illustration: tram nguyen
The best Valentine’s day I ever had was spent at a gay sports bar in Chicago with two of my best friends watching the NBA All-Star game. You probably wouldn’t have known it was a gay sports bar, save for the fact that there were figure skating Barbies adorning the display cases and what looked like high school boys wrestling in spandex unitards on the flat screen televisions. My guy friends weren’t particularly interested in the game beyond critiquing the tragic business casual ensemble that Alicia Keys chose to wear during the half-time show. (In case you’re wondering, the more appropriate outfit to wear would have been a sparkly basketball jersey with “KEYS” bedazzled on the back and some bitchy high heels. Duh.) About an hour into the show, my boyfriend Romeo showed up and I was in heaven, surrounded by the people I love, the sport I love, watching my favorite basketball player Derrick Rose perform dazzling feats of athleticism.