Roomie bae was there. As was C, ex-coworker of autonomous bae I’d met before. Plus others I peripherally knew.

Felt woke being included in this circle-powwow as the only dude.

Well, at one point, two peripheral, newly transplanted baes showed, each with their respective dude-baes. Although each dude-bae rocked eye shadow and ‘female-presenting’ attire, so.

I had on a Champion hoodie, cuffed sweats, Nike Dri-Fit cap and Huarache’s.

In this context: hella bro-ed out.

But protected from West Philly ostracization by their acceptance of me.

Hadn’t intended for it to be a full-on turn-up night; was only recently on this new skin drug dupilumab, and it had only recently started hitting.

Still a lil tenuous.

The biopsy results had come in. I didn’t have the rare, leprous condition PRP like Dr. Botox thought I had. Just extreme eczema with inflammation levels so high I was on skin cancer watch.

Infection caused by compromised immune functioning, from the cyclosporine maybe.

Derm bae would be keeping an eye on all this.

But so it went how it always seemed to: the minute I got a glimmer of a functional bod, I started wilding.

Testing its limits.

And this, tonight, meant boozing.

How we got all the way from Fiume (45th x Locust) to the Barn (49th x Baltimore)—on foot? an Uber?—is, now, unclear to me.

But get there we did.

The Barn meant $2 draft PBRs meant all bets were off.

Vibe festive like we were celebrating something, although I can’t think of what.

Maybe my health.

Maybe the fact we were, each of us, still alive.

Maybe the simple fact of our togetherness, here and now, in this place, on this night.

Unbelievably!

If you really thought about it…

Which let’s face it we weren’t, how lit we were.

Rolling deep with this whole gal crew was cool and all, don’t get me wrong.

But I still had to interact.

Find things in common to talk.

I gravitated towards autonomous bae’s ex-coworker, C.

C older, mid-thirties. Engaged. Set to move cross-country with her fiancé in some months.

More ‘masculine’ demeanor, maybe.

Or maybe the fact of her being rigidly booed made her less distractingly objectifiable.

We got somehow to talking the gender wage gap.

How did we get on the gender wage gap.

Musta been from talking marriage.

Her engagement.

Musta made a dowry joke, while probing how long they’d been together, asking how he threw down popping the question.

Said something like Fuck dude, woulda been married to my ex, only I was too broke. I didn’t have enough goats for a dowry. I lacked the requisite dowry goats.

Then she musta went something like No, yeah, that element of marriage is still weird. Since we’re still so discriminated against in the workforce.

Mhm…come again? I musta said.