January Potluck

January 23, 2008

Hi Khushies,

Last Saturday's potluck at Paresh's home in Herndon, VA was a well-attended (25 people) and fun (lots of laughs and gossip) event. Thanks Paresh for hosting the potluck!

Wine, Men and Money

There was ample delicious food to go around. Most people brought entrees, and S & M made some great mango lassi. S & M is not what you think; it's who you may not think. I'm going to have to refer to many people by letters such as A, B, C, D, E, F, G etc. (rather than W, X, Y, Z) instead of using their real names. Naughty Ninny requested me to protect his privacy by not using his real name, so I'm going to use the letter 'I' for him.

There was sushi, there were subs and there were four rices to go around. (The plural of rice is indeed rices, just as the feminine gender of vex is vixen...) The red wine flowed freely, as did the beer, and the desserts were wicked and sumptuous. Now I don't have a sweet tooth - or even a sweet tongue for that matter - so every time I ate a bite of dessert, I had to follow it up with eating some of the spicy and tasty 'Ragdo Patties' that Dip - KhushDC's ex-VP and Webmaster - had made.

Wine can intoxicate, but food can lead you astray. We were going to charge those who didn't get a dish $8. But I forgot about it completely, and I even brushed it aside when G reminded me about it. A chorus of voices again reminded me to start collecting the $8 after we were done with dinner. But I figured that we had not had a shortage of food, and only a couple of people had not brought any food item. As if to make up for it, a couple of people had brought two or more dishes.

Besides, it would have looked beggarly to ask people for money after everyone had had their fill and there was no obvious use for the money: it's not like we were going to use that money to buy pizza or anything. Just as democracy is "of the people, by the people, for the people", potluck money is best "asked with pizzaz, for the pizza". Result: There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but boy, this was a free dinner for most of us!

People and Trauma

Of the 25 people, 3 were women. I won't reveal what the other 22 were as I don't want to get into gender identity questions and find myself in a catch-22 situation. This was the first KhushDC event for at least two LGBT people, and for at least two straight people. Both Yassir and Atul, KhushDC's co-founders, graced the event and regaled us with their wit and their humor. I on the other hand had just half my energy reserves with me that evening, so rather than being witty and funny, I had to content myself with being a half-wit. (Shhh. That's a secret.)

As I checked the RSVP list before attending the event, I noticed that exactly one woman - a person named C - had RSVPed. So I urgently emailed D,
"D, please come to the potluck, or else C will be traumatized at being the only woman there."
As it turned out, D wasn't able to make it to the potluck and the traumatization did take place.

But it wasn't C who got traumatized; it was I.
As I headed for the potluck, I got a text message from D, "Relax man, C is a man, not a woman".
The way I saw it, C had undergone a gender change via an SMS message. Talk about tele-medicine. Naturally, I was quite traumatized by it.

As it turned out, D was correct, and three other women did attend. But at least two of them were non-LGBT. I felt like approaching Lady Three and saying, "Hi, I'm gay. Are you lesbian?" It's best to cut to the chase. But I figured some folks might think of it as rude, so I refrained. Maybe next time! As for the two non-LGBT women, the only thing that one said to the other was, "Bye, I'm leaving now. I didn't meet you, but it was nice meeting you!"

Phone Dating

Speaking of tele-medicine reminds me of our talk of tele-dating. And I'm now going to renege on my promise of using the first letters of the alphabet to identify people; I will now use the last few. As we chatted and gossiped after dinner, the talk turned to Khushies who used to be in the DC area but who have now moved to a city which is as far from DC as Seattle. I shall not reveal whether or not it's actually Seattle, just to protect people's privacy.

"I dated S by phone", said V.
Everyone burst out laughing. I didn't laugh though. "I can feel your pain", I felt like telling V. "For I too have dated people - O, P and Q - by phone. Only then did I muster enough courage to date R, T and W by meeting them in reality."
"Did you move to the next step?", Y asked V.
"What's that?"
"Did you switch to dating by email?"
Everyone howled with laughter. So did I. My pain was now gone. "I can feel your pleasure", I felt like telling Y.

Potluck Help

"Tell Paresh that we will bring the paper plates, cups, utensils and ice for the party", JK had advised me. Now JK is no flip-flop, so I dutifully called Paresh and made the offer. "No need, I have everything", he replied. I repeated the offer again later, and he gave the same reply.

When I went to Paresh's home for the potluck, I was astounded that he used regular china plates, glass glasses and metal utensils. That was quite a treat. I offered to clean-up after the event, but Paresh turned down the offer. Man of Action (MoA) that I am, I resolved to set up a committee to urge Paresh to accept our offer of help. But R and JK decided that actions spoke louder than committee reports. They started loading the dishwasher. Result: We helped Paresh with some of the after-dinner cleanup, but not with any of the pre-event setup.

It was now approaching midnight, and all of us Cinderellas got ready to leave, lest our cars turned into pumpkins. Thank Paresh though we all did, a couple of folks couldn't help making other suggestions.
"Let me choose a spot on your carpet where I can spill wine", said one. (Everyone laughed.)
"Let's play pony", said another. (Everyone felt desire.)
I didn't make any such comments, as I've resolved to stop being acerbic and sarcastic.

I do not even remember who made those suggestions. Was it K? L? M? Other? I was so wasted by then that I not only didn't remember people's names, I had also forgotten that people have names.

So I drove home, curled myself into a tight ball and went to sleep.

--Ninad