gayest New Year's ever

I think vodka tonics make me do crazy-ass things.

So I was in Paris for New Year's, staying with Katy-the-American-I-met in Athens. I spent the day meeting up with Ricardo, browsing bookstores. FINALLY found a copy of Sappho's complete poems (or what's left of them, I should say) at The Village Voice bookstore. It was the exact edition I found on the internet, too. ::sigh of pure contentment:: Happiness is a good book.

I started the evening off getting lost in le Marais. I couldn't remember where 3W was. So I wandered around the dark, fairly empty streets, wearing my utterly grungy jeans and my black coat, when I think a gay guy tried to pick me up. He approached me from behind (which freaked me the fuck out; any guy friends reading this, NEVER EVER EVER DO THAT TO A WOMAN) and offered me his arm, very old-school. Mumbled something unintelligible. I looked at him and said, "Ah, non!" He looked at me with a sudden expression of surprise and shock, said "Ah, excusez-moi!" and took off like a shot.
He probably just mistook me for a friend, but it's more amusing to think he thought I was a guy looking for company.

But I finally found 3W. Was surprisingly empty, especially for New Year's, but I did get there pretty early. Nursed a beer and sighed over the impossibly gorgeous butch bartenders. One of them was missing her right arm below the elbow and did some amazing feats, juggling all those glasses.
I finished my beer and decided to check out Bliss Kfe, a dyke cafe/bar just down the road from 3W. They had a bouncer guarding the door, which I found bizarre, since it's not a club. But I'd noticed Le Marais was now plastered with "Votez Le Pen" posters, so maybe there's been some trouble in the neighborhood recently (for those not up on French politics, Le Pen is a disturbingly popular xenophobic right wing extremist politician. He got a large number of votes in the presidential primaries 3 years ago; we studied it in French class. So that's kind of like covering the Castro in San Francisco with "Vote Senator Rick Santorum". Or any Republican of your choice, really).
Anyway, Bliss Kfe was busy; there was a birthday party upstairs and I even got a slice of leftover cake. I sat at the bar and sighed over the bartender again (I think I'll go to bartending school when I get back; obviously that's where all the hotties are). I struck up a conversation with the woman next to me, a 30 something bisexual named Blondine, short pixie hair cut, oh, so cute. We had a pleasant chat in a mishmash of French and English. I started figuring out when would be a good point to ask her to dance.
This is where the vodka tonic comes in. I don't drink hard liquor hardly at all, but I like vodka tonics. I don't have them very often, but I figured spending New Year's in a Parisian dyke bar was certainly a good enough excuse. So I bought myself one.
Next thing I know I'm dancing not with Blondine, but with her butch friend who's name I don't even know. I'm totally enjoying myself, but I'm making out with the wrong woman!! I'm standing there playing an intense game of tonsil hockey with Nameless Butch, all the while trying to figure out if I can still ask Blondine to dance. I spend the rest of the evening with Nameless Butch, who I don't even find all that attractive anyway (she tastes like ashtrays. Smoker.) Catch the metro back to Katy's place, thinking "What just happened?"
I blame the vodka tonic. And the patriarchy, because one should blame the patriarchy whenever possible (I can make a good case for it too. Stupid patriarchy, making the world so fucked up and homophobic that it's impossible for dykes to meet each other outside of an alcoholic setting, and therefore making me so lonely I'm willing to make out with anybody with a pulse.)
But, I finally got to kiss someone on New Year's. I've always wanted to do that. And she may have tasted like ashtrays, but, uh, wow!, nevertheless. Beats the heck out of every previous New Year's, which I spent baby-sitting my cousins for a measly 20 bucks.

So now I'm back in Verdun, content to going back to being a little old lady. Knitting, reading, cooking. It's a good life, and I'm constantly surprised that it's mine. And, what's more, I actually have a New Year's Resolution (I never make resolutions): I'm going to read The Second Sex in French. It's in the library, and I've got about four months to do it. And there won't be a decent translation till like 2050 due to copyright law (fuck you very much, Disney), so I figure there's no time like the present. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.