subject of controversy: lotion

last night we went to gay day at great america. i've been to that amusement park several times but after going to a private event like gay day, i can't go on a regular day. the crowds are so much better for me. there's not throngs of screaming brats and the lines are short. there is just a better vibe overall. i don't care if the poofs out number the dykes--i'm such a faghag to begin with.

the evening started out like this. last year, they confiscated my visine at the security controlled entrance. they said "no liquids" so this time i made sure not to bring my visine. i haven't bought it since actually! i don't think my eyes need it anymore. i thought i would go through with flying colors. no! lotion is contraband! they fucking took away my neutrogenia lotion! do they not want me to moisturize? public soap is hideous! this time they didn't throw it away, though. they actually put it in a plastic baggy and gave me a plastic claim slip.

each time i've gone to great america, twiddle thumbs has gone too and she hates roller coasters, big rides, anything that would be fun! the faster, the twistier, the more times you hang suspended upsidedown by a thread, the better i say! in this sense, i need a roller coaster buddy. great america is such a tiny ass park but each time i've visited i've never been on too many rides. adding up all my trips, i think i've finally been on all the big rides, except for 1 or 2 and the big flyer that you have to pay extra money for.

at first, i felt really bad for dragging twiddle thumbs. i bought my tickets early to get a discount but it was a very impulsive move. i knew twiddle thumbs would be too busy to go and that she doesn't like the rides anyway, but i didn't want to go by myself and had no one else to go with. i just don't know any other complete roller coaster maniac freaks like me.

then twiddle thumbs got the courage to go on a wooden roller coaster. it was completely her suggestion but once we were at the front of the line, she started chickening out bad. i told her it's just her nervous nature and if it was her decision to go on this ride, she should stick it out 'til the end because it's not that bad. i just wanted her to go on 1 roller coaster. just 1 'big' ride. when we were seated, there was trouble with the lap bar. one of the attendants tried to push it down in order to lock but didn't really tell us what she was trying to accomplish. twiddle thumbs didn't tell me either that this process was really hurting her. i think that maybe if the attendant said something, twiddle thumbs could have readjusted the way she was sitting or have moved a bit, but as things were, she had pinned twiddle thumbs in the gut and she was in pain. then the attendant lifted up the bar and said it won't go down, it's for your own safety. i didn't realize we were being kicked off the ride. she didn't say it that way. i was in shock. i've never had to leave a ride. as we walked away, i noticed twiddle thumbs was crying. that's when she told me how much pain she was in. we walked to try and find a bathroom but great america does a great job of hiding them. we sat at a bench in a less crowded area until she felt better. i was so upset at not going on the ride and immediately shifted my frustration and anger to the attendant. what a fucking bitch! i was ready to go home at that point. we hadn't even been at the park for 1 hour and i was ready to leave.

we decided to take it VERY slow and just ride baby rides. from the beginning i had planned on just taking it easy this time and not really going on big rides, except maybe 1 or 2 that i had never been on before if the line was short enough. the lines were very short for the most part but i avoided going on rides because i had already been on them and i was still in a bad mood. there was some sort of performance that evening and one of the names on the sign (mark davis) was familiar. it was the name of a kid she went to school with. we decided to check it out just in case. we thought maybe it was a singing/dancing out. turns out it was standup comedy and it wasn't the same mark davis. he had some funny moments, but overall it was just ok. then shann carr performed. fuck am i glad we stayed for this! she was hilarious. i was in tears, literally. i would laugh so hard and then realize i had tears running down my face. my jacket sleeves were soaked by the end of her performance. shann put us in a much better mood, we were back into fun mode, and i'm grateful for that. when she said she had dvds for sale, i knew we had to buy one. at that point, i decided to think of the evening as going to see standup with some rides as a bonus.

for the big rides at the park, top gun is always out of service or the line is way too long so i had never been on. this time it was working! the line was short! it was so short that i decided to wait extra to be in the very front. doing so probably doubled my wait time. in total i waited no more than 20 minutes. top gun was thrilling because it was dark when i rode it. i couldn't see the tracks very well so i could not anticipate the twists and turns. it made it very exciting! i highly recommend riding new coasters in the dark. when we were over water, it was icing on the cake. now i don't know if i could enjoy that ride in daylight.

we were very disappointed to see the that the kid's section was closed off. inside the kid's section are a lot of nickelodeon things and though they have reduced the amount of ren and stimpy items, there still seems to be 1 cut out display of them. there's a new water park within and it looks like they've built it into the kid's section. i sure hope they didn't get rid of ren and stimpy. shame on them! one of the big thrills about my first visit to great america was when my brother visited and we took pictures with all the ren and stimpy items on display. he was a huge fan as a kid. back then, i didn't get ren and stimpy. it took a couple of years to see past the gross humor.

the rides stop at midnight and we rushed to catch one last ride: the sky tower. it gave a great view of silicon valley. it's so flat with just a few lights, i felt like we were in denver or salt lake city, someplace like that. not that i've ever been to denver, it's just how i pictured a town like that to be at night. we stayed a few minutes to watch jai rodriguez (queer eye for the straight guy) perform. the music was so loud and the vocals were so low that i couldn't tell if he was good or not. twiddle thumbs thought he was lipsynching.

i am bear, hear me roar

when we got home, it was 1:30am. there was a package at the door. i wasn't expecting a package. i had no idea what it was. the label said it was from utah. something from my uncle? yeah right. i was clueless. i was almost afraid to open it. surprise surprise. it was a stuffed plush bear! it was a gift from my bank for opening up an account with them--the bear is the mascot of bank of the west. i died laughing. it's so cute and soft. how could i have been scared of a bear?