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fr_defenestratoFriday night after work met up with Mr. Paul Fain, who succeeded me on the University of Delaware Review's op/ed desk in, I think, 1994. Met for dinner at The Heights on 14th and Kenyon. The zircon- mustard-encrusted tuna was so good last time I had to order it again, and it wasn't anywhere near as good. Phooey. But the company was splendid. Mr. Fain and I have had this on-again-off-again hanging out arrangement for the last 11 years... we may (and have done) go months or even a year or two without any communication but then we'll fall into going out for dinner and/or drinks every couple weeks. He's one of my favorite people on the planet (and that ain't saying much for him; thanks & regrets, Julius) and I enjoy hearing his updates in equal measure to telling him mine. Despite the periods of inactivity our friendship has always seemed real and unforced and just nice.
We headed to Wonderland after dinner (my first time there, despite its having been open a couple-few years and my living 1.75 blocks therefrom) and drank pints of boutique beer while waiting for Paul's lady friend (his term) to show up with another friend of hers; then we drank another few pints of boutique beer with the newcomers and called it a night. Early on I explained to Paul how the retail space in the building used to house the oldest continually operating gay bar in the District, called Nob Hill (heh-heh) and how, most nights a week, in the triangular upstairs bar, studly, barrel-chested, sweating black men would dress up in and subsequently shed silly, frilly, techno-exercise-queen costumes, and then play with their uniformly enormous penes for the lascivious amusement of the assembled clientele; how I was often the only white person in attendance and how I'd do my best to share, along with both men and women, in the celebration of said penes.
Saturday: woke up too early, back to sleep, woke up too late. Showered and dressed for Cheese Lord Jim's wedding; ordered my music in black concert folder; tried to take a bus but bagged that idea when we were sitting through the same very, very, very long light for the third time. Taxied to Dupont Circle where various Lords were gathered in front of the Washington Club. Warmed up in the Kids' Room, got seated in the ceremony room, sang, listened, sang, wept, etc. Commiserated with Lord Dan the Former (his last event singing with us) about the truly appalling string trio murdering a half dozen composers in the balcony. The Handel they could clearly handle, difficulty-wise, but still botched a cadence right before the ceremony started. Nice words fly about the room like the grains of rice nobody throws anymore. Bride and groom break the glass cooperatively. Sixty to 90 minutes thereafter of mingling with frequent trips to the open bar for pinot grigio and nearly as frequent visits from a small army of cater waiters armed with five or six absolutely splendid little finger foods. Have a nicens chat with father of the bride Haskell Springer and SCL prez Skip about great American novels (which the former teaches). Somehow I never get to ask him his take on the Harold Bloom opinion that that canon did not and does not need leveling to make room for a more diverse representation of authors, many of whom are being promoted prematurely into the ranks of genius (a subject on which I am truly ambivalent and rather troubled).
Remarks by Haskell and Rebecca's sister are tear-inducing; the slide show with lots of kiddie pics is much fun; dinner is buffet style and lovely.
I danced. Yes.
Hung out with Nathan much of the time. I really adore this man; he's a perfect platonic companion at social events. He's got all the grace and charm with other humans that I (congenitally) lack and (obstinately) refuse to cultivate; I have seen him engage in conversation stinking-rich old women and apparently penniless and possibly homeless men with the same unfeigned gusto. He is of a kind with me regarding casual sex—together we make a mostly jesting run at 25-year-old scarecrow, basso profundo, and professedly straightboy Lord Fomo, offering to do him in the loo and promising between the two of us, between his legs, he'd get off something fierce. No, he insists, guys smell different and that would turn him off. Uh-huh. We coordinate bar runs and make friends with "the help." (We both use that term with a smirk and the quotation marks; and we have both been "the help" extensively in our work lives; and we both flirt with "the help" almost compulsively, when "the help" is male, and always have done. That's a large part of my affinity with Nathan: like me, he is downwardly mobile.)
The happy couple decide to regroup at some martini bar across the circle; most of the Lords follow, but the place is far too chic for me to stomach. I need home, so thence I go.
Sunday: same sleep routine. Wake up and turn all the clocks back, then head out on the back deck to tear shit up.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
misterdarkness helps me disassemble the rickety old steel shelving that's been buckling for the last few years; I do the rest, relocated all the soil I've had in wine boxes into more traditional planters and old buckets; taking apart the coffee table, pulling down the trellises and xmas lights, pulling crap out from under the steps, and throwing the lot of it away. Nothing even worth freecycling. Swept up the leaves and soil and schmutz and voilà: ze trick, she is done.
Last two DVDs of "Season 2.5" of Battlestar Galactica last night, and everything was great until we flash forward a year into Baltar's presidency (arguably more malignant than Mr. Bush's, but with the unshared charm of being fictional) and suddenly we're in a completely different TV show. Here's Chief Tyrol in Leon Trotsky drag. Here's Starbuck as a babushka. And the most horrifying image of all: Adm. Adama con un bigote.
Today: office at 9:20 (chastened last week by my boss, who hates chastening, to make it work a little earlier than, say, noon) and immediately barraged with requests for feedback on a proposal draft, due to our partner at 10 a.m. but untouched by the specific people who needed to touch it as of my email last Friday, late morning. Phooey.
We headed to Wonderland after dinner (my first time there, despite its having been open a couple-few years and my living 1.75 blocks therefrom) and drank pints of boutique beer while waiting for Paul's lady friend (his term) to show up with another friend of hers; then we drank another few pints of boutique beer with the newcomers and called it a night. Early on I explained to Paul how the retail space in the building used to house the oldest continually operating gay bar in the District, called Nob Hill (heh-heh) and how, most nights a week, in the triangular upstairs bar, studly, barrel-chested, sweating black men would dress up in and subsequently shed silly, frilly, techno-exercise-queen costumes, and then play with their uniformly enormous penes for the lascivious amusement of the assembled clientele; how I was often the only white person in attendance and how I'd do my best to share, along with both men and women, in the celebration of said penes.
Saturday: woke up too early, back to sleep, woke up too late. Showered and dressed for Cheese Lord Jim's wedding; ordered my music in black concert folder; tried to take a bus but bagged that idea when we were sitting through the same very, very, very long light for the third time. Taxied to Dupont Circle where various Lords were gathered in front of the Washington Club. Warmed up in the Kids' Room, got seated in the ceremony room, sang, listened, sang, wept, etc. Commiserated with Lord Dan the Former (his last event singing with us) about the truly appalling string trio murdering a half dozen composers in the balcony. The Handel they could clearly handle, difficulty-wise, but still botched a cadence right before the ceremony started. Nice words fly about the room like the grains of rice nobody throws anymore. Bride and groom break the glass cooperatively. Sixty to 90 minutes thereafter of mingling with frequent trips to the open bar for pinot grigio and nearly as frequent visits from a small army of cater waiters armed with five or six absolutely splendid little finger foods. Have a nicens chat with father of the bride Haskell Springer and SCL prez Skip about great American novels (which the former teaches). Somehow I never get to ask him his take on the Harold Bloom opinion that that canon did not and does not need leveling to make room for a more diverse representation of authors, many of whom are being promoted prematurely into the ranks of genius (a subject on which I am truly ambivalent and rather troubled).
Remarks by Haskell and Rebecca's sister are tear-inducing; the slide show with lots of kiddie pics is much fun; dinner is buffet style and lovely.
I danced. Yes.
Hung out with Nathan much of the time. I really adore this man; he's a perfect platonic companion at social events. He's got all the grace and charm with other humans that I (congenitally) lack and (obstinately) refuse to cultivate; I have seen him engage in conversation stinking-rich old women and apparently penniless and possibly homeless men with the same unfeigned gusto. He is of a kind with me regarding casual sex—together we make a mostly jesting run at 25-year-old scarecrow, basso profundo, and professedly straightboy Lord Fomo, offering to do him in the loo and promising between the two of us, between his legs, he'd get off something fierce. No, he insists, guys smell different and that would turn him off. Uh-huh. We coordinate bar runs and make friends with "the help." (We both use that term with a smirk and the quotation marks; and we have both been "the help" extensively in our work lives; and we both flirt with "the help" almost compulsively, when "the help" is male, and always have done. That's a large part of my affinity with Nathan: like me, he is downwardly mobile.)
The happy couple decide to regroup at some martini bar across the circle; most of the Lords follow, but the place is far too chic for me to stomach. I need home, so thence I go.
Sunday: same sleep routine. Wake up and turn all the clocks back, then head out on the back deck to tear shit up.
misterdarkness helps me disassemble the rickety old steel shelving that's been buckling for the last few years; I do the rest, relocated all the soil I've had in wine boxes into more traditional planters and old buckets; taking apart the coffee table, pulling down the trellises and xmas lights, pulling crap out from under the steps, and throwing the lot of it away. Nothing even worth freecycling. Swept up the leaves and soil and schmutz and voilà: ze trick, she is done.Last two DVDs of "Season 2.5" of Battlestar Galactica last night, and everything was great until we flash forward a year into Baltar's presidency (arguably more malignant than Mr. Bush's, but with the unshared charm of being fictional) and suddenly we're in a completely different TV show. Here's Chief Tyrol in Leon Trotsky drag. Here's Starbuck as a babushka. And the most horrifying image of all: Adm. Adama con un bigote.
Today: office at 9:20 (chastened last week by my boss, who hates chastening, to make it work a little earlier than, say, noon) and immediately barraged with requests for feedback on a proposal draft, due to our partner at 10 a.m. but untouched by the specific people who needed to touch it as of my email last Friday, late morning. Phooey.
