The Things I do for my Ex

Packed for my trip in the morning, as all my scheduled stuff was in the afternoon and evening. I was supposed to meet up with Norman around 3-4, but he texted to cancel at 2. At the same time, I started chatting on Scruff with a nice boy from Brisbane, who I also chatted with last year. We were going to meet up for coffee, and maybe naked time. Coffee took too long; I was supposed to meet Kat at Betty's around 3:30. We had a good conversation, though, and we're going to try to meet up for naked time once we're both back. Did a loop around Betty's but didn't see Kat. I did get a text from Tim, saying he was on his way. Tim got a $250 scholarship for one of his poems, and wanted me to go to the awards dinner with him. We were supposed to be there at 5, but we had only the nebulous "Double-tree" to guide us, and he had directions for none of them. We drove around for a while before finding one, found out it was the wrong one, and eventually made it to the right one at about 5:45. I'm not sure why they asked the scholarship recipients to show up at 5; they didn't even start letting people into the dining room until 6:15. I'm imagining they had everyone there confused with the gay community, and were hoping we would drink a lot.

The dinner itself was boring. Very boring. 2.5 pages of scholarship recipients. I was very impressed with the hotel itself, though. When my ticket was purchased, the only options were "Steak" and "Vegetarian." I made a note on the form, and again on the ticket, that I was vegan, but I wasn't really expecting anything else. They brought me a plate of ravioli in cream sauce. I had some food before we left, because I've been to awards dinners before, so I'm used to not eating. Tim tried to give me the broccoli from his plate, because it hadn't touched his steak, and he wanted at least the illusion that I had a meal. Fuck no. I was amazed when the server for our table asked me why I wasn't eating, then brought me back a quinoa ragout. It was still another couple hours for the awards; the kid who won the top award of the night was the very picture of White Bread America, and his speech reflected as much. After him, however, they gave a surprise award to a guy who had been a refugee in Africa, and was pre-med to go into Dr.'s Without Borders. It was such a nice contrast.

Tim hung out at home for a little while, but eventually headed back to his boat. I was going to go out to Rich's, but given that I was driving to LA in the morning, opted for sleep instead.