Now We Are Six
Text I received a little after midnight on Tuesday - technically half an hour into 17 June: Think I'm gonna stay in tonight. Love u. Happy anniversary!
I read this text disparagingly to many of my bar patrons, prefaced with a, "This is from my useless husband. Who lives, I might add, all of 50 feet from the bar, and it's just 12:00."
I wasn't really angry. I don't expect anyone, not even my husband-elect, to hang out in a bar just because I'm working there.
I showed him the text the next day and even he said, "Yah, maybe I should have included the 'happy annivarsary!' in another text."
Six years yesterday. I can say it. I can write it. But I can't understand it. How have six years flowed under the Mississippi Bridge since the night some random guy named "Ben" whom I met at The Pub of all places (GAH!) took me back to his hotel room at the then-Wyndham for a sleazy hook-up? Who, later, while he was in the shower and I was wandering aimlessly around the room, and as I came across a pile of mail and noticed it was addressed to "George," I thought, a fake name? He gave me a fake name? Who DOES that? Jeezus Keee-ryst! How … 1994.
I ended up spending the night in that hotel room - a gay one-night-stand no-no that tops the list of fag etiquette. The next morning we woke up together, renewed our sleazy hook-up, and even went out for coffee at the Rue de la Course which in 2003 occupied a space on N. Peters across from Canal Place.
He fucked off back to Nashville, but I couldn't get him out of my mind.
We IM'd for the next month or so, him working at home in the day, me working graves, so I was on my computer during the day. These were hour long IM seshes and we pried and probed into each others' lives with candor and alarming frankness. A month or so later The Hideout closed, I had to get out of town, and invited myself to stay with him in Tennessee - perhaps the number one Trick No-No on the etiquette list.
The rest, as they say, is history. He was either in NOLA or I was in Nashville. Soon after, he moved down here. Took a house near mine off Fourth St. in the Garden Dist. We could see each others' balconies. I didn't have a cell phone in those days. I suggested running a string with two tin cans.
Soon after that we saw, fell in love with, and bought Clifford and moved in together, despite the young, budding stage of our relationship. I had only had one boyfriend before. When he moved in, a year and a half into our relationship, that's when everything turned sour. It was a risky move to not only move in with Ben, but buy property together - and my first-time homeowner experience at that.
Now it's 2009. And despite my chiding last night, "My new name for you is going to be Library Book. It's six years. You're way overdue. I should really take you back. This is getting expensive," I really couldn't imagine being with anyone else. Or being without him.
Yesterday afternoon marrus left me a VM: I'm at Green Goddess for lunch. Come meet me!
I texted back: Saving my cal-intake 4 Commanders 2nite, but thx 4 inviting me!
Then Ben left a VM: Come meet me and Marrus and Gwen at Green Goddess!
I can't fight three wily bitches. I went.
While they had humble (but still amazing) salads, I decided my strict diet suddenly allowed pulled pork on a jalapeño corn flapjack. Which is like god cumming in your mouth, believe me.
A few hours later, besuited in frippery and finery, we hauled up to Commander's Palace, where everyone seems to know us now, and had an incredible dinner over a bottle of Trefethen Chardonnay. (Ben: Andouille gumbo, the Crystal shrimp Henican in the five-pepper jelly which is his favorite dish on earth, the veal in an oil-black, sticky balsamic reduction and banana shortcake. Me: turtle soup, the poached egg and artichoke tart and crème brûlée, the best in the world because the understand the simple secret to a good brûlée: surface area!)
On the way out I reserved a table for six for Thanksgiving. Mom, cousin Bergen, perhaps my brother and perhaps an aunt or two are coming to New Orleans later this year. I'm going to recreate last year: racetrack in the morning, dressed as if going to the Ascot, then Commander's for dinner.
Ben and I left CP for an after-dinner Laphroaig at The Saint. Then more cocktails at 700 Club. A bit too much drinking for both of us, but hey, you're only six once.
The dynamics for me at the latter bar have changed. It used to be my local hang-out spot. Now I walk in and the people sitting at the bar are my regulars, even though I've only worked there a week. Everyone feels they own a piece of me and won't leave me alone. I got out of unwanted conversations by sticking my tongue down Ben's throat.
Matt told Ben, to my great horror, how he sees me when Ben's out of town: "Todd's lost without you," he said smirking evilly. "I saw him last Saturday. He floated in like an airplane crash victim, had one drink. Didn't talk to anyone. Stared blankly at the ceiling. Wandered around with amnesia, then floated out the door." Actually, this description is very apt. That's exactly how I felt on Saturday, and often feel when Ben's out of town.
Eventually we went home. I couldn't sleep. Started sweating out my Friday night shindig. Was trying to picture how to play the first Prélude and couldn't remember the notes. Got up in the middle of the night to try to play it. Horribly mess. I began a mass email to all my friends telling them I'm sorry but I'm going to have to cancel. Then I remembered that I was fucking DRUNK, hell-OHHH!, and that I can't play fucking Chopsticks when I'm drunk. I took a Xanax and conked out.
Here's our pre-dinner shot, me holding up my A.A. Milne book, "Now We Are Six."
I read this text disparagingly to many of my bar patrons, prefaced with a, "This is from my useless husband. Who lives, I might add, all of 50 feet from the bar, and it's just 12:00."
I wasn't really angry. I don't expect anyone, not even my husband-elect, to hang out in a bar just because I'm working there.
I showed him the text the next day and even he said, "Yah, maybe I should have included the 'happy annivarsary!' in another text."
Six years yesterday. I can say it. I can write it. But I can't understand it. How have six years flowed under the Mississippi Bridge since the night some random guy named "Ben" whom I met at The Pub of all places (GAH!) took me back to his hotel room at the then-Wyndham for a sleazy hook-up? Who, later, while he was in the shower and I was wandering aimlessly around the room, and as I came across a pile of mail and noticed it was addressed to "George," I thought, a fake name? He gave me a fake name? Who DOES that? Jeezus Keee-ryst! How … 1994.
I ended up spending the night in that hotel room - a gay one-night-stand no-no that tops the list of fag etiquette. The next morning we woke up together, renewed our sleazy hook-up, and even went out for coffee at the Rue de la Course which in 2003 occupied a space on N. Peters across from Canal Place.
He fucked off back to Nashville, but I couldn't get him out of my mind.
We IM'd for the next month or so, him working at home in the day, me working graves, so I was on my computer during the day. These were hour long IM seshes and we pried and probed into each others' lives with candor and alarming frankness. A month or so later The Hideout closed, I had to get out of town, and invited myself to stay with him in Tennessee - perhaps the number one Trick No-No on the etiquette list.
The rest, as they say, is history. He was either in NOLA or I was in Nashville. Soon after, he moved down here. Took a house near mine off Fourth St. in the Garden Dist. We could see each others' balconies. I didn't have a cell phone in those days. I suggested running a string with two tin cans.
Soon after that we saw, fell in love with, and bought Clifford and moved in together, despite the young, budding stage of our relationship. I had only had one boyfriend before. When he moved in, a year and a half into our relationship, that's when everything turned sour. It was a risky move to not only move in with Ben, but buy property together - and my first-time homeowner experience at that.
Now it's 2009. And despite my chiding last night, "My new name for you is going to be Library Book. It's six years. You're way overdue. I should really take you back. This is getting expensive," I really couldn't imagine being with anyone else. Or being without him.
Yesterday afternoon marrus left me a VM: I'm at Green Goddess for lunch. Come meet me!
I texted back: Saving my cal-intake 4 Commanders 2nite, but thx 4 inviting me!
Then Ben left a VM: Come meet me and Marrus and Gwen at Green Goddess!
I can't fight three wily bitches. I went.
While they had humble (but still amazing) salads, I decided my strict diet suddenly allowed pulled pork on a jalapeño corn flapjack. Which is like god cumming in your mouth, believe me.
A few hours later, besuited in frippery and finery, we hauled up to Commander's Palace, where everyone seems to know us now, and had an incredible dinner over a bottle of Trefethen Chardonnay. (Ben: Andouille gumbo, the Crystal shrimp Henican in the five-pepper jelly which is his favorite dish on earth, the veal in an oil-black, sticky balsamic reduction and banana shortcake. Me: turtle soup, the poached egg and artichoke tart and crème brûlée, the best in the world because the understand the simple secret to a good brûlée: surface area!)
On the way out I reserved a table for six for Thanksgiving. Mom, cousin Bergen, perhaps my brother and perhaps an aunt or two are coming to New Orleans later this year. I'm going to recreate last year: racetrack in the morning, dressed as if going to the Ascot, then Commander's for dinner.
Ben and I left CP for an after-dinner Laphroaig at The Saint. Then more cocktails at 700 Club. A bit too much drinking for both of us, but hey, you're only six once.
The dynamics for me at the latter bar have changed. It used to be my local hang-out spot. Now I walk in and the people sitting at the bar are my regulars, even though I've only worked there a week. Everyone feels they own a piece of me and won't leave me alone. I got out of unwanted conversations by sticking my tongue down Ben's throat.
Matt told Ben, to my great horror, how he sees me when Ben's out of town: "Todd's lost without you," he said smirking evilly. "I saw him last Saturday. He floated in like an airplane crash victim, had one drink. Didn't talk to anyone. Stared blankly at the ceiling. Wandered around with amnesia, then floated out the door." Actually, this description is very apt. That's exactly how I felt on Saturday, and often feel when Ben's out of town.
Eventually we went home. I couldn't sleep. Started sweating out my Friday night shindig. Was trying to picture how to play the first Prélude and couldn't remember the notes. Got up in the middle of the night to try to play it. Horribly mess. I began a mass email to all my friends telling them I'm sorry but I'm going to have to cancel. Then I remembered that I was fucking DRUNK, hell-OHHH!, and that I can't play fucking Chopsticks when I'm drunk. I took a Xanax and conked out.
Here's our pre-dinner shot, me holding up my A.A. Milne book, "Now We Are Six."