It was a quiet holiday season. We stayed around Dallas because traveling to visit family was unsafe.
The 70-degree days make it a little strange to celebrate a winter holiday, but the downtown lights help. You’d think I would have gotten used to this after living in Miami, but it never feels normal.
I spotted these guys on a dog walk near downtown Dallas. Not sure whether these are actually Shetland Sheepdogs or some other mix, but they were cute either way.
Not pictured — Gunter glaring at them from my side.
It’s usually a good idea to look up when walking on Cedar Springs Road — there’s often a crew hanging out on the powerlines and I’ve seen unwary bargoers torpedoed.
I love that the new buildings in the gayborhood come standard with dog spas and dog parks. However, getting people to pick-up after their pets seems to be a problem everywhere.
Our building’s dog park is filthy enough that we don’t play fetch with Ingrid for fear of her plowing into the poop piles. The fencing is also spotty enough that it is far too easy to lose a ball, which I learned the hard way.
We came across a little forest of flagpoles while exploring Deep Ellum recently.
The poles are in front of the Casa Stellina event space near the intersection of Main and Walton streets. I am not sure whether this qualifies as eccentric landscaping, public art, or just clutter — but it was a very fun backdrop.
Ingrid the Labradoodle blending in with the skyscrapers of downtown Dallas.
A crew setting up massive Christmas Decorations in downtown Dallas.
This looked like a very cumbersome process and I think they didn’t quite have the logistics worked out that day. I hope to check on the finished product this weekend! 🎄
A garment studio in Deep Ellum, Dallas. This photo was taken during Thanksgiving Day, so I got to creep in the window for shots. I’m really interested in the designs that come out of the place — which has a great space. 💃
Now that we are done with Thanksgiving, holiday lights are going up throughout downtown Dallas.
We decided to take some headshots by some of the new lights to play around with the bokeh possibilities. These are the best shots!
I recently bought a new lens for my camera and decided to test it out along the Trinity River. These are the first shots.
Shooting along the Trinity River is interesting because you have a gorgeous view of downtown crisscrossed with powerlines. The powerlines don’t necessarily “ruin” the view, but rather complicate it and make for interesting photos.
Havana Bar & Grill is one of my favorite spots in the neighborhood. They’ve made a nightclub atmosphere work during the pandemic with table service, food that you can actually order, and amazing drag.
We checked out Liyah Alize’s drag show at Liquid Zoo last week. It was exciting to see Liyah and Iroc Goodness again (who I first saw at Mr. Misster’s brunch) along with some performers that were new to me.
The show was technically billed as a “drag brunch” but with a 3pm showtime, it was really more of a tea dance show.
Brunch or not, this cast was excellent and the bar staff was very gracious when a performer got onto a table and sent several glasses flying (a true sign of a good show!)
Winter in Dallas creeps up slowly. There’s usually no dramatic changing of the leaves or snowstorms. You just look up one day and say, “I guess it’s winter now.”
That’s how the holiday season feels this year. It’s somehow Thanksgiving week, but the lack of travel or large Friendsgiving gatherings makes it feel like any other week.
At least we have some occasional dramatic fog to break things up.
The Comerica Bank Tower in fog.
The Last Virgin Drag Brunch was the first show that I went to after moving back to Dallas and we keep coming back!
The Virgin Hotel is one of the best drag brunch venues that I have ever been to. The Commons Club is bright, impeccably designed, and big enough to make social distancing easy.
Dallas drag queen Queen Duvet at drag brunch.
Besides the amazing venue, I also really love that the cast of this show changes frequently. This really helps to keep things fresh, although you can always count on the mainstays – Jenni P., Krystal Summers, and Queen Duvet.
One amusing thing about my dog walks in Oak Lawn is that there always seems to be a pair of brooding eyes following me — the neighborhood is crawling with black cats.
I am not sure whether these cats are feral or actually belong to my neighbors. However, someone is definitely maintaining food and watering bowls for them, which sometimes cause massive swirls of birds to pop-out suddenly from fields along the sidewalks.
We made it back to another drag brunch show at Mr. Misster in Oak Lawn. This time we were with our new Atlanta friends who definitely felt their oats at their first Cedar Springs drag show.
This week’s cast was:
The drag brunch show was fabulous (as always) and it was great to see Serene Storm and Kenya Blue return along with some new faces.
Kelexis Davenport hosting drag brunch at Mr. Misster drag brunch.
This brunch was catered from a new restaurant (which was a boot) but the mimosa towers made up for it and we were there for the show anyway. Still recommend.
You can catch Mr. Misster drag brunch every Saturday at 2pm. Reservations are available in-person at the bar and online.
Here are some photos from brunch!
Dallas’ gayborhood is buzzing about two new residential towers planned along Cedar Springs Road.
The high-rises would be built in the surface parking lots behind the gay bars on that side of Cedar Springs — JRs, TMC, Sue Ellen’s, S4, and Woody’s. The developer said that it would replace the surface lot parking and provide the bars with a medium-term lease.
Proposed new highrises in Dallas’s gayborhood. (GDA Architects )
Of course many people are exercised about change – the two primary complaints being increased prices and parking.
Both concerns seem misplaced.
I am a week into my membership at the local Equinox gym, and it added some unexpectedly refreshing structure to my daily routine.
Equinox requires advanced scheduling for both solo workouts and classes, providing me with a solid deadline either to end work and leave for the gym, or a strict bed time (in the case of morning workouts).
Being forced to leave my apartment for an appointment also helps me organize my day, because I cannot allow work to sprawl into the late hours of the evening.
Some of my neighbors in Oak Lawn went all out for Halloween — this house is covered in massive webs and spiders.
These decorations remind me of The Mist, a Stephen King book (and movie) that features giant killer spiders. However this house is a little less terrifying and definitely not the craziest thing in town — Apparently one house in East Dallas has Halloween decorations so gory and realistic that the police were called.
I think I’ll stick with the oversized spiders. 🕷
So after I restarted my workout kick, I quickly realized that my apartment building gym would not cut it. The gym is pretty small and my neighbors have no problem packing in the room.
After some hemming and hawing, I decided to join the Equinox gym in the neighborhood. The gym is large and the distancing is pretty decent for Texas. I also like that the membership comes with unlimited classes.
It has been about a week and everything hurts — I forgot that working out means constant soreness. Hopefully, this is just a learning curve and I’ll be less miserable in a week or two. But for now, it’s constant whining and griping.
The good news is that I haven’t quit halfway through a class or puked yet, so that’s a minor victory. And, several of my neighbors are considering joining the gym, so maybe soon my workout misery will have some company. 🏋️