Wed 24th Nov - Thanksgiving

This year I am having 2 turkey dinners - Thanksgiving in the US and Xmas in the UK. Instead, Thanksgiving is  bit like Xmas: you forget about all the family issues, the drinking, overeating and the hangover until it is too late. The hangover lasted all day today. The night before Thanksgiving is like the night Xmas eve back home - a big night out with people you haven't seen for atleast a year. I hit the bars of Philly with the Lady's brother - and it all went a little queer.

First we meet in a trashy dive called Mom's Tattoos where he introduces me to some fello with a blond mop ontop of his head but tightly shaven around the sides. I'm told he's in the army. Then we stumble down the road (it's amazing how many shots and beers you can squeeze in in an hour). We go to this bar. Pay our 5 bucks walk in - there's some entertainment going on - we get to the bar order a Pabst and whiskey shot as that seems to be all they serve - and check out the dancing girl. The dancing girl turns out to be a rather tall black man - sort of American footballer build - in a shiny gold tight dress and fake lashes and a questionable clevage. Soldier boy is getting some attention because I suppose now, he looks like he fits in with that haircut. I explain that the only real reason you can tell if someone is a guy or a girl (when in a situation of doubt - probably not whilst in this bar anyway) you have to feel for that lump at the back of the head. The brother can't find his so he reaches over and feels the barmaids. Soldier-boy explains that also there's a ridge under the eyebrows that men have too. I start wondering where on his tour of duty soldier boy got to know this but I soon stop as the brother has his hands out with his thumbs in the poor girl's eyesockets. She shakes it off well and then says that this always happens on drag night. She gives us a free shot of whiskey and has one with us. I swallow this one and then see the brother buy another round (this is the beginning of a shameful series of side events where I try to sneakily pour the drink to the floor everytime we get a shot, but get caught everytime). As the girl pours the glass, he's got his hand on her the back of her head. I expect her eyes to start going side to side. Soldier boy seems like he's getting into the vibe of the place so we all leave and hike to an Irish bar with poor stout. More wet floors and I don;t think the barman from Donnegal wants his shaven head touched - but he tells us how to get an after-hours drink. It's suddenly 2am and we have to leave. Instead of going to 4th & Greenwich and banging on a door and asking for Maurice for a late drink we go to the local diner. The diner is full of gays. This is where all the other gays in the village must have gone. We sit at the counter and soldier boy actually cracks a good joke between army life and last-time-I-was-in-the-mess stories - and suggests that the wait staff are going to come over and tell us that we're crap gays and that we're going to have to clean up our act if we're going to want to get some action. I order too much food. Thank the Lord that they can't serve beer or whiskey shots.

I go back to the brother's place wondering if this is the brother's gentle way of introducing us to his feminine side. Well, I also tell his whole family and extended family this the today to get a cheap laugh. It works.

Shared bed with brother as soldier boy took the mattress. Slept fully clothed.