Wake up & wonder: What the FUCK happened...?

I had one of those nights on Saturday.

I've run it through my head several times -- mainly an attempt to rectify the number of glasses of wine I had with the outcome I experienced -- and I can't quite get things to jibe.

What I recall, explicitly, was that an hour before HGM was to come over, I returned from spending a couple hours watching videos in the library at school. When I parked my car, I felt very peculiar in my body, and I remember thinking: I should call and tell him I'm not going. I should stay home.

But I had been being rather funky in my head, and I thought that getting out for something fun -- especially a "gay party," as HGM described it -- would be good for me.

HGM came over around 7:30. We walked my dog in the neighborhood for a while and returned to my place, where we each enjoyed a glass of wine and chatted for a while. At about 8:30, we left and went to a house-warming party not too far from my place.

This house was fabulous. Although I'm not a huge fan of building homes that don't keep with the character of the neighborhood in the slightest, I make exceptions. This home is owned by two gay men -- one of whom once was a model and the other of whom is an architect. They have exceptional taste, which is actually NOT a genetic trait of gay men, no matter what popular culture would have you believe.

But I digress.

The design of the place was a modern variation of Frank Lloyd Wright. Having lived in a Wright home when I was a child, I was instantly enamored with what the architect had done. This despite construction using all modern materials and the fact that there were no geographical features on this standard city lot to use the way Wright often did.

So we go into this home, and it's filled with gay men. There are five women there in total. Only one or two, aside from me, were queer. (Later, when one of the hosts said to me, "Well, we *did* have a lesbian here," I replied, Yeah, I know. I saw the flannel shirt in the crowd.)

Naturally, there are lot of alcoholic beverages on hand. HGM asked what I would drink, and I said I would "stick with wine." I even stuck with the white part, which is not like me. (I prefer reds.) So I got a glass of wine. They were small plastic cups that could not have held more than 6 ounces of wine. Probably more like 4 ounces. And, of course, I didn't TOP it...

We went outside and sat by a fabulous fire pit for a while.

I drank one.

We went back inside and refilled. We took a tour of the house. During the tour, I drank about half of that drink.

I refilled and we went back outside the firepit.

There, I met a Dutch woman who is traveling in the states for the first time. She landed in Vegas a few weeks ago, and we talked about the surreal nature of that city and how completely disorienting it would be to experience jet lag there. While I was speaking to her, I fumbled my drink and dropped it on the ground. I had only taken a few sips.

But here's the thing: At the point that I found myself saying, Oh, I just LOVE Dutch people; I meet them wherever I go, and I always love them! *Wherever* I go? I *love* the Dutch? Say what?! I noticed, too, that my speech was starting to slur. When I fumbled the drink, it was because I was losing motor control.

After talking a bit, the Dutch woman asked if I wanted to go back inside and get another drink. Oh, sure. Why not? I left HGM at the fire pit. Did not notice who he was talking to. Until later....

At the bar in this gorgeous house, I met a man named D. He and I spoke for a while about death and dying. He had been shot six times in a mugging, and he recounted for me his near-death experience. Then, for whatever reason, we talked about coloring our hair. He told me that, being Irish (as I am?), I would not be able to color my hair forever. "It starts looking really weird when you're Irish," he said.

At some point, he refilled my glass of wine. As I said, they were very small glasses. I recall him chiding me because I had asked for "The L Wine" because I could not remember the name of it. He kept telling me it was "an F wine." I was talking about the varietal; he was talking about the vintor. Eventually, the Dutch woman picked up the bottle of "The L Wine" and informed us the "L" word in question was Austrian.

D and I both issued long, "OOOhhs," as if it suddenly made sense.

There was a chair at the bar. I sat down in it. I realized as I sat that I had very little balance and just about no sensation in my tush. D asked if I would go to a gay bar here in town and dance with him and his friends. I told him I was with HGM, and he went to go speak to HGM about after-party plans. I looked down the bar in their direction and saw that a man I will call Well Known Person was engaging in lingering eye contact with HGM.

When D interrupted them, Well Known Person looked my direction. Even though I don't know him, I said, Well, hello, Well Known Person. I'm UCM. I'm afraid I slurred when I spoke. He looked amused, and we chatted for a minute. "What," he asked, "did you do before you went to graduate school?" Well, among other things, I was a journalist, I replied.

At this, Well Known Person stood up, grabbed HGM by the lapel and said, "Let's go outside."

By this point, I was becoming acutely aware of feeling totally TRASHED. I counted up the drinks I'd had, considering the size of the cups, and was mystified. I had already switched to bottled water.

I talked to few other people for a while, then went outside and found HGM and Well Known Person sitting by the fire pit alone. As the party was now down to just a few of us, I sat down and started to chat with WKP about being single. I asked him personal questions others might find ballsy, but I could see that he was really eyeing HGM and I wanted to know what he was looking for.

Later, we went inside, and while HGM was using the bathroom (the powder room has a cedar sauna annex in these digs!), WKP started asking me questions about HGM. He wanted to know what time HGM typically wakes up and where he likes to eat breakfast. He got a pen and wrote: "Well Know Person, 971-555-5555, 9:30, Sunday, September 23, breakfast at Well Known Bistro."

Look, I told him, drunk beyond my own comprehension, HGM wants a serious relationship. He's very intense and also quite capable of intimacy. You be nice.

WKP looked at me and smiled. "I do believe that is the sweetest thing I've ever heard someone say," he replied.

When HGM came out of the bathroom, Well Known Person sauntered up to him, took the folded paper and slipped it into the inside pocket of HGM's jacket. I'm gonna have to remember that move, I thought. And then looked on while WKP hugged HGM good-night and grabbed his little buns quite firmly.

We all walked down the street toward our cars together. WKP said, "See ya tomorrow," to HGM, then hopped into his truck. As we got into HGM's car, I asked if he was going to go to breakfast. HGM shrugged and said, "I don't know if I like how he grabbed my ass or not."

HGM dropped me off, and I was surprised -- I mean, REALLY surprised -- at how utterly intoxicated I felt. I started to wonder at that point if I had been drugged or something. The amount of wine I drank simply did not match the physical experience I was having.

I stumbled up to my loft. I saw I had an e-mail from YogaGirl, asking me to send her something before she went out of town to a funeral. I attempted to reply. The computer screen and keyboard were literally swimming before my eyes. I typed out a strange note about how she deserved "healing and wholeness," which, although true, is more a projection of my own weird shit than anything about her. How I managed the fine motor skills necessary for typing ANYTHING, much less a little love note, and pressing "send" is anyone's guess.

I got up and weaved -- literally, a jagged, stumbling path -- from my computer to the bathroom.

Where, for the first time in I don't know how long, I issued forth a rain of vomit.

I'm not a puker. I can get the nastiest stomach ailments -- things a good pukefest might alleviate -- and I can't manage to vomit. Years and years can go by without anything going down and coming back up again. One thing that does NOT make me puke is ... alcohol. I haven't had an alcohol-related vomit incident since Dec. 30, 1987.

And yet....

I'll tell you one bad thing about not being accustomed to vomiting. I don't have much practice with my aim. I sprayed a mess far and wide, and I could barely hold myself up while doing it. My dog ran from the room, yelping his disgust. I made a feeble attempt at cleaning the bathroom -- and a more focused attempt at cleaning myself and getting that rancid taste out of my mouth -- before kicking my clothes into a heap in the hallway and staggering to bed.

I forced myself to drink two glasses of water before I rested. Sometime in the early morning, I got up, got sick again and drank another glass of water. Mid morning, I drank even more.

When I woke up, I still felt drunk. It took me a few hours to get oriented, clean up and walk the dog. While out, I went to see the florist across the street. For reasons that escape me, I greeted her with, Hey, you sexy thing! Then I asked her if she wanted to get drinks sometime when and if I ever feel like drinking again, I added.

She asked me what I had been doing, and I told her a little of the story. She replied that whenever she goes to "gay parties," she ends up "talking to the transvestites about shoes." I looked at her feet. "I'm a tall woman with big feet, so I know what it's like for a man to wear heels," she explained.

Then she inquired about my birthdate. I told her, and she said, "Oh, you're a libra. Well, that's good because I'm a Taurus. We'll get along just fine because you're more likely to think about what I'm saying before chewing me a new ass over it." I raised my eyebrow, so she added, "Although, Libras do have a tendency to keep secrets just for the sake of having something they know that no one else does. And I really don't like that trait."

I don't believe I've ever had that problem, I replied.

"No, I've never gotten that feeling from you," she said. "People like us keep it real."

I guess the whole florist thing is a tangent in some respects, but it feels connected. Probably because I was still drunk and acting like something of an ass. I don't know if I asked her out, or if I was just making small talk. A confusing conclusion to a confusing experience.

I got a sandwich from the deli -- the owner took one look at me and said, "I hope you get feeling better" -- and I rode my bike to work.

Time to haul my ass to bed now. Considering how I felt today, I expect to have the "real" hangover tomorrow. Wish me luck.