Spatricks

The preceding post notwithstanding, I do write something every day about something going on. How can I not? I like stringing words together. I like recounting. I don't give myself much time for it, of course.

St. Patrick's Day started out with some miscommunication that had me hanging around the bars along R St. by myself a bit. The Fox & Goose had a line and a cover so I didn't go in, and then some yahoo of a piper came out the door playing Scotland the Brave and I decided a Scots / English pub is no place for me on Irish Day anyway. Down at R15 etc. the crowds were heavier but friendly enough and I had a Guinness while considering my next move. Ireland's premier stout didn't taste very good. I've always liked Guinness but it seems to have a sweet element now that sort of sours on me. I prefer a darker, maltier stout perhaps, even though you really can't get much darker. I dunno. Anyway, the magic of SMS led me to the Mercantile where my friends had been all along, and my mood improved considerably once I got in.

The Merc is a gay bar specializing in large angry women. One of them trapped Sunya in the bathroom once, I think, but that was years ago. Now, as with many gay bars these days, it's friendly enough to breeders ... and as with many breeders these days, you're never really sure who's "open" or "bi" as opposed to us old-school "normal" types anyway. The new normal is not the old normal. I don't lament the change. I do tend to be one of the few strictly heterosexual males in social gatherings anymore. All that aside, the place was hopping and fun and full of great energy.

The party's elements came and went and our cloud drifted over to a popular neighborhood bar on Folsom Blvd. This is where I drunk-checked-in with a pointless photograph and a comment about everyone being in their twenties and wearing green t-shirts. I still don't get it: When I was in my twenties and going to some of these same bars, they were full of scary clouds of loud people I could barely focus on and no departure came too soon. Apparently I've finally grown out of my childhood social autism (to misuse some terms) and can actually see people and talk to them and gain their interest, but they're still in their twenties and I'm their father's age. No one treats me like anything but a normal dude so I really can almost pretend I belong, but the mirror doesn't lie, and neither does the inner curmudgeon I'm always telling to keep quiet.

All that aside it was fun enough and then drifted along to a familiar dive on J St but that didn't last long. That part of the evening devolved to complex logistics that involved who lived where, where cars were parked, and who was and was not too drunk to drive. The end result was a party at our house. Now the wisdom of buying the place becomes clear: Our bedroom is upstairs and on the opposite side from the kids' wing, rather than say at the end of the hall as in a normal home. When upstairs and across the way, your noise and traffic isn't so obvious. We had nine people more or less, making rather more than less noise ... and I guess my housemate would rather I skim over the part where two of the women left when clothes started coming off and the two women remaining had a pretty good time so we'll just move along to the fact that yet again I am operating on but a few hours of sleep and that's okay!

These sorts of shenanigans are a relatively new thing for me and already they seem kind of normal, in that I don't feel controversial or hush-hush or giggly or any other such nonsense. Just plain innocent fun. Maybe my understanding of innocent is changing. If there is no harm being done, it's innocent. If there is ... hard drugs, coercion, theft, cheating and lies, whatever like that ... then it's not innocent, but those just aren't elements in my life. OK, that's a little bit of a fudge, so I'll just add that when / if they do, nothing done is as bad as doing alcohol.

Which seems to be the main point of St. Patrick's Day. You can give a listen to the Clancy Brothers or Liam O'Flynn quietly enough at home, but it's no good if you don't have a snort of Kilbeggan along with it. So you may as well go out and give those hard-working bartenders a good night. And it was a good night.