to mask my lack of dance skills! Unfortunately, all the bars in Boston close at 2 am, so we had to end the night somewhat early. In retrospect, given my long schedule the following day, this was probably a good thing!

I got to sleep around 3:30, nervous but eager for the shopping, photoshoot and clubbing activities planned for saturday...