My Nick Charles Experience

Greetings, Gate!

Your gin-soaked narrator here, to say Vout and O-roonie to all the Devoted Readers and all those who drop in here as happenstance allows. Mackscooto!

Before I get any forwarder here, let me say that the other night I pulled down Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man and read the first forty or so pages. There is more liquor consumed or talked about within those pages than you will find within an entire shelf of fiction. That's an observation that is entirely fitting for tonight's post as you will shortly see. This is my Nick Charles experience.

I will begin at the beginning, which even James Joyce did.

First of all, I have recently purchased two scarves. The first is a golden silk scarf with Chinese dragons and characters and a fabulous knotted fringe. It is a bit much to wear, but will make an excellent table runner ... once I decide what I should put it on. I'll worry about that later.

The second scarf is also silk, white, with an acceptable fringe. This is the one I'll wear. In fact, this morning I was wearing it with my Czech trenchcoat. As I was walking down the sidewalk of beautiful Downtown P.A. I was stopped by one of the local residents whotold me that I looked like I should be flying some antique fighter plane ... whether it was a Sopwith Camel or a Spitfire he wasn't exactly certain.

Today I found out a bit more about the Revolutionary Girl. As Devoted Readers may remember, I had asked the Revolutionary Girl out for coffee and three weeks later I'm still waiting for her to suggest a time. She may well be busy, but she work just down the street and you'd think she'd find the time to drop by and say she was still interested (but busy). That's absolutely acceptable. But I'm getting the feeling I'm being blown off and when i asked J.V. who once worked with her about this situation her first responce was "You too?" Apparently Revolutioinary Girl freaks out when guys ask her out, even for coffee. She blew another guy off, too. Whatever. I figure that's her loss, and if she wants to duck out from venturing up the street for fear of encoutnering me, then she's completely wacked.

But I'll tell you Gate, if J.V. werent' married, I ask her out for java. Anyway, I did say, "If you know anyone ..." and she knows people.

I went downstairs for lunch. There's a new server and I was suprised at how good he was. G. is super nice, too. So I'll miss, Little D., but I'll live. The wacked shoestore owner was downstairs, too, and going on about the film Valmont. She kept squawking "Annette Benning!" over and over. No wonder Z. gets on so well there.

Today was the sort of day where I did a lot but feel I did very little. I mean, mostly I priced boxes of chocolates, talked with J.V. and sorted out a supply cabinet.

Later in the day I ran into M. and said that if I got off early enough I'd be heading downstairs for a restorative cocktail and would he like to join me. As it turned out, he said he'd like that, so I got off an hour early and then met up with him at the IBB.

... to be continued.

This is the morning after, Gate, and I expected to be in much worse condition than I am. I attribute this to having a large lunch yesterday and drinking two glasses of water along with the martinis last night. I'll probably start fading by 5.00 pm, though.

So to pick up thread from whence I left off:

So I met up with M. at the IBB. We chatted with K. who was pretty shocked when I told her about the Revolutionary Girl. "What a flake!" She said. Apparenlty M. was rather bummed out that Upstairs D. wasn't at the Other Bar the previous night. So after a bit M. and I went across the street and downstairs.

We found the place was filling up fast. There was a guitarist performing that night and it was his last gig in town so his friends arrived in force. It was interesting to look at the Friends of the Guitarist as they were all pretty much of a type. Late 20s to mid 30s, goatees, neatly trimmed, urban hippie hairstyles on the guys and mid-length, parted in the center hair, and a variety of scarves on the women. The music wasn't bad, actually. It was interesting and didn't intrude on the conversation.

M. and I talked about Flaubert, Japanese novelists, James Joyce and Faulkner. Later Co-worker D. arrived and Mr. M. himself joined us while occassionally tending the bar. I ended up drinking three martinis and found I could still walk in a straight line ... unlike my experience with three martinis at our Christmas party.

It was time to hit the road about 8.00 pm. M. had to pick up his backpack from the IBB and we all wanted to see K. Which was a very good thing because she provided me with the latest Quotable:

"He's a slut, like me, only he's gay."

So here I am, the day after my Nick Charles Experience and really non the worse for it.