Discount

I have remarked on this before but one time Matt said to me, "I am going to call you 'Discount' because when it comes to men if they are at least 20% off then you are all over it". That is classic Matt and I love it, especially since it is right on the mark true. With that in mind I want to share this:

I went online last week. Honest and to the point I was thinking a mindless hook up would be a good distraction from the fog I was in. A man named Kyle contacted me and after a few messages asked me if I wanted to come over and watch a movie at his place. Maybe it was his shirtless profile picture wearing a sailors hat - not like the one Gilligan wore but like the one the skipper wore or his use of the work "kay" instead of "ok" but I was down for it although I knew something was not quite right yet not in a threatening way.

It was a only a town over but I never go that way so was confused and then I got to his apt complex and it was massive, had to be over a 1,000 units. Very nice, clean, safe, and pretty but totally a human equivalent of living in a beehive - I was lost. I called him for directions and when we spoke on the phone it was the first time we talked. He did not have slurred speech but spoke slowly. Not slow like a southerner speaks and not slow like a mental deficiency, just slow. Anyway he gave me insane directions like drive through the gate and at the first white truck take a left and look for a balcony with a grill and then go to the side with the bushes -- again this place was massive and everything was the same, like when the Flinstones drive down the street and it is just the same scene over and over to give the illusion of movement. Actually that is a very good description of many, many places in SoCal.

I park as I am thinking it will be less stressful to attempt this challenge on foot. Really I am making no headway at all but lunatic that I am I press onward. I then see him walking the dogs. I questionly offered, "Kyle?" and he replies, "What?" - not in a harsh I am irritated way but in the same manner anyone I know for real would say when I say their name with that questioning lilt. I will try to not get stuck on too many details as my post would be forever long but as we navigated our way into the bowels of the beehive to his particular cel he told me that he was a party planner and was really busy last week as they did 200 weddings. I thought two things - I know they just legalized gay weddings but even in SoCal how could there possibly be 200 weddings in a week and how could you plan that many? As well as how the fuck am I gonna find my car again without GPS to make my way? With the number 200 stuck in my head I ask how many people work for the company and he tells me 5. I am completely no good at math but none of this is adding up and it has nothing to do with my poor academic skills.

We get in his house and it is organized and tidy and very comfortable. The moment I enter though the door way I am constructing excuses in my mind on how to get the hell out of there as well as battling that part of me that is like oh I am very intrigued about this whole situation. Anyway I sit down although not because he has asked me to or offered me anything to drink but mostly because I do not know what else to do. He tells me that he was born in IL, had his early childhood in CO, grew up in MT and came to CA in his late 20's. He told me he was park ranger, a fire fighter and now a party planner? He told me it was his place but that he usually did not stay there he normally stayed with a high school friend in SD and his brother lived there but was away so he was house sitting. I was now exceptionally happy with his extremely slow speech cadence as my head was swimming. I am at this point completely consumed by curiosity over ever single aspect of this whole experience and the questions just poured out of me. I could not for the life of me decide if any of what he told me was true or was just a fabrication - it was all to fantastic on one hand and yet some how was making sense on the other.

He was very interesting too. He likes amusement parks and we discussed them at length since I love them too. His house was filled with those pictures that are taken while you are on the ride and as I looked at them it reminded me that I was glad me passed on most of those photo ops as they did not work so well displayed around your house. But there he was on the Tower of Terror for Gay Days at Disney and on the Ghost Rider at Knott's Berry Farm, etc. Then somehow it happened. We got on the topic of Dirty Dancing. I can't even tell you why for the life of me although I do know he brought it up with a reference to Babe or something, the Jennifer Grey character. I barely remember that movie. I know it was a cultural phenomenon but I am not even certain if I ever saw the movie in full. But he tells me that he was one of the dancers in the film! He said that scouts went across the country and located dancers and when they came to MT they picked him and his high school friend Ava. Then I learn that there was a Dirty Dancing Live tour and that he was in the tour. So this guy who moves and talks in slow motion was a Dirty Dancer? Ummm I think you have gone too far buddy! But then numbers were adding up in my head? He was born in '72 and said he was only 17 for the tour. DD came out in '87. 2 years of hype then a tour to cash in and make more money would be '89 which is the year he would be 17. I was teetering but like c'mon. Now out comes the DVD of the tour he is speaking of and we start to watch it so that he can show me. I am in the stratosphere of insanity.

So we watch the DVD and he points out him and Ava and I could not tell!!! I mean the dancer looked similar but but not the same and it was almost 20 years ago. As I watch this with my eyes bugging out he told me all types of back stage stories and I could not come to the decision as to which was better Eric Carmen wearing a gold lame sport jacket with shoulder pads, sporting the Bonnie Tyler "Total Eclipse of the Heart" hairdo while singing "Hungry Eyes" or the back stage drama and party stories he is filling me in on.

I could keep going on but this post is just too insanely long already - I mean I did not even get to the piercings stories, ruptured appendix, the incredibly sexy cowboy tattoo he had which he said was based off a picture he drew while in high school, or that he only asked me ONE question the entire night which was, "Are you a southerner?" No one has ever mistaken my Boston accent for a southern one. We did not have sex, we did not kiss, was sat on the couch next to each other. He put his hand on my knee and rested his arm on my leg. I was very comfortable and placed my hand on his forearm, caressing it as I listened intrigued by one story of craziness after another. Was any of it true? I have no idea. But I do know that I enjoyed myself immensely. I forgot everything else in the world for a short time and I actually left saying and meaning, "It was nice to meet you. I hope we can spend time together again."