Party fouls.

Last night I was at this house party populated mostly by the creative, improv-y types - the kind of party where a freestyle rap battle ensued, and it was actually a lot of fun (despite the pressure to throw out rhymes, which obviously didn't happen: I stood there awkwardly as people beatboxed at me until their beats finally trailed off and everyone felt weird for a good thirty seconds).

My friend Rachel, who was stoned and staring at people playing Street Fighter II for about a half hour, said what was probably the nicest thing anyone has said to me in the past few weeks that wasn't an uncomfortable consoling statement about my father. Some dude, clearly gay (because there were like, three of us there) was standing across the room, and I was doing my best to avoid eye contact because I was not into it. And Rachel caught this, and said, "That guy needs to stop staring at you because he is not cute enough. Like you'd really be interested in someone wearing a Lacoste shirt. Why the hell is he dressed like a European? He needs to cut out the black-on-black and get circumcised."

I left the party early and decided to go to Berlin. It seemed like a great idea at the time, and I even caught the Clark bus which never happens, so I thought it was a good sign. But, of course, Berlin sucked, and I've conceded to the fact that I feel miserable for the entire day after I go there. It kind of represents what I hate about the gays in Chicago: everyone knows each other, and it's like a small town where you can't escape from the people you're trying to avoid. Instead, you'll end up dancing next to all of them. I already got out of one small town, and I'm not going to get trapped in another.

On a side note: I've realized that the best way to get hit-on in bars is to look like you're having a miserable time. Perhaps "best" is the wrong adjective, however, as the people who tend to talk to me when I'm seconds away from throwing beer bottles at everyone around me are the type of guys who think they're going to cheer me up at four in the morning while I wait for thirty minutes in a line to retrieve my coat from coat check. Clearly, your moves are not going to work; by that time, I've already come to my nightly conclusion about the state of humanity.