"I love this day!"

Gretchen and I went to the gym this morning. To fully appreciate the experience, you have to know that if there are 50 people at our gym, only 5 of them will be female. If 5 of them are female, only 2 of them will be white. And yes, those two white women will be Gretchen and me. Oh, and the entertainment we provide!

Today was no exception. While using the tricep machine, I remarked to Gretchen that I was feeling it in my biceps-- not my triceps like I should. She came over to see what I was doing wrong--
"Hold it on the inside, not the outside."
Like this?
"Yeah, that's better. Ooh, I can see your muscles!"
Are they huge? --I laughed. Ah, but suddenly someone else was laughing too-- a fellow gym user had stopped to watch our antics. I thought at first he was laughing at the suggestion that my muscles were huge, but it was really just that he was entertained at my attempt (and failure) to use that machine. I guess that's a better reason to be laughed at??
"Your hand is in the wrong place," he said and showed me how to fix it.
Ah, thank you!
He chuckled to himself and went back to his workout. Gretchen just laughed at me.

We moved to the next machine, which was easier to figure out and I "felt the burn" in the appropriate muscles. Gnarls Barkley was playing loud and clear over the gym radio. All the sudden--
"Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?...."
a man belted out from the other end of the room. He was tone-deaf and loud and didn't care a bit. He was singing his heart out anyway!
"I love this day!" exclaimed Gretchen, and we both laughed.

I was at work a few hours later and got a text from Gretchen telling me that Teddy (a guy that works at Alice's but is touring with a Shakespeare theatre company for the summer) had a show tonight in north Jersey-- did I want to go?

Obviously!

So I raced home after work, met Gretchen at my car, and we sped over to the Northern Kingdom (well, "sped" as much as one can when it takes twenty minutes to get through the Holland Tunnel; but we did our best and still made it there on time!). Teddy had invited us to come to a production early in the summer, and we were excited that it finally worked out for us to go to one of his shows! They tour around north Jersey all summer, but usually the productions are on days that we both have to work. We were pretty excited that this one fell on a Monday for a change.

"So I should warn you..." started Gretchen once we were in the car....
This never ends well....
"This production is at a Unitarian church...."
Um.... and this is a big deal because?
".....and, well, it's sponsored by a group called GAAMC-- the Gay Activist Alliance of Morris County-- so this could be.... interesting."

And interesting it was. Two very nice men greeted us as soon as we walked in the door. They handed Gretchen a thick-ish folded paper and asked me if I wanted one too or if I wanted to share with Gretchen. Thinking it was a program for the play, I said I'd like my own copy. It was definitely a newsletter for their organization. Oops.

A woman then walked up to us and started to show us around the building and give us a brief history of GAAMC.
"Do you sing?" she asked.
"Yeah, we both do actually," said Gretchen.
"Oh, then give us a call at Christmas-- you can join our coventry carols ensemble!"
I think she noticed that we were uncomfortable because she quickly added, "You don't have to be gay to participate-- if you're searching or just curious about our organization just come out and sing with us!"

I awkwardly excused myself to find a bathroom before the play began. It was all we could do to get to the top of the stairs before we burst out laughing.
That... was.... so.... awkward!! -- I said to Gretchen between laughs.
"I'm going to drop comments about my boyfriend when we go back down there. That's it-- tonight we sign up on match.com! That was the final straw!"

We stayed for the play without any further awkward interactions. Teddy was thrilled to see us; he couldn't get over that we'd made the trek "all the way to Jersey" to see him perform. I didn't tell him that I'm always up for any excuse to visit the Promised Land. ;)

As we drove home, we could see the moon hanging low and clear just over the New York City skyline. I don't know that there are many sights that can compare with this.

Gretchen-- I said-- you were right. I love this day, too!