I Can't Hear You

On Friday, I was listening, for the first time, to Fresh FM on Multikabel Quicknet, from Amsterdam, Netherlands, on the headphones. After an hour, I realized my ears (particularly my left ear) was ringing, and that I was noticeably deafer than I had been just an hour before. This seemed alarming, and so I stopped using the headphones for the day, and decided to baby my ears. I have a friend who went to bed with a ringing ear, and woke up permanently deaf, so the possibility of abrupt hearing loss seemed real.

Of course, it's easier to baby your ears in theory than in practice. Saturday night, together with A., I went to "The Depot" for the first time, and then crossed the street to "Faces." The two clubs on K Street, in some ways, compose the beating heart of gay Sacramento. A musical theater friend (P.J.) often made The Depot his home, and so I wanted to see what he liked so much about the place.

There were some pool tables there, but they weren't being heavily used. Instead, lots of people were gabbing loudly over the music. There is a row of what seemed like display chairs against the west wall. My first thought was shoeshine chairs. My second thought was that the chairs were like a display case, almost like a supermarket display case for - meat? Perish that thought! Anyway, A. and I went to get a drink, and I saw a pretty, reddish drink that looked interesting. The bartender was momentarily confused, and thought I wanted a "red-headed slut", which is apparently a reddish shot of some sort. He got me the pretty drink instead, the one I wanted, but I can't remember the name of the drink - the mistaken name stuck in my head instead.

Crossing the street and entering "Faces," I parked myself on the corner of the dance floor right under a speaker, and jammed to the loud music for 45 minutes. Colorful crowd, including cross-dressers, but what I thought was interesting was watching the various 'emotional shells' people assume when they get on the dance floor. People tend to be shy when they dance publicly, and so they deliberately limit their emotional expression while moving around to the music. Even the butch lesbians and flamboyant queens put on shells. The woman next to me was shuffling listlessly from one foot to the other, and seemed, not just emotionless, but actually depressed. There's no telling though: she might have actually been pretty chipper, but just shy. It's so hard to read people, sometimes. For some reason, my ears were acting up again, so it was probably good that 'last call' came so quickly.

Today, I'm listening again to Multikabel Quicknet from Amsterdam, Netherlands, but I'm afraid to put the headphones on just yet, so instead, the headphones broadcast loudly from the desk.