The night was dead like only a freezing Monday in February after a few consecutive days of relative warmth can be. There was no traffic, no honking; the usual meathead crawl had slowed to a trickle. Even those girls in sparkly, floaty tops had their coats on for once.
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It seemed like the only patch of life in the city was this one little party in the back of a taco stand. Chances, a “lesbian/gay/bi/queer/trans/intersexed/hetero dance party” that’s held at Big Horse Lounge the third Monday of every month, was raging, as usual. The place was almost uncomfortably packed with the best-dressed and most interesting-looking bunch of people I’ve seen in one place in a very long time: there were gold roses tucked into boots, evening gowns, Ace-bandage chic, big hair, jockstraps, gym shorts, short shorts, undershorts, cross-dressing, and androgyny. Miss Teena Angst, mistress of ceremonies, was dressed as an aristocratic hussy in a powdered wig and white lace. Everyone was freaking everyone else on the dance floor, regardless of looks, parts, or sexual preference. Organizer Latham Zearfoss, a reproductive health care assistant at Planned Parenthood during the day, thinks it was the best Chances yet. “There was a kind of euphoria,” he says. “Everyone was on.”
After dancing for a while I took a seat at the bar, where I found an acquaintance, a 22-year-old graphic designer in ripped jeans. Turns out a friend isn’t all we had in common: I’d been arguing with my boyfriend; she’d recently broken up with hers. We decided to dance.
The stakes always feel higher when I’m dancing with a woman who might want to go home with me. I want desperately to impress her, to be as hot as she wants me to be. But then something strange happens: I stop feeling like a girl. I feel clunky, hard, and masculine in all the wrong ways–not adorably butch but dominating like a caveman.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/Andrea Bauer.
