This Girl’s Saturday Night Out

Saturday night, I attended One Big Event at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford.

It was a dress-to-kill event and I did my best. I wore a figure-hugging, leg-baring Christian Siriano gold brocade cocktail dress that I accessorized with pearl jewelry and nude platform pumps. I wore false eyelashes, so it took me nearly an hour to do my makeup and hair, but I was out-the-door in my faux lynx fur coat at 5:30 PM to make the 22-mile trip up I-84 to Downtown Hartford.

I arrived at the Convention Center, an absolutely gorgeous venue at 6 PM just in time for the cocktail hour. After walking a short distance through the parking garage and into the Center, I took three escalator to the glass-enclosed top floor which provided a spectacular view of Hartford and beyond. Very classy!

I was pretty happy with the way I looked. My dress got rave reviews right from the get go. When I arrived at the reservation table to check in and get my table assignment, the drop-dead gorgeous woman handling my reservation said, “Your dress is gorgeous!”

And that’s the way it went throughout the night. I lost count how many women, strangers all, said that they loved my dress. I even got a “I love your dress” from a young man in attendance!

However, all was not well. I should know better than to break in new shoes at an event like One Big Event. By the end of the cocktail hour, my feet were killing me, so I was happy when the doors to the banquet hall opened and I could sit down at my table.

There was a full-house; about 500 people in attendance including the Mayor, the Lieutenant-Governor, and one of our US Senators, Richard Blumenthal. None of them sat at my table. Instead, I sat with friends I have known for years and two newbies: girls named Billie and Katie. Katie was with her spouse Scarlett Thompson, the makeup artist I met and dined with at Fantasia Fair last year.

I asked Scarlett if she went to Fantasia Fair this year and she said no. I replied, “I didn’t go this year either, so that’s why I didn’t see you there!”

She laughed and then I added, “I go every other year. If you go every year, it’s like going to the county fair every year - you see the same pigs!”

She laughed again and then asked half-seriously, “What are you inferring by that?”

We both laughed.

I had a good time talking and laughing with my friends. Dinner was excellent, the speeches boring and the fund-raising annoying especially in light of the cost of admission.

The band struck up around 9:30 PM and it seems that about half the people got up to dance and the other half exited the banquet room to go home or to go outside the banquet hall where they could continue schmoozing without competing with the loud music.

I hung back in the banquet hall for about a half hour, but no one asked me to dance. One woman checked me out so thoroughly that I thought I had a dance partner for life, or at least for the next song or two. But she moved on --- maybe she figured out I was a tranny and not the woman of her dreams. So I decided to go outside the hall to find my friends who had gone outside earlier.

I found them and hung out with them for about 45 minutes. I was tired and there was nowhere to sit and chat, so I decided to go home.

It was a great girl's night out. I made new friends and enjoyed catching up with my old friends. I dressed to impress and I think I achieved that goal. But next year, I think I will pass on One Big Event. It's like going to the county fair every year...

 

 

 

Actor Buster Keaton (left and right) in the 1921 American film The Play House.

 

 

 

Wearing Nha Khan.