***Before…..

I noticed some guys show up with gear and started setting up? They moved tables we had merch at and shifted things around and there was one side of the room with food being brought in like a buffet and then on stage there was DJ’s.

Jan Brewer was on stage. “Now folks on top of being paid tonight we’re going to treat all of you to your own private party and dancing and food and snacks, all of you rocking good girls and the bad ones are welcome to take a minute and eat, dance, party. We mde Harper Point and County LGBT+ history tonight people and this might just be bigger than even that!”

I actually yelled out. “Next year we’ll have a whole year to plan it and we can do a whole weekend!”

There were laughs and whistles and cheers from some of the other bands and Jan holds up a beer at us in salute as the music starts playing.

*C’mon feel the noise.* By Quiet Riot starts cranking at max volume and I’m moving already and pulling Rayne onto the dance floor.

Our turn.

***And Now…

It hits just right this time, the gig, getting paid, people having fun and other people paid so we can have some fun too at the end of it all. All that excitement meets adrenaline and no stuffy people supervising as some of the other bands are dancing too.

There’s a couple of cut loose girl yells and screams going off and I join it too.

Rayne joins in too and yeah it kinda becomes a thing for a few minutes before we start dancing.

And this is a whole other kind of dancing too with there being older tunes, older people mixed in with us, older women and older Lesbians too.

There’s a whole other metric when you add in all of those different kinds of queer girls and women.

I can ever feel it here that Queer place, for us, that different and shunned but here and safe vibe.

It’s definitely boosting the party.

And yeah there’s guys here but like crew, band members and few boyfriends or heavier but it’s like eight to one here. The food is from the fry trucks outside with the carnival rides only we’re getting new stuff beside the things they usually cook up.

Loads of things to drink since it is a club and there is booze floating around from our side of things there’s none being sold.

And of course there’s people smoking pot or other things because it is a party.

Dancing, loads of dancing and I like dancing and I don’t have much in the way of curves but I do have enough for some jiggle of my own. And I’m not the only skinny person here. Or trans people… I see some badges in this new flag for trans people pink and white and blue.

There’s people that you can’t tell either sometimes and that whole vibe helps me feel better, more okay with being me.

I mean I know there are other people like me out there but seeing them, being around them. It does amazing things like almost cancelling out my dysphoria feels.

Yes I have them, even if I’m still just getting a grasp on things.
And yes I’m very sure I’m trans, otherwise this would likely all have freaked me out more than what it is and kind of explains where and why I picked up all this girl mode stuff.

And being in a space where there are other people like me and they’re out and open.

It makes me think but it also is really enjoyable.

And I don’t want to lean into thinking and feeling and likely overthinking things with transness and being trans and stuff so I concentrate on dancing and actually being someone that is my actual age at an actual party and dance.

It feels like forever since I cut loose and it’s in a in-real-life way and not on stage. Stage me is a different part of me.

Angel is getting to just be a teen for the rest of tonight and I dance with my girlfriend and my friends and we dance until we are tired and then we join the people outside in lines and in getting food from the fry trucks and it’s that good bad food where the fryer oil is seasoned and the fries are fresh cut and there’s a lot of decent food being served and made for the Queer community needs and takes on food.

It was fun talking, hanging with fans and other acts in line and making out with Rayne as we waited for our food and we’re so not the only couples kissing and making out and being sweet and touching each other.

It’s really nice to just be able to do so much raw PDA in person and not look over our shoulders as a group and community.

It’s nice to be seen in the bigger queer and queer women’s community and getting nods of approval and thumbs up and just support from the Lesbians here.

It really contrasts some of the unsafe for trans and LGBT+ things going on and a lot of the online hate.

The actual Lesbian community and pretty much everyone else isn’t the voices hating us they just want people to be isolated and vulnerable.

Well we’re not, we’re making out and hanging out and dancing and being with each other in public.

That and the fact we danced our asses off and are starving and it’s late in the morning all adds in how good everything we get tastes.

We got fries and onion rings and we all got orders of like different other things as a group to eat off of like tater tots deep fried and then tossed in with pan seared brussels and onions and there’s garlic in it and rosemary.

Or slider burgers that are just really good and juicy and there’s Adult pallets so you can get a medium burger which is rare in Canada, non-existent in fast food.

Fried cheeses, Donair meat sticks with dipping sauce and cheese over them and lots of other things the food truck folks are either trying new or dusting off old things they wanted to serve but don’t really sell at carnivals and stuff.

Then we eat and we go back to dancing and having fun and the Brewers hired day shift clean up for here and we all party and properly close the place down at dawn and it’s really awesome seeing all the people that came here and invested folks that stayed for our after show all filtering home in the Lakeside dawn Ontario light and lake mist as we all headed home or to where we had our hotels or camping area for the show and dozens of us all did this settle in together and very much a L forward slice of the LGBT+

We cleaned up our stuff that we had too and we said goodbyes and we drove around for a bit just vibing and we stopped and got the van filled and all that stuff before heading home. We unpack and I make some bread dough and and couple batches and let it do it’s thing and I make a roster of cut up chicken pieces and fresh chopped up herbs and things and tossed it all in breadcrumbs and put in the oven on very low and from frozen it can cook for hours and hours without being looked at.

I do something like that for frozen veggies in cream of chicken soup like a pot pie filling and I do baked potatoes and all of that can cook while we’re asleep.

Rayne posts some quick stuff on our site of the party and more will be up later and we’re crashing for the day.

She gets a few of our performance clips up and others as a teaser video and we check everything one last time and we go to bed.

We get a long hot steamy and very soapy shower together and get the night off the loads of sweat and everything else from the night and all warm and scrubbed we crashed and as tired as I am to have her here and with me and having someone, just snuggling with her into sleep is priceless.

I crashed pretty hard with the full messy bed head and dry mouth but I had a pretty cool dream of our life and band looking like we’re this mix of the Jem and The Holograms cartoon and American Pop that realistic animated movie.

Heh if I knew anything about it it’d be a neat graphic novel.

It’s also very disjointed as a morning person to wake up in the afternoon and I move pretty slowly, still sort of shaking the sleep out.

Get my robe and head to the bathroom and Carmen intercepts me and takes me downstairs for a good shampoo and treatment not just me with conditioner but like a serious spa deal, and I get a facial mask and peel too and since she’s offering and she does and hand and foot and nails treatment and she’s done the others already and I’m the last one up so I get to just chill out and Rayne shows up and brings me a coffee and she looks like she did the same and is air drying after everything is done and with her hair slicked back you really see her native side highlighted, no make up in her comfy ugly sweats and these old worn soft wool socks she loves around the house and blotchy from the peel she still looks amazing and there’s coffee.

And kisses and me held kiss hostage while my fingernails and toes dried and she sat on my lap and kissed me and we just did that slowly for at least an hour amusing everyone in the house and we finally came up from kissing we came up from the basement as well and I checked on the food and it was just getting better and I left it until supper and until then I went and hung out with everyone in our “Living room”

What it is really was our Living room and it’s our usual practice space and the stage section is horse shoed by two loveseats and a sectional couch at the end and a three coffee table work space were we do all of our stuff on our laptops including social media and homework plus song and music writing here where we can play things out.

The office does the booking and the editing and all the accounting and other business side of that in the office.

There’s music playing Kimmie is drumming to some video online and Brooklyn is doing a homework thing as she has books out and she’s typing in that writing something longer than usual and the others are doing band site and social media stuff and I settle in and just watch for a while having a second cup of coffee and I start in on some e-mails and fan readings that we get and the online stuff I respond to as I look at each one and even take some candid “Ugly” shots that show me in a baggy sweatshirt and mismatched sweatpants and barefeet in pink dollar store comfy flip flops and hair drying and unmade and no make up and just my plain face.

I never thought about it but I don’t really look like the guy me any more a whole lot and it’s like we’re related looking if anyone bothers and it’s definitely the hair which is still pink even wet and actually looks darker right now.

It was disturbing and neat at the same time that I changed this much in this short of a time and I mean having sex and being on HRT and having the whole medical issue be found out all happened in between all of this and I guess it’s having an outward effect.

As I’m doing this I’m looking at the stuff to take my GED and there’s online classes that I can sign into and once I check them out and see that they’re legit I bite the bullet as it were and I register and pay my fees by credit card so I have all my receipts and Rayne is happy that I’m doing that finally and making future plans is one thing but actually getting started is another.

And it feels good to get that started.

I take the laptop with my to the kitchen to answer more fans while I make our supper and I take out the chicken and it’s all shake and baked and browned and I pull off all the meat and crispy bits and then I use the chicken fat in the roaster to make a roux and I make it good and dark and then I make gravy and add in the roasted veggies in the cream of chicken and I make this sort of roasted chicken pot pie filling/gravy and add in just a little fresh pepper and I make rounds of fried bread dough to eat it with along with a couple sheets of pie crust that I mixed fresh poultry herbs into so you get this deconstructed pot pie with all these roasty bits and fried bread dough and baked potatoes on the side.

Not a bit health conscious or weight conscious and it’s fat and loads of carbs and gravy and just comfort foods in a day where we’re all just recharging and likely not doing anything else during the whole evening.

I make dessert as well and I make a rich sour cream based chocolate cake with chocolate chips and bake it in the oven and add pudding mix half way and make a big tray of pudding cake.
People start setting the table as soon as the bread starts frying and we all stop what we were doing, put on some tunes and we get everyone at the table and we eat like a family. Brooklyn, Mike and Carmen doing the thank you fathers and we’re good with that and Rayne did too out of french family habits. Kimmie starts quoting Fast and the Furious and Kimmie is a car girl.

And she’s building a car with dad.

We actually start talking about what we want, like instead of routine what are we working for? We actually have too many obsessives so we got white boards and talked goals.

Like I want a cool custom guitar and I think I might make it and maybe even film it in sessions, my GED, I want to get in better shape, take some self defence classes, plan a winter carnival proposal to have local bands play the park downtown. I want to play with costume mods for shows or videos, I want a bigger house, a big dining room and table for all of us and more.

Others joined in and we talked, spitballed on maybe buying a warehouse building and renovating it as home and offices and studio, Likely even a garage.

It was fun and exciting and just us unplugged and talking and at no point was anyone talking of leaving but bringing people to us as they happen.

The others sort of get it too like we were us, we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

I just kind of have that sentimental feeling of us really being solid and started singing.

“I don't want to be anything”
“Other than what I've been tryna be lately”
“All I have to do is think of me”
“And I have peace of mind….”

The others join in just behind me and they started singing too and they knew the song it just took a few minutes and this felt just as right now as when we did it here just not even a year ago.