Cristi
02-15-2011, 12:04 AM
I'm not usually much of a party person, but I couldn't pass up attending this Drag ball (a benefit for a local AIDS coalition) this past weekend. I had a blast and am so happy I went.
The event was in a town about a 2.5 hour drive from my house, so I got a hotel room for that evening so I wouldn't have to drive home after a night of fun (and who knows how much drinking). The hotel was about a 10 minute walk from the club, so I wouldn't have to worry about a car at all.
I drove up early in the afternoon and got checked into to the hotel. The first surprise was that there was a youth league hockey tournament going on that weekend and the hotel was sold out. I'd reserved a room, but what I was more concerned about was getting to and from the room (in the middle of the hotel, on the top floor) fully dressed amidst crowds of rowdy young hockey players roaming the halls! I'm sure Karen can tell us how unruly those hockey players can get!
Oh well, not too much I could do about that now!
I left myself plenty of time (too much time, it turns out) to get ready. The doors of the club didn't open until 7:30, and here I was in the room at 4:00 with nothing to do but start getting prepared.
The ball had a disco 'Saturday night fever' theme, so I'd found a black sequin cocktail dress, sheer black hose, 4" heels and some bangle jewelry. I took my time getting ready, but still ended up with a half hour to kill before the club would open.
Finally, it was time to go. I could still hear 'gangs' of kids walking up and down the hotel hallway, but I wasn't going to let them trap me in my room. With a deep breath, I gathered up my purse, put on my long evening coat (which was about the same length as my dress, so all that showed from beneath it were my bare legs) and walked out the door.
I'd picked the right time, I made it along the hallways and down the stairs to the ground floor while only seeing a few other couples, none of whom even gave me a second glance. In no time I was out the door starting to walk toward the club which was a few blocks away.
Did I mention that it was COLD in Vermont this weekend? Already at 7:15 it was in the teens, with forecasts of 0 or below overnight. It didn't take long for my legs to start getting chilly as I walked along the hotel driveway, then the sidewalk along beside a four lane highway. So far, so good. I wasn't really expecting trouble, but it was nice to not be surprised by any. Of the dozens of cars that drove past me on side roads, waited for me to cross at crosswalks, or pedestrians who passed me walking the other way, not a singe one reacted to me as anything other than a woman walking along on her way out for the evening.
In 10 minutes, I was into the warmth of the club. I picked up my tickets at the 'will call' window, checked my coat and headed into the event.
For the next 6-1/2 hours I mingled, danced, met and chatted with plenty of nice people and generally had a great time. As a rule, I do NOT dance but after enough drinks I decided to give it a try. I can proudly say now that I've danced in a club more in 4" heels and a dress than I EVER have in 'guy' mode. By this time (4 or more hours into the evening) I was comfortable enough in the heels that they didn't slow me down at all as I spent more and more time out on the dance floor.
During rest breaks, I'd find an open seat and many times strike up a conversation with others who were resting their feet. One such conversation was between me and two GGs as we compared shoes and talked about how much our feet were surely going to be hurting by the end of the night!
At another break, a man came over to three of us girls (two GGs and I) who were lounging on stools at the bar and started chatting us up. It took me a minute to realize that he was really trying to pick on of the girls up and was including me in his conversation as he tried to charm her into giving out her number. It was the first/ONLY time I'd ever been on this side of such a conversation. The most fun was being included in the discussion about his pickup lines as just another one of the girls after he'd wandered off.
I'm sure there were a lot of signals going around that I wasn't even picking up on, like the one man who, as he walked past me once while my legs were crossed sitting on a bar stool, casually ran his hand all the way up my stocking leg from my ankle to my knee, without even making eye contact or slowing down as he passed!
One thing that made the entire night more interesting was that not everybody was in costume, so I would be minging in the crowd sometimes surrounded by a crowd of people in just everyday clothes. At first, I was looking at the faces of the people around me for any kind of negative reaction, but never found a single one so just started enjoying myself being 'the girl out on the dance floor at times with groups of guys wearing jeans an polo shirts around me.
Well, it was true. By closing time I was pretty sore. I gingerly walked back to the coat check trying to not think about the fact that I still had a cold long walk back to the hotel ahead of me.
As soon as I stepped out, the cold hit me. It now couldn't be any warmer than the low single digits, if even that. Plus, the sweat I'd just recently worked up on the dance floor instantly turned chilly. I wrapped my thin coat around me as best I could and headed out.
A little into the walk I passed a 24 hour donut shop and stopped in to warm up and get a muffin. I stood in line, paid and was finding a table to sit at to rest my feet for a minute before I realized that I hadn't even given any thought to the fact that I was in this fairly busy public place and didn't really even care what anybody else though about how I was dressed. Thankfully, I don't even think I got as much as a glance from any of the other patrons.
Minutes later, I was back on the sidewalk to continue on my cold walk. As I picked my way along the frozen sidewalk, I noticed a car slow as it passed me, then spead off again. A minute later, the same car came from behind me again (they must have gone around the block) and once again slowed. This time it turned into a parking lot just in front of me. The driver stopped and rolled down the window.
Instead of any kind of trouble, I heard "It's really cold outside. Do you need a ride anywhere?" from the woman driver. Not trouble, just a concerned person who noticed me struggling along in the freezing temperature in heels and a short dress at 2:30 in the morning and stopped to offer a ride!
"No, but thank you VERY much for asking" I told here "My hotel is actually just around the corner". She smiled at me, rolled up her window and drove away. THAT more than just about anything else gave me some faith in people. :)
By the time I got back to the hotel room, my feet were killing me, my legs were icicles and I was bone tired. I didn't waste any time, after the long walk along the hotel corridors to my room, in washing off my makeup, stripping off the heels hose and dress and into my nightgown for a few hours sleep. The one frustration I had was that my forms were still very strongly attached and hurt a bit when I tried to pull them off, so I just left them and the bra on under the nightgown to deal with in the morning after some rest.
This charity ball in an annual event. I already can't wait to see what the theme will be next year.
PS: I got a LOT more photos than this, but most of the others have other people in them and I didn't want to post other people to this forum without their permission. I lost track of how many times I had my photo taken, either with my own camera or by people who wanted their pictures taken with me on theirs.
PPS: It is late and I don't have the energy to proof-read this. Please forgive the typos!
PPPS: I'm not liking the photo I posted much, I think others make the makeup look MUCH better but I can't post those. Just give me the benefit of the doubt, this one was taken after a few hours of dancing and under a pretty harsh flash!
The event was in a town about a 2.5 hour drive from my house, so I got a hotel room for that evening so I wouldn't have to drive home after a night of fun (and who knows how much drinking). The hotel was about a 10 minute walk from the club, so I wouldn't have to worry about a car at all.
I drove up early in the afternoon and got checked into to the hotel. The first surprise was that there was a youth league hockey tournament going on that weekend and the hotel was sold out. I'd reserved a room, but what I was more concerned about was getting to and from the room (in the middle of the hotel, on the top floor) fully dressed amidst crowds of rowdy young hockey players roaming the halls! I'm sure Karen can tell us how unruly those hockey players can get!
Oh well, not too much I could do about that now!
I left myself plenty of time (too much time, it turns out) to get ready. The doors of the club didn't open until 7:30, and here I was in the room at 4:00 with nothing to do but start getting prepared.
The ball had a disco 'Saturday night fever' theme, so I'd found a black sequin cocktail dress, sheer black hose, 4" heels and some bangle jewelry. I took my time getting ready, but still ended up with a half hour to kill before the club would open.
Finally, it was time to go. I could still hear 'gangs' of kids walking up and down the hotel hallway, but I wasn't going to let them trap me in my room. With a deep breath, I gathered up my purse, put on my long evening coat (which was about the same length as my dress, so all that showed from beneath it were my bare legs) and walked out the door.
I'd picked the right time, I made it along the hallways and down the stairs to the ground floor while only seeing a few other couples, none of whom even gave me a second glance. In no time I was out the door starting to walk toward the club which was a few blocks away.
Did I mention that it was COLD in Vermont this weekend? Already at 7:15 it was in the teens, with forecasts of 0 or below overnight. It didn't take long for my legs to start getting chilly as I walked along the hotel driveway, then the sidewalk along beside a four lane highway. So far, so good. I wasn't really expecting trouble, but it was nice to not be surprised by any. Of the dozens of cars that drove past me on side roads, waited for me to cross at crosswalks, or pedestrians who passed me walking the other way, not a singe one reacted to me as anything other than a woman walking along on her way out for the evening.
In 10 minutes, I was into the warmth of the club. I picked up my tickets at the 'will call' window, checked my coat and headed into the event.
For the next 6-1/2 hours I mingled, danced, met and chatted with plenty of nice people and generally had a great time. As a rule, I do NOT dance but after enough drinks I decided to give it a try. I can proudly say now that I've danced in a club more in 4" heels and a dress than I EVER have in 'guy' mode. By this time (4 or more hours into the evening) I was comfortable enough in the heels that they didn't slow me down at all as I spent more and more time out on the dance floor.
During rest breaks, I'd find an open seat and many times strike up a conversation with others who were resting their feet. One such conversation was between me and two GGs as we compared shoes and talked about how much our feet were surely going to be hurting by the end of the night!
At another break, a man came over to three of us girls (two GGs and I) who were lounging on stools at the bar and started chatting us up. It took me a minute to realize that he was really trying to pick on of the girls up and was including me in his conversation as he tried to charm her into giving out her number. It was the first/ONLY time I'd ever been on this side of such a conversation. The most fun was being included in the discussion about his pickup lines as just another one of the girls after he'd wandered off.
I'm sure there were a lot of signals going around that I wasn't even picking up on, like the one man who, as he walked past me once while my legs were crossed sitting on a bar stool, casually ran his hand all the way up my stocking leg from my ankle to my knee, without even making eye contact or slowing down as he passed!
One thing that made the entire night more interesting was that not everybody was in costume, so I would be minging in the crowd sometimes surrounded by a crowd of people in just everyday clothes. At first, I was looking at the faces of the people around me for any kind of negative reaction, but never found a single one so just started enjoying myself being 'the girl out on the dance floor at times with groups of guys wearing jeans an polo shirts around me.
Well, it was true. By closing time I was pretty sore. I gingerly walked back to the coat check trying to not think about the fact that I still had a cold long walk back to the hotel ahead of me.
As soon as I stepped out, the cold hit me. It now couldn't be any warmer than the low single digits, if even that. Plus, the sweat I'd just recently worked up on the dance floor instantly turned chilly. I wrapped my thin coat around me as best I could and headed out.
A little into the walk I passed a 24 hour donut shop and stopped in to warm up and get a muffin. I stood in line, paid and was finding a table to sit at to rest my feet for a minute before I realized that I hadn't even given any thought to the fact that I was in this fairly busy public place and didn't really even care what anybody else though about how I was dressed. Thankfully, I don't even think I got as much as a glance from any of the other patrons.
Minutes later, I was back on the sidewalk to continue on my cold walk. As I picked my way along the frozen sidewalk, I noticed a car slow as it passed me, then spead off again. A minute later, the same car came from behind me again (they must have gone around the block) and once again slowed. This time it turned into a parking lot just in front of me. The driver stopped and rolled down the window.
Instead of any kind of trouble, I heard "It's really cold outside. Do you need a ride anywhere?" from the woman driver. Not trouble, just a concerned person who noticed me struggling along in the freezing temperature in heels and a short dress at 2:30 in the morning and stopped to offer a ride!
"No, but thank you VERY much for asking" I told here "My hotel is actually just around the corner". She smiled at me, rolled up her window and drove away. THAT more than just about anything else gave me some faith in people. :)
By the time I got back to the hotel room, my feet were killing me, my legs were icicles and I was bone tired. I didn't waste any time, after the long walk along the hotel corridors to my room, in washing off my makeup, stripping off the heels hose and dress and into my nightgown for a few hours sleep. The one frustration I had was that my forms were still very strongly attached and hurt a bit when I tried to pull them off, so I just left them and the bra on under the nightgown to deal with in the morning after some rest.
This charity ball in an annual event. I already can't wait to see what the theme will be next year.
PS: I got a LOT more photos than this, but most of the others have other people in them and I didn't want to post other people to this forum without their permission. I lost track of how many times I had my photo taken, either with my own camera or by people who wanted their pictures taken with me on theirs.
PPS: It is late and I don't have the energy to proof-read this. Please forgive the typos!
PPPS: I'm not liking the photo I posted much, I think others make the makeup look MUCH better but I can't post those. Just give me the benefit of the doubt, this one was taken after a few hours of dancing and under a pretty harsh flash!