Well, shit. Finally, an update from Swan.

It's been a year and a month since I moved here and the only complaints I have is that this morning I had to scrape ice off my car windows (it IS still September, no?) and the letter A on my keyboard is giving me stress. I hit the key and I either get nothing or it's all aaaaaaaaaa. Aaaaaah is right.

Anywhore, I don't know where to begin. It was a fun summer, although non-existent weather-wise. It didn't get out of the 70's until the day I was at an outdoor Lesbian Wedding, which was totally fun and even though they're carpet munchers, I still cried. I really left an impression with one of thte brides parents when we were standing in the tent thingy, where they had tables set up for the people who opted to EAT their dinner instead of DRINK it like most of my friends. It was really hot and sort and I was buzzed & hungry, so I say "Now I know what those folks felt like during the Holocaust." They just looked at me, blinking a lot and asked me if I knew both of the brides or just one of them. I told them I was with the waitstaff and walked away, hiding behind the barn for a while until it got dark outside.

And of course later in the evening, the brides asked me to say a few words on their behalf and I've never been shy around a microphone, so off I went. One of the brides, who we'll call The Girl, had ivy in her hair. (I know, I know. Hey, I didn't accessorize her.) I start off my little speech by saying "I'd like to start by congratulating J______ for winning the gold medal in Lesbian. It seemed appropriate since it was during the Olympics and all, but as the words are coming out of my mouth I realize that this might not be the type of crowd who'll get my humor. Luckily, everyone laughed, with the exception of the parents who don't take kindly to my jewish joke earlier in the day. I can't please everyone, right?

We danced, we ate, we drank and drank some more and I decided to call it a night when someone said something about building a bonfire and one minute people are stacking wood and the next it's like a scene out of fucking Backdraft. The yard is on fire, the flames are out of control and people are shouting and running away from the fire. Someone asks ME to go get a hose to put out the fire and I had every intention of doing so, but temptation got the best of me and I thought it would be more fun to shoot the hose at everyone standing around, so I did. One of the brides(The Man)got in on the fun and within seconds people are filling up buckets with water and throwing beer on one another like we're a bunch of goddamned animals in the wild. Meanwhile, the flames are completely out of control but we killed the fire before anyone's house burned down. Thank you baby Jesus. We set up tents earlier in the day and a bunch of us camped out & left very early the next day before we got dirty stares from some of the other wedding guests. It's official - I am officially one of Those People. Like you already didn't know.

A bunch of us took both of the brides out for their bachlorette parties and the one for the more feminine half of the couple was pretty low key. We went to Burlington, found a cheap hotel and went out for a fantastic dinner and then to a lesbian bar. The hotel was okay, but of course I had to comment that it was the type of hotel where people go if they're hiding out because they just killed their entire family or they need a place to go fuck for a few hours. Thankfully, no one had a blacklight on them or I'm sure I wouldn't have slept very well in that room. We had dinner and hit Pearl's the only snatch patch in Burlington and one of my friends is a bartender there, so we convinced her to give the bride-to-be a lap dance. We're fancy folk. We drank and danced to bad 80's music that I requested and all was going fine until my friend Kate fell down about 20 stairs and hurt herself. I told her to drink through it and she did, but the next morning she was in pain and we discussed going to the hospital. We were all set to go but then she said she felt better so no trip to the ER for us. She's doing fine, btw. I'm sure she'll have fully mobility in her leg in no time.

The following week we took The Man bride out to dinner at an eye-talian place and then to a strip club. It was in a town that's well known for in-breeding and dragging gays from the back of Fords, so we were a bit cautious. After dinner we stopped into a local dive prior to the strip club to have a drink and the only thing missing was the needle being dragged across a KC and the Sunshine Band album as we walked in. Staring, whispering, elbowing, you know the deal. But after a few minutes the patrons went back to their conversations and left us alone. It happened to be karaoke night there but I didn't partake. I've seen The Accused, I know what goes on. We stayed for one drink and then headed out the door thinking a bunch of gay women will feel a lot safer in a strip club than in this place. We were detained from leaving for a few minutes because a woman I thought looked like a Tammy was beating up her boyfriend in the doorway, so we waited until it was over because the last thing I wanted to do was interupt a good alcoholic smackdown. When she moved away from the door to light a cigarette, we made break for it and didn't look back. I sure hope that guy is okay. He took one heck of a beating.

We made it to the strip club around the corner and there were maybe 5 guys there, a female bartender who looked like a very old Jimmy Carter, our group of 5 dykes and Ben, of Swan's landlord fame, who was our designated driver. The three dancers for the night were Jade, Starr, and Strawberry, who may very well spell her last name with an I. We're not sure. Starr was totally hot and could pick up dollar bills off the ledge of the stage with her ass, dance around and then drop them on the stage. Impressive, sure. But I thought it would be more impressive if she folded them up like an oragami crane or something. Come on, entertain me. Strawberry was about 15 years old, so whenever she started dancing I went over to the bar to have Jimmy Carter pour me a drink. Creepy.

Jade was very chatty and as I'm listening to her speak, I pick up on the fact that she's got some kind of speech impediment, sort of a lisp & something else I'm not all that familiar with. Her "thing" is that she likes to smack people in the face with her breasts. I was sitting next to the bride-to-be and Jade asked me to hold the back of her head. I obliged. She put her breasts in her face and wiggled them around and them BAM!, two tits in the face, really hard. Someone held my head and I'm not lying when I say that my right eye was a bit swollen afterwards. But her other trick was the strangest thing I will ever see. She asked for lighter so someone quickly gave her one. I thought she was going to set herself on fire but no, not even close. She took the lighter, put it against the side of her head AND IT STAYED THERE. Apparently Jade has a magnetic metal plate in her head and she can stick metal stuff to it. She did this three or four times, all dancing around while there's a lighter against her head. She told us later that she's also deaf, hence the weird speech thing that I picked up on earlier in the night. Something about a car accident or whatever but I was too freaked out to pay attention. We left, the bride threw up out the window on the way home like a car sick puppy and we ended the evening at my sister's, where once again I fell off the porch. Always a lady, I am.

Always.

xo,

Swanberri

p.s. I'll tell you about the near death experience I had, as well as a trip to the Cancer Lady's house but I'll save that for tomorrow.

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