Awwww... what a cute pic!
grubbybastard is utterly adorable... but I forget which LJer that is on his left... Grub?
This was my first time in JR's in probably 4 or 5 years, last Friday night after work for
Grubbyfest... I believe, though can't swear to it, that Grubby is the first LJ person I've met entirely on my own volition (i.e., not through
peregrin8's or another friend's having met them first and gotten something social together). And as a result of his LJ- and Evite-mediated powwow at JR's, I met a whole slew of D.C. and Baltimoric LJers, the correlations of whose real names, LJ handles, and faces I pretty much instantly forgot, as is my wont and weakness. As expected there was too little Grubby to go around... but though it's always an uphill battle to get myself to meet and talk to new people (I'm still not sure it's about "shyness", but maybe) I did have a good time chatting with a couple small batches of folk. Fortunately,
composerscott had the wherewithal and the inclination to friend me, thereby reminding me to friend him back... also fortunately Grubby posted his list of participants so I can go back and try to figure who was who :)
Didn't hang out too late, as I had come directly from work and started on the Guinness to lubricate the social intercourse (heh-heh). And I hadn't had dinner, so I got toasty pretty fast.
An interesting thing happened on my first trip outside to smoke... a fellow on the street asked to bum one, and as I looked at him, his face (adorable, BTW) was so familiar as to leave no doubt but that I knew him. Like actually knew him: not a one-night stand kind of familiar, more a "We have interacted at length, but in what context?" kind of familiar. Turns out he was Clark, my favorite bartender from the defunct dick bar Heat* ... anyway, while Clark looked healthy enough and nicely if generically clad, he WAS bumming cigarettes on 17th St. Our short conversation bore out that he has seen better days, but is hopeful for gainful employment soon. Yes, I hope so, too... I always really liked Clark.
* ...which inhabited the old "La Cage" space in SE; where danced a staggering array of billy-clubbed black guys, many of whom were perfectly content, when "Aunt Esther" (the managermale, of course) wasn't watching, to permit my tongue to explore their nether regions at the far end of the bar; and which establishment was eminent-domained, with all its naughty brethren, out of existence to build a ball park at enormous and ever-rising taxpayer expense.