Julie Does Pittsburgh — 2018

Digging deep into the archives for this one, but it was a great trip and well worth remembering. Please enjoy. (Clicking on a photo will open a larger view.)

Saturday:

What witchery is this?

The beginning of the Pittsburgh trip actually started with a night out in the Chicago suburbs. That Saturday was the annual Halloween party hosted by Rori of Transformations by Rori. Those familiar with Chicago will certainly know her as an icon of the Chicago TG community. If you haven’t been to one of these Halloween parties, it’s a pretty big gathering — 100 people in a hotel ballroom. I was very pleased with my “adorable witch” costume — that’s actually what it said on the package. I was especially happy with the green eye makeup that my BFF, Jes, had suggested, which I thought was gonna be a disaster. To be honest, that eyeshadow palette cost almost as much as the costume. Of course there was an after party, which happened to be in my friend Danielle’s room and ended about 3 a.m. I left at 2, deconstructed and then freaked everyone out by going back in boy mode to get some of that late night pizza. 

Sunday:

Ready to blend in at the airport.

The next morning, I wanted to sleep in, but needed to get up early to get back into Julie mode. Why? Cuz Julie was flying that day. Holy $hit! Julie was flying pretty for the first time. That’s me in the skinny jeans and flats, about to leave the hotel for the airport. Do I look nervous? Was almost as nervous as my first time out. Airport security was a non-issue. I gave them my guy ID, the only ID I have, they looked at me, asked the usual questions and waived me through. I don’t know why I thought it would be an issue — there’s no security rules about what clothes one can wear. For the most part, no one in the airport took much notice of me, cuz airport people are busy getting to where they need to go. I got a few side eyes at the airport bar (that drink really helped to calm my nerves), but was put very much at ease when the bartender lady kept talking about how good I smelled — we concluded it was my hair spray. It was a slightly different story in the Pittsburgh baggage claim. I was there to attend a conference where I know hundreds of people (only in boy mode) and many of them would be arriving at the same time. I almost had a heart attack when I passed within a foot of my old boss, someone I still communicate with on a regular basis. But, after a stop in the ladies’ room and a look in the mirror, I was like, there’s absolutely no way he recognized me — my own mother wouldn’t even recognize me. 

Checked into the hotel — no issue, even with the throng of Steelers fans checking in at the same time. After a quick cat nap, I decided to put on the skirt and heels I wanted to wear to the airport and head out for a drink. (I was actually glad I went with the blendy jeans — might not have survived the airport in a skirt and heels. Maybe next time I’ll be ready for heels in the airport.) The first stop out of the hotel was a quick bite of sushi to get something in my stomach before drinking. Then, I went to an awesome (gay/drag) bar called Blue Moon. Played a couple games of pool, smoked a lot of cigarettes (legal in bars there) and did a lot of chatting with the locals — met at least a half a dozen random people. Really impressive for a Sunday night. Of particular note was a trans woman still in the very early stages of transition. She asked why I wasn’t full time while complementing me on how good I looked. Blushing, I gave my usual answer about how my dysphoria is pretty light and not anywhere close to debilitating and how the central tenant if my life is balance between boy and girl mode. I also met another CD who was in boy mode and hadn’t dressed in quite some time — I think she went by Tom. 

 Monday morning it was back to boy mode for the business part of my trip.

Wednesday:

By late Wednesday afternoon, business was over and it was Julie time for the rest of the week. However, before going back to the room, to get my Julie on for that evening’s activities, I stopped in at the same sushi place. The sushi chef, an older Japanese gentleman, was the same from Sunday night. So, I asked if he remembered me. He, of course, did not and was a bit confused. I pulled out my phone, showed him a pic and his eyes got wide. He said he never suspected and just thought I was a lady with a deep voice. He was so nice and accepting that I went back on Friday night so we could get a pic together. 

That Wednesday was Halloween night, and the plan was to pull out the adorable witch costume again and hit a dance club with a friend Taryn, who I had just gotten to know on Facebook, cuz I put out a general call looking for people to hang out with in Pittsburgh. That plan was thwarted cuz the club, I think it was called Cruz, was not open when we arrived at 9 p.m. and it didn’t look like it was gonna open any time soon. So we (Taryn myself and Taryn’s friend Krista) walked about a block in the drizzling rain to this cool dive bar called Lucky’s (I had actually gotten familiar with this place on Monday and Tuesday night, just a block from my hotel). Unfortunately, Lucky’s was dead, but we ran into Tom, remember, the CD from Blue Moon. After a drink or two, we all decided to head over to Blue Moon, but not before I convinced Tom to go home and get back on the horse. She could meet up with us at Blue Moon and show us her pretty side. Blue Moon was packed and totally in the Halloween spirit. They had a drag show, but with the crowd I was unable see anything (except for through my phone with my arm raised above the throng of people crushing the stage). In any case, I again met some awesome random people. Of particular note was this lesbian couple — one worked for the local NPR station (I’m an NPR geek, so I was kinda starstruck) and her fiancé who worked at the coffee shop a block from my hotel. Eventually, Tom showed up and was just glowing. All in all it was an awesome night. 

Thursday:

The next morning I was up early to get my Julie back on, cuz I had a nail appointment at noon — yeah noon was early with a hangover and two hours of makeup application. After a quick stop at the coffee shop to chat with my new friend from Blue Moon, I got to the appointment only 5 minutes late. The lady at the salon was super nice, did a great job, and suggested the perfect color, which was called Denim — mostly black, but with a gunmetal blue tint. I think that was my 3rd or 4th time at a nail salon, and I’ve gotten so spoiled with getting my nails done professionally — so much better looking than when I do them myself and usually only 20 bucks.

After the salon, I had arrangements to met another new Facebook friend for lunch. She transitioned some years ago, but we found enough of common ground to have a wonderful conversation. She is very religious, so my heart ached when she told me about the struggles of her journey. The two of us then spent the afternoon at the Carnegie Art Museum — that Monet I took a pic with was massive. She was not so much into nightlife, so after some afternoon coffee and more conversation, I headed back to my room to get ready for my evening plans going solo.

That night I went to a place called Cioppino — walking distance from my hotel and totally mainstream. It was a pretty classy place with live music in the bar area, so I fit in nicely in that red top and tight skirt. After eating at the bar (one of those fancy meat & cheese boards) and not talking to anyone, the band leader stopped over to say hi. It’s a good thing, cuz I was about to leave, but given his hospitality, I decided to stay and totally had an awesome time. Ended up meeting some really nice (cis-het) people. The band leader even gave a few shoutouts, “This one is for Julie from Chicago”. After the last set, I headed back toward my hotel, but decided to stopped at Lucky’s for a couple more drinks and some dancing (it was a little dead, so I didn’t stay too long). On the walk over my feet were hurting, so I took off my shoes. It’s funny. At that point, I felt more feminine than I ever had before — carrying my heels and walking in my Peds (I was bare legged that night). Avoiding the small puddles, I just felt so dainty.

Friday Afternoon:

 Across the street from my hotel in the strip district was a McDonald’s, where I was getting breakfast pretty much everyday, in boy mode. On this Friday morning, I desperately needed some breakfast to alleviate my hangover, but but had pretty nails. I wasn’t about to ruin my pretty nails just for a sausage McMuffin with egg and some OJ, so I put on my big girl pants and walked over in boy mode. Not a single person noticed, much less said anything. 

Daytime Friday was all about the Warhol museum. Kinda glad no one was able to join me, cuz I had a great time taking it slow and finding all the nuggets in this six story monstrosity. Before this visit I didn’t know very much about Warhol, and I now feel like I’ve just scratched the surface. Of course, I was on the lookout for Velvet Underground, Nico and drag queens — didn’t disappoint on any of these accounts. The Silver Clouds room was way cool — basically these silver square balloons were floating around the room. In true CD form, I ended up devolving into trying to get more selfies in the reflection of the balloons. Spent about an hour in the film and TV room. Found some early Bowie footage at the Factory. Also found a 1986 episode of Warhol TV, with a segment on nuevo drag. Maybe the highlight of the visit was viewing one of Warhol’s largest commissions, which was to photograph and silkscreen NY drag queens of the early ’70s — one of the subjects being Marsha P. Johnson.

On my way out, I noticed that the lobby had a giant picture of Andy on this cool couch and a reproduction of that same couch was right underneath. Of course, I had to get a pic and some nice young woman was happy to take the pic for me. Oh yeah, before we leave the Warhol museum, we’re gonna need an Andy joke … “Why do mice have such small balls? Cuz, not many of them like to dance.”

On my way out of the museum, Krista messaged me about getting together. I said, sure, let’s meet up at Lucky’s in about a half an hour. It was 4 .p.m, so when I arrived Lucky’s wasn’t open yet. I found a seat in the patio area behind the building and set about to text Krista about my location. While doing so, I moment of clarity washed over me. I was thinking about what I was wearing and how fabulous I looked — mostly just feeling great and more importantly proud about who I am and how I was so much enjoying my day.

When Krista arrived we decided to have an early dinner at this Argentinian restaurant across the street, which always seemed to have a line of people trying to get a seat. Being early, meant we had no wait and it did not disappoint. It was so awesomely Pittsburgh, cuz it looked like a dump from the outside, but was totally cosmopolitan on the inside. We had a great conversation and afterwards she came up to my room and helped me get ready for my evening activities. She thought about joining me, but it was a ticketed event and she didn’t have an appropriate dress/shoes for the occasion. Despite that she helped me with glamming up and adding some drama to my makeup — it really had a great feeling of a couple of girlfriends getting ready for a big evening. It’s really too bad she couldn’t join me — I offered to loan her a dress, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Friday Evening:

So what was this big event for Friday night? It was a show called Steel City Kitty. It’s a little hard to describe. It was part drag, part burlesque, part performance art. In a word, it was totally awesome. But, before the show, I didn’t really know what to expect. What I did know, is that it seemed like the perfect opportunity to wear the sparkly, very short dress I had bought about 6 months earlier and match with black stockings, garters and platform heels. Before heading out I got several pics and then caught an Uber. After a stop at the sushi place to get the previously referenced pic, the Uber driver and I found ourselves in a strange Pittsburgh alleyway that didn’t look like a Steel City Kitty show. Again, I was surprised to find a vibrant community hiding behind an unsuspecting exterior. After checking in, I quickly realized that most of the audience for this show was cis with a large fraction being het. Unconcerned, I headed to the courtyard for a smoke in the cool evening air while I enjoyed my complementary drink. Not 30 seconds later, a fellow CD approached and introduced herself as Pam. We were instant friends and quickly found a seat together for the show. As I said, the show was incredible, but the seating was kinda cramped. About a third of the way through the show they announced that there were some unoccupied VIP seats in the front row and anyone who wanted them should come on up. I jumped out of my seat and looked over at Pam. She was like, go, go, go. She was a little shy and wasn’t interested being up front, but clearly could see my excitement. Those are my legs in the front row with the ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’ sign up against the stage, which basically had no elevation — I was so close it was almost like being on the stage. 

Front row Julie’s legs.

After the show, I invited Pam to join me at a dance club back in the strip district. So, we got in her car and immediately got lost. If you’ve ever driven in Pittsburgh, this is almost a certainty with even a short trip. At some point she says that she’s almost out of gas. After searching for a gas station for almost 15 minutes, we finally find one that’s really busy and let’s just say, in an urban part of town. We’d been in the car for a while, so I was dying for a cigarette. So, I get out of the car, in that fabulous, really short dress and light up amongst a flurry of people going in and out of the store. As you can imagine my confidence was through the roof at that point. Or, maybe I was just drunk. Probably both.

So, we finally make it to the strip district, park and then walking to the club we need to walk past these really scary looking dudes — I thought Nancy was gonna have a heart attack. We finally get to the club and it’s dead. This is the same place we tried to go to on Halloween night. I’m guessing it’s more of a 2 a.m. kind of place and we were there at 11 p.m. So, it was time for plan B. The Steel City Kitty show had announced that they were having an after party at some bar downtown. After a little Googling and a short drive we were there (by the way, we walked the other way back to the car to avoid those scary lookin dudes). This place was it — totally poppin’ with about a hundred people in a pretty small place. About half of the performers were there and there were a bunch of local drag performers doing a totally authentic show — no bachelorette parties going on that night. Part of the reason the main Steel City Kitty show was so good, was because the producer/MC had invited some of the best acts she knew from around the country. The after party was kind of a showcase of the best local folks. After meeting a whole slew of people, including this cool couple, who were not a couple at all, but a sister supporting her gay brother, we finally got out of there around 1 a.m.. By 2 a.m. I was out like a stone, 

Saturday:

My flight home was at 11 a.m. My family wasn’t gonna be home when I got there and for a minute I thought about flying pretty again. But, with the late night, I didn’t nearly have enough time to get makeup on my face. In fact, after three days in a row of putting on face, I was kinda loathing the thought of doing it again. However, I was loving my pretty nails and decided, “what the hell, I might not be pretty, but that doesn’t mean my nails can’t be.” So, I caught an Uber as the boy with pretty nails. During the flight, the woman sitting next to me had almost the same color, and I almost said something to her about it, but she didn’t seem to be in the mood for talking — she barely looked in my direction the whole flight. After a couple hours at home I finally took the nail polish off which was the official ending of the trip. 🙁

Monday/Epilog:

Out of the blue, I get a message from Krista. Seems that over the weekend Taryn and her wife were in a car accident and sadly passed. I was stupefied and didn’t know what to say. Here’s a little background. Taryn and Krista are from the same town outside of Pittsburgh and since Krista had some trouble with her family since coming out, Taryn and her wife had kinda taken her under their wing — to the best they could, given the generational gap. I felt really terrible about the whole situation. Krista was mostly trying to figure out how to communicate this news to Taryn’s CD friends. I tried contacting some of the Facebook friends we had in common, but it didn’t really go anywhere. I went to her page just the other day and the post about us out on that Halloween night is the last substantive post on her page. There have been some Happy Birthday wishes, from some people who obviously didn’t get the news — seems she made quite a few friends at Keystone. I suppose, after all this time I should get back with Krista and make some sort of post about what happened to Taryn. It makes me wonder what would happen to my page if I were to come to some unexpected tragedy. Who would know? Only a couple people on my page know my family and all the rest would be left wondering. It’s an odd place we CDs inhabit — so much vibrancy while we’re here, but our connections to our community are so tenuous and it’s hard to keep that vibrancy in the memory of those we leave behind. I only knew Taryn from that one night, but I feel like I knew her better than many of those who were officially around to mourn her passing. When my time comes, I’m pretty confident the same will happen to me. So, here’s to all the pretty CDs who came before us and who never got a proper tribute from the close friends who meant so much to us.

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Tags: crossdressing, featured, nightlife, Out & About, Pitsburgh

Category: Out & About