SLGC Reunion Potluck 2021
Today I'll focus on the Big Even of Saturday afternoon: the SLGC Reunion Potluck. That's Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus for those of you who may not know or remember; it's been so long since I actually sang with them—my tenure lasted all of four years, between 2000 and 2004. I made several good friends through that chorus during those years, although my friendship with Laney is the only one that has lasted to this day—and, ironically, my friendship with her only truly moved beyond acquaintanceship the year I left, in the wake of "boobgate." I really have gone back and forth as to whether I should even provide that link, as it goes to the very end of what is now ancient history in my social life and development, the most recent post in that saga being in 2006, the main events of the story having occurred two years before. And as it happens, 2006 is when the SLGC finally officially disbanded, sixteen years after its inception. Actually the precise date of its end is fuzzy to me; I'm finding via Google that they had a fall show in 2006, but they may have still been meeting into 2007 before officially disbanding, perhaps with no actual concerts that year. If that's the case then they still lasted through 2007, which would be seventeen years. Either way, I was part of it for about a quarter of its history, and I left seventeen years ago—just months before I even met Shobhit.
Anyway! Back to Boobgate. Setting aside how much I have grown and changed, and decisions I would almost certainly make differently now, Laney was the one person to really come to my defense in all of that. I had no fewer than two friends with whom I had a very public falling out before I finally just gave up and resigned from both the chorus board and the chorus itself (after Andrea snapped me out of my stupor of loyalty with one pointed question about why the hell I was putting up with everything—ironically, also before I had a falling out with her as well, over a decade ago, for different reasons that were also connected, as it all had to do with shit I kept saying about people in my blog). Some other friendships lasted beyond my time in the chorus but kind of just fizzled out over time for no real reason other than the chorus no longer kept us spending time together on a regular basis.
I had moved to Seattle in 1998 though, so joining the chorus in 2000 became a seminal moment for me, and facilitated my first local, meaningful friendships. It’s amazing to me that it's now been seventeen years since I left, which is also the duration of the chorus's entire history.
Laney has more friendships through the chorus that have survived to this day, and as such I still have relatively regular run-ins with others from the chorus through that. Most notable would be Thayer, who had been Laney's partner eons ago and also sang in the chorus when I did. Aside from her daughter Jessica, I'm not sure anyone else in Laney's life is still more important to her than Thayer, who is now married to Hayley and they've been together quite a long time, raising two kids. They moved back to Wisconsin near Hayley's family a few years back, but Laney is still in very regular contact with them and visited them shortly before her return to Washington State for the summer.
SLGC had one other reunion event four years ago, in 2017, that being the first time I saw that many choristers since 2005, when I took Becca during one of her weekend visits to an SLGC concert only the next year after I quit. (I still vividly remember when Becca turned to me and said, hilariously and innocently, "This is kind of boring.")
Laney and I had gone to the 2017 reunion together, a relief to me to at least have one person I was still close to there, at Heritage Park in Renton. The group photo from that event indicates 14 choristers were there, with at least one partner of a chorister found in another shot, so at least 15 attended then.
There were never that many together at once at the Saturday event this past weekend, but the total number of participants was still comparable, it never feeling so notwithstanding. This is because at least two people, now that we're all quite used to this kind of thing, patched in via Facebook Video, thanks to my having the wherewithal to bring my iPad just in case there was public wifi there. And there was! Shawna, who had organized both this and the 2017 event, had suggested earlier in comments on the Facebook event page, that she might bring a laptop for this purpose, but in the end she didn't.
So, my iPad was it. At first I created a "Facebook Room" and posted the link, but when Johanna tried to patch in from Denmark where she is currently living in her husband's native country, for some reason the sound wouldn't work. We then tried doing just a direct call, and that made it work. At first I had her sitting on the stage at one end of the Community Hall at Phinney Center, just so I could keep the iPad plugged in and charged. But, the three tables set up for people to sit at were too far away from there and Johanna asked me to move her over to the tables and she would not stay on for very long anyway. So, with less concern about the charge level, I unplugged it and brought her over to the tables where she actually socialized for a while, getting passed between two different tables.
Johanna had a cold. She had been tested for COVID though and was negative—just a cold. Denmark has a far better national health system and she was very openly appreciative of it. I don't know how long the video call with Johanna was, but I would guess somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes. After that, I clicked back into the Facebook Room I had created, just in case someone else might show up.
And boy am I glad I did, because Laney appeared! She didn't stay on nearly as long as Johanna, but she was on long enough to chat with and catch up with most of the people there, excepting Shawna who was outside at the playground with her son. A bunch of people there were really happy to see her, and vice versa.
So, the group shot we got at this event (seen at the bottom of this post) includes all of 10 people. But, it was taken after Regina and Liz left; and also did not include either Johanna or Laney, both of whom still were there virtually. That's 14 choristers in attendance, with Shawna's husband and son making the total who were there in one form or another 16. I believe Shawna's family had been there in 2017 too, making the full headcount at the event slightly larger then, but certainly larger for everyone there in person at once. Shawna commented on Saturday how a lot of people aren't on Facebook anymore, which is true, and she may want to start collecting email addresses for a future event so that we aren't relying solely on a Facebook Event page. Probably not a bad idea.
I know that Brian, who had been there in 2017, was planning to come, but he had to cancel at the last minute due to the death of a pet. Had he and his husband come, we might actually have exceeded the total 2017 count.
Anyway, Shawna had asked for volunteers to help set up, and I figured, what the hell, I have nothing else to do between 1:00 when the venue opens and 1:30 when the event officially begins, so I volunteered. Mind you, Shawna is one of the key people aforementioned with whom I have significant SLGC history baggage—but, it's not like any major rivalry or resentment has been kept up all this time. And I saw her a couple of times at parties Laney threw, a few years after I left the chorus. She smiled and said hi to me; it was awkward at the time but fine. The thing is, I think now we're at a point where we just don't know what to say to each other generally speaking, as there's no comfortable re-settling into anything between us. We kind of just find ourselves having nothing to talk about.
But, I did help set up chairs (Shawna's young son helped with that too, taking one chair at a time off the stacks while I took two), and at least one table, and figured out how to get three of the large windows open to let in some air, and of course get the Facebook Video room going. So, I do feel like I found a way to make myself useful. I also closed the windows back up at the end of the event, having already been the one to figure them out. They were huge windows that opened by pushing the center outward, and then two vertical panels sort of close in on each other. I then pulled them shut again at the end, although in all cases I had to climb on top of radiators so I could reach them. You can see the positioning of the windows to the left in this photo.
Speaking of which, a "neighborhood lady"—very much a Karen (will people still understand that reference in ten, twenty years?)—came in, more than once, expressing concern over the windows being open. She said we weren't supposed to be allowed to open them, but Shawna, impressively patient with this lady, explained that the person who had checked her in said she could feel free to open them. The lady actually went to find someone and double check, couldn't find them, and came back again. Shawna explained that our crowd was not to be very big, and had to reassure the lady that we would not have any amplified noise, no microphones or anything. It sounded very much like noise from this venue has been an issue with neighbors.
We must not have made as much noise as this lady clearly feared, because she never came back to ask us to keep it down.
It took a while after 1:30 before other people really began to trickle in. The reservation of the hall was from 1:00 to 6:00, but it was around 4:15 when everyone left. Lots of people chipped in with cleanup and breaking things down. When I arrived I noticed a table at the entrance, which was in the basement level of a multi-story, old school building that is now Phinney Center, Shawna had provided stickers for people: HUGS WELCOME! and NO HUGS, PLEASE!
I didn't bother to wear either one. I didn't want to appear especially eager for hugs but I also didn't want to make any statement against them. I only ever noticed one person wearing one, Shawna's husband. I'm pretty sure he had the HUGS WELCOME! sticker on.
One of the last people to arrive was Charlie, another one I have a long history with, but not contentious in any way—just, kind of odd. Shobhit and I spent a lot of time hanging out with him and his partner Cavin in the early years of our relationship, and it was nice to have another set of friends who were also a couple. But, we kind of grew apart over time, but with regular contact over Facebook. I messaged them a lot while watching Star Trek Discovery just recently.
Still, the last few times I have seen him, stretched over recent years, it has been kind of mystifyingly awkward. Shobhit and I went to a birthday party for Cavin at their place a couple of years ago and wound up just sitting together nearly the entire time and not talking to anyone; everyone else knew each other and had plenty to talk about with each other that had nothing to do with us, whereas Charlie and Cavin were the only ones there we knew but they were too busy hosting the party. Then there was the strange time a few years back when I hosted a movie night at the Braeburn theater and while Charlie did not show up, Cavin and their other partner (I think his name was David? they have since separated) did. I just looked it up: that was 2013. Damn. The birthday party had been in 2017, and I'm pretty sure I had not seen Charlie since then.
In any case, moments after Charlie arrived, he grabbed a chair, sat near me, and said, "May I hug you?" I said of course; we hugged and I told him he smelled nice. He thanked me and then, without even sitting back down again, he moved his chair to the other table and spent most of his time chatting with the people over there. I did initiate a bit of conversation at one point, as we talked about the couple of years overlap we had at the chorus—I had not realized he joined a good five years before I did, but he left in 2001—and it was fine and friendly. But, other than that couple of minutes talking, he and I did not talk or catch up really at all.
I spent a lot more time talking to people I never actually knew that well. An older lady named Regina; her friend Liz with whom she had carpooled to come to the event; TJ, who I learned was with SLGC its entire run. I also learned he just got a job at a mall retailer that sells Funko Pop figures and he just started there, making only 85 cents less per hour than he did at a law firm he worked reception at previously for fifteen years. Damn.
I later posted what few photos I had taken (there were eight) to the Facebook event group, and one showed Regina with her mask pulled below her chin, looking at Johanna on my iPad. I included the photo mostly because it showed the virtual chat with Johanna, which I thought would generally be considered nice. Nevertheless, Regina posted a comment on that particular photo: Oh my. This is dreadful. I'm mortified. So, great, I've pissed off yet another SLGC member. I guess it never ends. I chose just to ignore the comment, because what could I say in any way that would make it a worthwhile public discussion? I still think some people would have enjoyed seeing who was there, including Johanna virtually.
Overall, I'm glad I went. It was pretty low key, and there was some good food, including a nice vegetarian lasagna and a very good macaroni and cheese Regina brought (but did not make, she said). I brought salads from the PCC deli. I was going to bring two quarts of the Caesar Salad but Shobhit suggested I make the second quart a different salad, so I got the Emerald City Salad—which no one touched, and the Caesar salad got devoured. The Emerald City Salad is still in our fridge at home. I should eat some of it.
I do feel like I played a vital role in making the event better than it would have been otherwise. Had I not come, my iPad in tow, there would have been three fewer participants. I'll almost certainly go whenever there is another one of these reunions, which hopefully Laney can actually come back to in person.
The only other thing of note for me to mention from the weekend (aside from Bill dying, but I already posted about that yesterday) is that I went out for lunch with Ivan yesterday. It was a late lunch though because Ivan was in the living room and came across some movie lists, then told me he'd like to rewatch Death Becomes Her, which I had introduced him to when he lived with us before, so we probably watched that sometime in 2017. I found it on Peacock and we decided to watch it right then, which was an interesting experience because Ivan laughed a little the first time, and then watching it this time he laughed a lot. Like, he was giggling and laughing for sustained periods for most of its run time.
Then, I had suggested we go over to Bombay Burger for lunch, a block away over on Madison, because he hadn't tried it yet and I thought he might like it. Shobhit left work early yesterday, calling out to take advantage of the last of his sick time, and he had called to suggest I come downstairs so he could drive straight to Costco after picking me up. The movie was in its literal last scene when Shobhit called though, and so I had to ask Ivan if he still wanted to go get lunch. He was okay with going or not, very flexible to his credit, but I realized now that if I skipped going to lunch, I'd have no time to make something at home before Shobhit arrived, and then be starving by the time we finally returned from Costco. So, I asked Shobhit if we could wait on Costco. He didn't want to have lunch at Bombay Burger so Ivan and I left.
Ivan was suitably impressed with the place. "Perfectly palatable," he said—something he's been saying for ages. I was like, "You haven't changed." Then I quickly corrected myself, "Actually you have." And then I told him he's more readily personable than he used to be. He asked me to explain and I said he's basically more . . . open. Socially, is what I was getting at. He said, "That comes from traveling the world." I told him I had been thinking exactly that. Even though he travels often just to escape his problems, with inevitably follow him wherever he goes, the traveling he's done has still clearly been good for him. He honestly seems more comfortable in his own skin than he used to. His being "on the spectrum" still comes through in a lot of ways (especially his "stimming" habits and ticks), but these days, specifically in terms of our friendship, there's still a more relaxed comfort than I think there was before—although even that has evolved steadily over time, even before he left for his travels. In any event, it's nice.
Ivan said he'd see me later as soon as we left the restaurant (where we ate with no one else in there; I worry about their viability because I like the place a lot) because he wanted to go for a walk. He clearly assumed Shobhit and I would already be gone to Costco when he got back, but he returned sooner than I might have assumed—he often takes very long walks but this wasn't that long. Still after a little while I finally got Shobhit to get up so we could go get the Costco shopping over with. He got ingredients to make samosas! He hasn't done that in at least two years. But, with some extra time now that today is his last day at Big 5, he's suggesting Danielle and her kids come over sometime soon, and he'll make samosas. Morgan will be genuinely thrilled.
[posted 12:33 pm]