Lesbian Dancing After The Show: An Improviser's Non Improvised Life

The Pregnancy Diary: The Virginal Stance

Tuesday January 23rd 2008. I was still pregnant. My stomach had been inappropriately patted twice.

My favorite Thai place that was close to my home was called Basil on Folsom Street San Francisco. It was my Ladies Who Lunch place. Bring the friend. Bring the client. Get out of the home office. Off to Basil to "perp some mayhem" and light conversations on politics and theater and set forth the Ultimate Goal of "Something. Anything."

All to that Salmon on the nice plate designed for my eye and for my taste buds.

I be all grown'd up at Basil.

I was the "Norm" of this place, for those who watched Cheers. The staff knew my name. Fresh Spring rolls with that peanut goodness dip at my table before I could order it.

The Mojito. Great god. The Fresh Mojito. Here's to the Ladies Who Lunch.

This day I went there with my friend Jon who is an actor that I worked with doing Bertolt Brecht's underdone Meat Packer piece "St. Joan of The Stockyards".

HA! UNDERDONE! MEAT PACKERS! I crack myself up.

I played Graham in that production. I love San Francisco Theater. Only here would they give a black woman the opportunity to play a role made for a white male in 1930's Chicago.

We are meeting for non-acting reasons and moreso for production reasons, as he worked for a major ticketing service and I happened to produce a big old improv festival. He already knew I was pregnant. He had just had a baby with his lady. We meet at Basil.

I get there first. I say my hello to the owners.

Owner: Mojito?
Me: Nope. I'm pregnant.

After the obligatory hugging and petting of the stomach, she then asks me what I would like to drink.

I hear myself think it. It comes out. Can you make me a Virgin Mojito?

My new world of being a "Virgin."

My virginal stance.

Ordering drinks with no booze in them at a bar has always confused me. Particularly the out of control ones that contain no booze with the straws, umbrellas, small my little ponies and "Happy 40 years" straws sticking out of the coconut.

There is more healthy goodness hanging out of already liquored up drinks that look like this. Before you can actually obstacle course your lips to the straw to get to the booze? You have gotten all the vitamin C you can get just sucking on half of the pineapple they attached to the stick hanging out of the thing.

Give me the BOOZE, has always been my cry! If I'm going to spend upwards to six dollars on one of these Maui Surprises, I want the booze! Hard to justify getting this type of drink booze-free at a bar when you can head around the corner to a liquor store, buy a can of Hawaiian Punch and slap five maraschino cherries in it.

Now granted, I'm not insensitive. I get it if you are detoxing, or you are recovering or you don't like the taste of booze but wish to be around your friends. I get it if you are pregnant with some common sense.

But if you are none of that? Give me the BOOZE!

The first time Oui Be Negroes performed in Boston, it was at this place called the Hong Kong where they had these famous Boston Drinks called "Scorpion Bowls."

I called them "The Backwash."Not only do you get the same fru-fru goodness like the above drinks? You get about nine hundred straws so you and your friends can share in being real friends by enjoying booze, Hawaiian Punch and backwash.

Those things are nothing but the nice Caucasian version of "Passing a Forty."

IMAGINE: Somewhere in Iowa a group of people with 900 straws has a big ass bowl with Blatz Beer. (The only beer that tastes like its name).  Talking about the good times.

I have always made fun of this stuff. "The Virginal." The "Clean and Squeaky." The Malted Milk Shake at the bar. The Milk in a Dirty Glass in a Western Movie

Sheldon Leonard in It's a Wonderful Life:

Look, we serve Hard Liquor! Alright! Out you two pixies go...through the door or out the window!! Look! I'm giving out wings!!

Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen in the Club Car in White Christmas ordering a "Milkshake and Soda" (Sure. I sarcastically see Bing and Rosemary doing that in real life in a Club Car).

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My Virginal Mojito arrives at my table. It is filled with chopped up mint goodness. I take a sip and it has the club soda and all the taste of a mojito. Without me feeling a little giddy.

What's this? This tastes good? Well! It doesn't make me nauseous like most stuff lately? Well lookie here! BABY LIKEY VIRGIN MOJITOS!

She comes back. I have sucked this thing down like a well-oiled vacuum cleaner. The owner asks if I would like another.

I say Yes. As long as you are charging me Soda cost for it? I'm all good.

I was going to be a virgin for nine months.

Funny to say that considering the way I became pregnant.

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