If I think back over my life over the past two decades, I can honestly say the people who have had the most positive impact on my social life have always ALWAYS been the gay boys. Meeting Bjorn in the PATH train that day about 2 decades ago was a life changer and the way I met him was HELPING him. He and Heidi had no cash and my pockets were full of dollar bills because I was bartending at the time. After asking the station if anyone had any change to help them, I just gave me the dollars to get on the train. It wasn’t a lot as the train was a buck each way and I just gave it to them as a result, no change necessary. I ended up going home with them to Bjorn and George’s apartment that night and though the night ended up with me pretty damn high (that was my NYC/NJ intro to weed) and me thinking for a good half hour they were vampires (he’s a funny guy), that meeting changed my entire life. Even now he is one of the only consistent people I have any communication with at all from the city.

In Denver it was Beau and Edward–both big sweethearts and though I didn’t have a lot of socialization with them, Beau was the only person who I hung out with from work to any great extent. Our trips to the Mile High Flea market were absolutely highlights to my life in Denver and I miss him a lot.

The same thing happened the other day. I had these 4 moving blankets leftover from our move this way I wanted to give to someone who needed them so I put them up on the community board here and who answered my ad but a really nice gay man named Michael. Our initial meeting was pretty quick, me meeting him by the dumpster to hand off the blankets. He was literally the only person I had any contact with here that wasn’t loose dog talk walking Duke. He told me he worked at the PTO (patent trademark office) which is not far from where we are and that he was moving back to Michigan. That was pretty much it, but me being the persistent kind of asshole I am sometimes and wanting to make every meeting count right now asked him a few minutes later by text if he had any ins to that office because if you know me, you know I am the queen of ideas and getting into that office would have been an amazing thing. He didn’t but he was so nice about everything and offered me recommendations for restaurants, activities, etc in the area and in DC. I, of course, desperate to network any contact I had with the outside world took him up on the offer and he has been the FUCKING NICEST person I have met here so far. Granted he is running away with his husband I would guess within the next few days but he gave me EVERYTHING, including hope that not everyone was going to be a snotty shitbag here. I got a list of restaurants, a guy to follow for recommendations and just a really nice person finally acknowledging I fucking exist. I honestly do not know how long it would have taken to get anyone to do this as we have been here for 50 days at this point and nobody has been overly kind to me, but mostly just “okay” to the dog. People are cordial, but there is a pandemic, so I will give them that.

Yesterday was the turning point in so so many ways. I registered for 5 marketing and social media classes happening through November and December to learn SEO optimization YouTube and Twitter for business and some other internet marketing because, as you all know, I have never made a dollar with this website so it seemed like the time with all of my website hoarding to finally get shit done. I still have my hoard of classes through the copywriting company I get to do in between as my friendless ass has a lot of time to get the shit done finally. My new friend gave me the hope and relief I mattered yesterday and I am so fucking grateful to the universe for finally giving me what I needed, a gay man to save the day.

Thank you, MC, for giving me a reason to not give up. You are a peach and you made a big difference in the life of a stranger you don’t know.