b-i-n-g-o

last night i had the pleasure of taking part in something that, if it's not only possible in baltimore, is definitely not going to happen in manhattan: gay bingo at the hippo. i severely underestimated how serious these people would take their game. we walk into the place, having eaten a good yet extremely slow dinner at b bistro in bolton hill, and it's dead quiet. i'm always shocked by the wall of cigarette smoke i'm hit with when i walk into a gay bar, and last night the hippo looked like a smoky, catholic girls' school gymnasium, people poised intently above their paper bingo cards, scanning for numbers, purple and green bingo markers at the ready. the only difference is that it's a bunch of homos and hags playing. strange crowd.

so we're sitting there in the back room playing bingo, and i look around: there's people obviously from d.n.e. (dundalk 'n' essex, hon), hopkins homos, drag queens, and aging transwomen, all sitting around together, gambling, smoking, drinking. there's no way this is gonna happen when i move to new york, where the gay bar pasttime is standing around in a big circle, self-consciously looking confident in tight designer jeans and tight t-shirts drinking cocktails. i like cocktails, sure, but i also really like drinking beer. something tells me that chelsea bars aren't really big on miller lite draft.

in my burgeoning since of queens pride (up with astoria!), i've decided that i'm going to go out in my own 'hood a lot. because, you know, queens is "realer" than manhattan. my recent joke about baltimore is that it's "really real." like, "what's baltimore like?" "it's, um, real." and, though it's a joke, it's true: baltimore's dangerous, drug-riddled, down-at-the-heels. but, goddamn, it's not fake. i probably just feel like this because i'm moving to new york city in 8 days and i've finally, finally started to get scared. i'm clinging to something that's become, i hate to admit it, a little comfortable. so friday's our last night out to the gay bar, and i've done my best to round up all the gays i still have in the area. look out, baltimore.