“Red is Your Color”

“Red is your color”, or so sayeth (actually texteth) Ms. Dee-ism, my GG friend who is the one person in my male world who knows about Dee.

I have accumulated a number of red dresses. The first dress I bought after actually trying it on while dressed (back in 2016), was a red Maggy London dress. It’s still my favorite. 

While visiting Renee, another GG friend, in Durham, North Carolina, we went looking through the discount racks in the junior’s section, and found an “interesting” red dress. Interesting in that the back was exposed and held together by elastic cords, which meant that wearing a bra with it was, shall we say, problematic?

Well, I tried it on and I said yes and Renee said “hell, yes” and the price ($15) was too good to pass up. Renee also always tells me to buy the dress and then find a place to wear it. The buying is generally the easy part; finding the place is generally a bit more difficult. 

One of my default choices, as I have written before, are casinos. There are a number in our metro area. Two are close to each other, separated by about a mile and the Mississippi River. The casino in downtown St. Louis is a little more upscale, but the downside is it allows smoking. The East St. Louis casino is smoke-free, as are most public places in Illinois.

Casinos are open all hours, offer adult beverages (and free soft drinks), and distractions. At the time, my wife (Australian by birth) was still down under, and my son who lives with us worked nights from 9 PM to 3 AM, so the casino hours fit my home situation–dress when he leaves, return home before he does.

When I buy something new, like the latest red dress, I get itchy about where to wear it. As this dress was a bit more ambitious, I decided to hit the St. Louis casino, smoke or no smoke. I even went a few days before in boy mode to join the casino rewards program, just to be able to access the parking garage. 

The solution to the bra issue? I just placed my forms in the appropriate places, and the dress held them in place.

My routine at casinos is generally the same. Find the self-serve drinks, or hit the bar for an adult beverage (my beverage of choice these days are hard ciders, drank over ice), then wander around trying to find a video poker machine. When I’m at the St. Louis casino, a priority is finding a machine not too near a smoker (if you haven’t guessed already, I’m not a fan of smoking–partly because my dad was a chest surgeon, and he operated on lots of people with lung cancer). My maximum is $20, and I generally play the lowest possible amount. I’m not really interested in winning money, just having the chance to get out. Sometimes I win a little, sometimes lose a little. I rarely lose all $20.

With my new larger purse, I can stuff my android tablet into it comfortably, and I will find a nice place to sit and relax and write these posts. These days, usually I’m a couple of months behind.

That week I had the itch and went out twice more, a trip to each casino. The second time I had a stop at Nordstrom, then dinner at Twin Peaks. Been there with another GG friend Michelle, AND with my guy tennis buddies…and it’s more fun with Michelle. Given places like Twin Peaks and Hooters are staffed by a lot of young women, I have found both to be extremely TG friendly.