Day 183: Fraying at the Fringes

Paris, Day 12. Yesterday was supposed to be Weird Anal Sex Workshop Day, but it has been postponed – I'll admit to some relief on that one – so Ms. Burlesque and I went to lunch instead.

Having only seen her once before, I had no idea what to expect. She arrived sans makeup, sans false eyelashes and practically in her pajamas. But that didn't mean she wasn't in character. We walked into the cafe and she immediately gushed a hello to the owner Marion, curtsied and spun and generally flitted about the establishment for ten minutes while I found a table and sat down.

When the human hummingbird finally came to rest, she told me she was SUPER excited. "About what?" I asked. "I'm FINALLY getting an apartment!" she squealed. I congratulated her and we ordered.

I've been dying of curiosity about the corner of the gay community she inhabits and couldn't wait to learn how it all works.

"So," I began, "how do you identify?"
"Well, I used to say I was bisexual," she said, "but since I discovered the word queer, I go with that."
"What does queer mean?"
"It's auto-defined."
"So it's different for everybody."
"Yeah!"
Great.

She told me if I wanted to get more savvy in the queer lexique, I should check out a new social networking site that just launched in Paris called French Queer Fries(?!). The registration page features an entrance exam worth of questions and checkboxes all about who you are, what you're into and the various shades of grey of your relationship status.

The "Me, Myself and I" section featured no less than FORTY different options including Queer, Trans (and all its variations), Butch, Fem, Futch(?), Grrrrl, Cyborg, Bear, Dandy, Genderqueer(?) and a whole schwack of letters including FtM, MtF, FtX/FtU and MtX/MtU. And at the end of this headspinning list was, of course, OTHER.

"It's very complicated to be the kind of gay I am which is attracted to masculine entities who are not biologically masculine," Ms. Burlesque said between bites of quiche.

Uh. YEAH.

"But I'm just SO excited," she continued. Oh? I said, looking up from my notes. "To pick up the key to my apartment on Sunday!" Oh, right. "Hey! Will you come help paint it?" Um, sure, I mumbled. "GREAT!"

Every word this woman said seemed to be punctuated with an exclamation mark. And that snippet of conversation – I'm so excited! About what? My apartment! – would be repeated approximately ONE HUNDRED TIMES during our time together.

Whenever there was a gap in conversation in which someone would possibly take a breath or swallow their food or, I don't know, just BE SILENT for one second, the mythical golden apartment would re-emerge as a shining (and extremely repetitive) mirage.

It was conversational Groundhog Day.

By the end of my time with Ms. Burlesque, I could no longer muster ONE MORE IOTA of feigned interest about that damned apartment or anything else for that matter. The corners of my mouth REFUSED to budge in the direction of a smile. They were just too tired.