At about 6:00, Carlos, an old friend, IM’d me and told me he was in town. I went to the Sheraton to meet him. I got there at about 11:00 since he was working late. Right before I got there, he called me to ask how far I was away. I told him I was almost there. He said, “The scene at the bar is really interesting tonight.” I asked what he meant, but he only chuckled to himself and said, “Just get here”.

I parked in the garage a few minutes later and I walked in. I went into the lobby and hoped to see some loose stewardesses or fetching flight attendants. I saw a few entering the hotel as I drove in. I look around for Carlos, but out of the corner of my eye, I see that the bar is packed. I look again and I see some really ugly women. That’s not uncommon I thought for that fraction of a second dedicated to sexual thoughts. I looked around and saw even more ugly women, I didn’t know what to think of this. I was like, “Damn there are some ugly women here tonight.” Then I notice these are not ugly women, they are men dressed as ugly women! I noticed one brown-haired guy with an unbuttoned blouse flashing a bra. Woah. Maybe I stepped into the Twilight Zone. I look around for Carlos to see if one of these wenches might have taken him in their hairy grasp. Fortunately I hear the unfettered call of my friend. He’s looking fit and he’s lost some weight.

We head to the bar and order a couple Grey Goose and tonics. We are in the thick of this. Then we overhear that one of the women is Lola, the famous Lola. I don’t know what to make of it. I am smiling like a fool, trying to keep from laughing so hard. It’s like that old beer commercial where the male fans dress as women to drink on ladies’ night. These transvestites are dressed really bad. From what I’ve seen on Jerry Springer, I thought they tried to look like women. These women apparently aren’t watching the same shows.

Carlos and I sit down to catch up on old times. Carlos tells me that the Lola chick in none other than the Lola from this HBO documentary. Crazy, I’m a few feet from a transgender star. Turns out thse shemales are in town for Southern Comfort, a transgender convention held in Atlanta. We talked about what we would wear if we went transvestite. Carlos said he’d go slutty, hotpants and all. I can appreciate that. I told him I’d dress like Mimi from the Drew Carey Show. Most of the transvestite people there seemed to dress slutty. Although some looked pretty repsectable, they didn’t try to hide their maleness much. Scary night, bad dreams for me for sure.