Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

I somehow just found out this morning that there's to be a second Catwalk reunion this Friday. Ordinarily I'd be all over that like white on rice, but there are two three problems: a) I've already agreed to help Dancer move on Saturday morning, the irony here being that she was the one who told me about the Catwalk; b) my favorite vampire witch queen will not be in attendance; and c) there's a regular event, the women's Leather munch, at C.C. Attle's earlier in the evening that I wanted to check out.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: when I am Imperatrix Mundi, I will schedule all club nights and shows to my own satisfaction. All shall love me and despair show up and groove.

After making dinner for m'boy on Saturday night, I'm sure I can think of something to do. And there's Pride a week later. Aw to the yeah.

I finally made it to the Modular monthly at Substation. Usually it's on a Sunday at 1700, but this time it was on a Saturday at 1900. It's exactly what the name suggests: a bunch of people pushing buttons and tweaking knobs on modular synthesizers. Yeah, you know that crowd was nerdy. And I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only trans lady there.

But did I like the choonz? Quite often, yeah! Honorable mention: local boy EZBOT, who reminded me by turns of Aphex Twin, drum & bass, and several others. I was a little ambivalent about club hopping to the Mercury after two of the eight (!) artists that they had lined up.

So why club hop to the Merc? Caturday, Pride edition, which I used as an excuse to wear my "I [Pride heart] [beaver graphic]" tank top. I was hoping to run into some of the trans girls from the other day. Instead, I saw a lady in a butterfly costume like the ones I saw in Sydney. In a fit of nostalgia, I went over to talk to her. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was Temptress.

Fun fact about me: like my mother, I have the world's worst poker face. I may have looked absolutely horrified at her, but only for a second. Had her vile boyfriend been with her, I wouldn't have even gone over there. I chatted about Sydney, maybe a bit nervously.

Despite being seriously caffeinated, I didn't make it to midnight. I did to a ton of bike riding and chores around the house on Saturday, so I don't feel like too much of a geezer. I have to get the Devil Girl House ready for Tacoma Girl on Saturday. (The joke here is that TG is probably the least judgy person I know.)

For a few years now I've been hearing about events called Petting Zoo, mainly from the local latex gang. I finally got around to checking it out. TL;DR: A+ would groove with them again.

But first, who the hell are these people? It took me a while to find out, but they're kink-friendly* Burners who are raising money for the Slutgarden theme camp**. The theme was rainbows and unicorns, so as Rubbermaid put it, there were a lot of horny people around***.

Eye candy: first rate. Sweet thangs of all genders showing a lot of skin, in the grandest Burner tradition.

Choonz: very uptempo, in a good way. They had local dyke DJ Trinitron on the decks for an hour plus, and at least a couple of other women who did a good job, so points for that.

Met and chatted up cutie with lots of grey hair. She went grey early, so she's too young. Le sigh. But! Meeting people is good.

Got hit on by a dude, but he's a dude with manners.

A note about the venue: Club Sur has a lot of Latin nights, and Cuban-themed permanent decoration. I get the impression that Club Sur is by and for Latinos except when it isn't. They're also just down the block from the beloved Monkey Loft. I can get there from my place using one bus and no train.



*Several people in puppy gear and of course the aforementioned latex gang attended. And then there was yours truly in head-to-toe leather, which I though was at least adjacent to the fur theme.
**I have a friend who had a bad experience with Slutgarden related to beauty standard enforcement, which is all too common in the bigger theme camps these days. Cf. Robot Heart. I'll discuss this with our mutual friend, Dancer. Pity, really, because last night was the kind of event that got me camping with the Space Virgins back in '07.
***I'll see myself out.

A little bit of Seattle Goth history: down in a big basement in Seattle's oldest neighborhood, Pioneer Square, in the '90s and early aughts there used to be a goth joint called the Catwalk. Sweet young things showed up and did goth things. One notable feature of the Catwalk was that there was BDSM going on. Yes, in a bar in Washington state. That's now illegal here, and my friend I says that the Catwalk is likely why. (I'm unaware of any regrettable incidents involving BDSM at the Catwalk, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen. I describes the kinky folk there as decent sorts who liked to explain things, as most kinky folk are.)

Sounds like my kind of place, right? But remember, folks, I spent the entire '90s trying hard to be somebody I'm not. I didn't make it to the Catwalk until near the end of its run for a couple of fashion shows*. Now there's a club there called Ohm.

So it was with complex feelings that I heard about the Catwalk reunion scheduled for last night. There was tremendous excitement among the old-schoolers who actually did go there regularly. People who hadn't been regular clubbers for years were talking about going out. So would I indulge in nostalgia for an experience I never really had?

Hell yes I would! And I had a fabulous time, absence of kink notwithstanding. People dressed up, which I appreciate; I was not the only one there in a leather corset**. The goth spotting was excellent; many of the seldom-seen peeps did show up.

Ohm could have used another bartender, and you had to pay extra for one of the many tables, but it's otherwise a decent venue***. The door people were too young to have heard of the Catwalk.

Dancer, who drove us there, danced so much that it took her several hours of ice and heat to get ambulatory today. Yes, the music was largely goth standards from days past from DJ JQ et al., and I loved it.

Postscript: A few days ago I invited Taller Woman, who was a regular at the Catwalk, but she says she can't do Friday nights anymore because old. That's a great pity, not least because I've seen a photo of her in a black leather corset.

The promoters say they're going to do it again in June.


*Yeah, you know what kind of fashion shows.
**In that crowd, it's almost a wardrobe staple. Or at least it was.
***When I was a baby bat, child, the tables at Noc Noc were first come first serve. And at the Mercury & the Coffin Club they still are. Harrumph.

Thursday night: latex dinner. The highlight was getting utterly charmed by a stunning woman in a little pink dress and complicated black harness — who's twenty-two years younger than I am, sexual orientation unknown. No, I couldn't find her on FetLife. The lowlight of the evening was waiting forever for dinner because a) there were simply too many of us for Sugar Hill's kitchen and b) the organizers didn't point out that we needed to order at the bar. So yeah, the aforementioned gorgeous woman watched me absolutely inhale some pretty decent Thai food.

By the way, Sugar Hill has two impressive bars that serve nice drinks. Their music and decor are hip hop. They had hundreds of vinyl records on shelves, and I had to restrain myself from checking them out. A+ will go back and order food at the bar upon arrival. And discreetly check out the records.

Friday night: Rabbit in the Moon at Q. Yeah, Q's vibe weirds me out, but their sound is for my money the sweetest in the whole city. Also powerful: I was a good girl and used my ear plugs. And RitM delivered the groove: a little drum & bass, a lot of acid. Bunny, the front man, yelled at us, waded into the crowed, sprayed the folks up front with what looked like some kind of cryogenic gas, and was basically a hype beast most of the time. He seemed to be enjoying himself. I danced my booty off for the whole set, and even though I didn't drink and left at midnight (when The Crystal Method came on) my feet haven't recovered. Yeah, I was hoping to sleep past 0630, but I seem incapable of doing that anymore.

The organizers of the Cascadia festival, a local event of bleepy goodness in the summer, put together a miniature version right here in my neighborhood. Splendid! For three nights, they booked two venues a couple of blocks a part and I... bought a ticket for the wrong one last night. And I didn't even realize it until I was on my way home when I walked past the other one. Le sigh.

The tunes? Reggae-influenced and some dubstep. Not really my thing. It surprises me that this was in the bigger, fancier venue (Nectar) and not the smaller one (the High Dive).

Consolation prize: being surrounded by stunning younger women, one of whom was shaking her booty about eight feet (2.5m) in front of me.

I shall have my revenge at the Monkey Loft on New Year's Eve. Oh yes, I shall.

I went with the Tickler to the Mercury's annual Hardcore German Sparkle Party last night. The Tickler, as so often, arrived nearly an hour after they said they would. I had visions of us waiting in the around-the-block line, but Dancer rescued us! I felt a tiny bit guilty about joining her, but it sure beat waiting.

The Coat, my great big red and black one from Dracula Clothing, was the last one into the coat check. It filled up in half an hour. We filled up the coat check. Bananas.

SFDs: the theme was Hell, so I was the high-key version of the Devil Girl, natch. I didn't wear my Grand National boots because I'm not that kind of masochist, but I was astounded to see a certain venerable kinkster wearing their Grand Nationals. I'm pretty sure I saluted.

There were people who put so much effort into their outfits and makeup that as at every HGSP I've been to, I felt a little underdressed.

One of the DJs was a veteran of the well-known Bootie mashup night in San Francisco, so I did dance to some glorious mashups.

It was a sardine scene to match or exceed the best of the aughts. The decoration was amazing, including a throne covered in gilt pool noodles. seelenschwester outdid herself, which is saying quite a bit.

I had a chat with the unfairly attractive Vienna La Rouge, who was, unusually, not in the company of my least favorite Mercury regular. In fact, he was nowhere to be found. Icing on the cake.

The Tickler & I didn't last much past midnight because places to sit were hard to find, and it was so loud and crowded that it wore on even me, someone who loves crowds and noise.

I woke up early due to the warm night. Then I got my phone blown up by on call at 0710. Brunch at Made In House, adieu to the Tickler, the usual Sunday chores, and then this: Marmalade, the gelato joint that's been under construction since I moved in two years ago? Opened tonight! I may have been the first customer! The pistachio gelato was the stuff. Said the lady behind the counter, crepes will start next week.

As promised, I went to Flammable on Sunday night and shook my booty. Happiness. I finally, after all these years, realized that there's a ritual at that night: there's always a red light hanging over the DJ. It's customary for people to get on stage and set it swinging. Yeah, I did it, for Erin O'Connor. Next up: shooting pool at the Merc, which I've never done and may get to do with Funny Lady on Saturday.

Today is the first anniversary of my mother's death. As I told my sisters, it feels longer. I guess that's what happens when you lose your mother years before you lose your mother, if you know what I mean. Good Sister stayed in our old house this weekend, making last minute preparations for the sale of the house and its contents. This included removing paint that Mom applied to the tiles on the kitchen floor. (?!)

In Halloween prep news, I've spent an eye-watering amount of money on a telescoping ladder that isn't a Chinese knockoff. I don't have the space to store a regular extension ladder, and I have 15' ceilings. over the living room. Le sigh.

Friday night: Shiny H's birthday party. She & her sweetie Shiny G were kind enough to have a little pre-funk at a fancy joint, the Backdoor, within walking distance of my place. There I learned that Shiny G's ex has descended into mental illness to the point where everyone fears for their children's safety. The tales are worthy of Hollywood with confiscated and destroyed phones, and escapes on foot through the woods and down freeways. But Shiny H & G are handling it.

I asked Shiny G at one point, "How can [your ex] even function?"
"She doesn't," said G. She has nearly exhausted her once considerable assets, and has stopped paying the lawyers who got a lot of that cash. Goddess willing, the wack will stop.

But thence to the Mercury. If you haven't watched an elf queen — Shiny H — in a leather corset & waist length blonde hair dance, you haven't lived.

I caught either the last or next-to-last train to the north end. Go me, I guess, for saving money and at least trying to get reasonable sleep.

Saturday evening: I hit the Wildrose with Taller Woman, who practically grew up there in the late '80s and early '90s, sneaking in and teaching the baby butches that yes, femmes can be dykes too. (Yeah, that was necessary back then.) She cried about the people she's lost, both long ago to AIDS and recently to cancer.

Taller Woman hadn't been to the Pike/Pine corridor in a long time. She was surprised by, first, the difficulty of finding parking. (She has an excuse for not taking transit: living way out in the 'burbs where there basically isn't any.) She also noticed an increase in trash since before the pandemic, which I'd noticed too. Le sigh.

Thence to Neighbours, so spelled even here in the US of A, for the Hot Flash Inferno night aimed at older dykes. Back in the early '90s it was the place to be for all flavors of queer. Even I danced on the speakers in thigh-high boots at one point. The place has been bought by an out-of-state company that owns several gay bars, and they've renovated the place. No more dancing on speakers allowed. Taller Woman is right that the setup for Inferno needs to be sexier, but it's not a bad place to be a dirty old woman. And I gotta love a woman older than I am workin' the skinny tie.

Taller Woman was hungry and had never been to Lost Lake, the best 24-hour eetz in the city and oh so queer. She approved. And she gave me a ride home, which was considerably out of her way.

That night with TW was an excellent non-date. Now that I think about it, my non-date with Tacoma Girl a while back was also fabulous, but in a different way. Have I discovered... non-dating? Mabye, but I'm not about to give up dating.

Friday: hit Trans Pride at the Volunteer Park amphitheater. Attendance was at least as big as last year, but the folks running things seemed to have done a better job of laying out all the booths so that I didn't have to elbow my way through. I also liked the performers that I heard better. The Tickler and I observed independently that Trans Pride is turning into quite the fashion show. It feels weird to say it, but Trans Pride seems to have come of age. (Arguably, it already had in its pre-pandemic march incarnation. That isn't happening anymore because the organizers don't want cops around.)

Saturday: hit the street fair on Broadway, the historical main arterial of Seattle's gayborhood*, Capitol Hill. Went on a successful quest for pasties. Saw Vienna La Rouge, Burner buddy J, and fellow Merc regulars J & K. For me, that's the best part of hanging out on the Hill on Pride weekend.

Tacoma Girl was volunteering at a booth until 1700, at which time we jumped on a train to the U-District, reasoning correctly that eetz would be much easier to obtain there than on Broadway, where the fair was still nearly in full swing. After devouring dinner and perhaps a beer too many at Big Time** we shopped for Korean instant ramen at H Mart. The U District does have its charms.

I took the train down to SoDo and got rained on as I walked to Orient Express, a Chinese restaurant in train cars. And why in the hell would I do a thing like that, you ask? Because a venerable house music monthly, Train Car House Party, was having its very last night. I'd been meaning to go for many years and just never got around to it. So, it was my first & last TCHP.

That venue is so singular that it deserves its own paragraph. The cars TCHP used were basically a dive bar, and I'm not talking the gentrified version of a dive bar that you see elsewhere in Seattle, either. We're talking frank alcoholics, overly strong drinks, some kind of porn on a monitor at the bar (?!), and literal funk; SoDo is still pretty rough around the edges, and I hope it stays that way. The original brass luggage racks were (just barely) still attached in the train car that housed the naturally long and narrow dance floor. I think the house music crowd drove out the down-and-outers at some point, and I'm conflicted about that, boy howdy. I overheard one woman describe TCHP as a soft option, but that option is now gone. Le sigh. I actually liked the choonz, which were supplied by Riz & Rob.

Possibly for the first time in SoDo, I party hopped to the Monkey Loft because promoter Ramiro Gutierrez put me on the guest list! I figured I couldn't refuse an invitation like that. (Or the house music mafia might funk me up?)

Sunday: I didn't even make it out of bed until after noon because I woke up at 0630 and just couldn't face life without more sleep.

SFDs: black Stetson hat, black leather harness, blue silk plus-shaped pasties, my silk-and-leather Pride stripe skirt belt from Astral Chrysalis, leather thong undies so I don't get arrested, black patent Docs, Trans Pride socks so I can say I'm transsoxual, and a whole lot of queer and kinky accessories. Oh yeah: I tied black and gray hankies to the right side of the back of my harness.

Made it to the Seattle Center. Walked and walked an walked, which I figure makes up for the lack of bike ride today. The only person I ran into who I know was, unbelievably, Vienna la Rouge, looking totally casual and makeup-free as I'd never seen her before. Yeah, she's still devastatingly pretty that way. I asked her if there were any sunscreen globs on my back, and she smoothed them out for me. It didn't occur to me until several minutes later that this could be construed as flirting with the most physically attractive woman I know, who happens to be conveniently gay. Aw mayunn, that wasn't what I meant to do.

Went grocery shopping on the way home. Yes, in my hat, harness & pasties. I did laundry, made beans & rice, and took out the bins as usual on Sunday, and I'm still wearing my hat, harness & pasties. I'm really liking them. Happy Pride!



*Pike and Pine streets, which are parallel and one block apart, are perpendicular to Broadway are sort of the secondary main drags. There's actually more gay stuff on or near these two streets. They're collectively called the Pike-Pine corridor. The director of Lambert House once described them to me as a decades-old "shitshow". I know what he means, and he's not completely wrong.
**I used to go there all the time in my student days. The menu has changed a little, but the food and the beer, which they brew, is still right on. Totally a blast from my past.