Call It What You Want, But…

16 February 2011

I miss Bill Whithers’ early music

I miss mid 1990s hip hop

I miss running a restaurant

I miss the late great radio station WDCU

I miss Aaron Sorkin writing great TV

I miss traveling before a bunch of terrorists made airline travel as elegant as dinner at the Smorgasbord

I miss inspiration

I miss the best dessert place in the history of DC, Dolce Final

I miss the abundance of civility

I miss having a steady last call of the night

Even as Pitchers and Catchers have already reported, and the rest of the camps open today, I miss affordable baseball… anyone up for a minor league game?

I miss smokey jazz joints with a cat older than my father working the brushes (if you’re unfamiliar with the term, that’s a damn shame.)

I miss the certainty of purpose that I’ve somehow replaced with holding life together through force of will, a roll of duct tape and good luck

I miss writing in my journal

I miss my old post-divorce loft

I miss evenings of uncomplicated truth and overly complicated women

I miss blue lights in the basement

I miss slow dancing

I miss the nights when sleep came easily

It’s been barely a week, but I already miss football

I miss drive-in movie theaters… even though I have never been to one

I miss writing with fountain pens, or more accurately, good cause to use them

I miss the days when bra straps weren’t viewed as accessories and better still just weren’t viewed

I miss easy recoveries from the times I mortgaged the morning for pursuit of the night

I miss the illusion of meritocracy but wonder if I am better for the disquieting knowledge that replaced it

I miss my mojo, if you’ve seen it, please send it back my way

I miss the days when I always knew where the goal posts were… and if you’re the bloke in charge of moving them, please go pound sand

I miss writing this blog – the acknowledged vanity, the quiet craving for affection, yes, but the community of disparate spirits most of all.

 

16 Comments | deep quiet | Permalink
Posted by restaurant refugee

Dancing with Your Own Devils in the Pale Moonlight

10 January 2010

For a man who gets paid to notice things in restaurants, I can be horrifically unobservant when I am really into something else – book, newspaper, conversation, or even my own thoughts.  Thiswas the case one recent evening when I was enjoying a cigar, a bourbon, and the editorial section of the New York Times at one of my usual haunts.  I didn’t notice the striking woman in the winter white pant suit until she was standing at my bar table.

“Hi there” she opened; “I need you to settle a bet for me” she continued without giving me opportunity to return her salutation.

“Good evening” I said while rising from my chair.  “How may I help you settle this bet; and would you care to have a seat while we resolve this?”

“Thank you, I would like to sit… and I’m Jessica”

“Jessica, I’m Refugee; it’s a pleasure to meet you.  Now what is the bet?”

“Well, my girlfriends and I” she said while pointing to two women sitting at the far end of the bar “saw your wedding ring…”

“Not  a wedding ring as I am wearing it on my right hand ring finger” I corrected.

“Exactly.  That’s the question.  We have it narrowed down to: you’re from some country where they wear wedding bands on that hand but I think your lack of an accent eliminates that, or you’re actually married but shift the ring to the other hand when you go to bars, or you’re gay and wear that ring to let other men know you’re available.”

I snickered a bit at the options before replying “There are a couple of flaws in your logic.  If I was the kind of married man who switched his ring in bars, why would I ever admit to it?  Also, I am not positive about this, but I am fairly sure that gay people, especially gay women wear rings on the thumb to indicate such – though that may just be an old wives tale.”

“OK, let’s check your left ring finger for tan lines then” Jessica said with a bit of a smile.

She inspected my hand and declared my hands tan-line free.  “You didn’t answer the question about being gay” Jessica noted.

“No, I didn’t… I am straight” I acknowledged and answered.

“So why the ring?” she pressed.

“It’s a long story, but the short version is that I bought it as a gift to myself and a reminder of the lessons I tried to learn when I took a yearlong sabbatical from women several years ago.”

Just as I finished, Jessica’s two girlfriends arrived at the table demanding to know the verdict on the bet.

“Well, none of us were right.  Apparently, Refugee here has another reason having to do with a ‘sabbatical from women’”

I stood and formerly introduced myself to Stephanie and Maria.  They sat down and we ordered another round of drinks.  Before the cocktails arrived, Maria asked “So tell us more about this sabbatical.”

I laughed to myself before answering “You know, I am normally much more of an open book type of guy, but that’s just a bit more than I am willing to discuss this evening.”

I hadn’t meant for that to be a conversational grenade, but the table was silent for an uncomfortable moment.  Stefanie broke the quiet with “Well then, Mr.-Normally-An-Open-Book-Refugee, what would you be doing if we hadn’t crashed your table?”

I drained the last of my bourbon as our server had just brought the next round and said “Literally just having a drink, smoking a cigar, reading and waiting for a phone call that I don’t expect to come… metaphorically, I’d be running towards the football and foolishly thinking that Lucy won’t snatch it away again… maybe starting another sabbatical.”

8 Comments | advice I'm slightly qualified to give, bars aka where we get the booze, booze & boozing, dating, deep quiet, dumb things I have done, skin hungry - to borrow a phrase, smoke in your eyes, something else I have started that I may or may not finish | Permalink
Posted by restaurant refugee

Playing Poker with Old Foes

9 October 2009

I was the last person to join the poker game and that suited me just fine.  It made me the wild card, the unknown variable.  Inexperienced players usually don’t adjust to changes well and these cats were no exception.  It took six hands for me to become the chip leader, a baker’s dozen before it was just the host and me at the table.

We took a short break so she could say proper valedictions to her dispatched friends and the game resumed with an understanding that a new one had begun.  Playing “heads-up” poker by definition differs from a full table, but our history complicates things.  Did I have an advantage because I could trace the arch of her hips from faded memories?  Did she have an advantage because she knew to kiss the exact spot where my neck meets torso that will buckle a knee?  I didn’t know.  I  did know that I had the bigger stack of chips but that she was dealing from a loaded deck.

Six hands were a virtual draw with us shuffling chips around the table but neither of us gaining tactical advantage.  In the seventh hand, I was slow playing a set of Cowboys and she was waiting for a straight draw after the flop.  As she contemplated her bet, I felt the heat of her with the crossing of her legs and leaning one against mine.

“Do you really think I’m going to show you a tell just because you’re resting your foot against my calve like it belongs there” I asked.

“You just did…” she said while pushing her cards to the middle of the table.  I told myself that it was a lucky guess but I knew she was right.

Suddenly aware of my breathing or vulnerability – it was a jump ball – I broke one of my poker rules and poured another bourbon.  When I returned to my seat I laid down a jack-ten off suit behind a pre-flop raise and her hand rested on my knee as if to say “I knew you would fold – and I’m only partially talking about the game.”

With the cards in my hands and the first shuffle underway, a hand returned to my knee and moved slowly up my thigh.  I wouldn’t make eye contact choosing to instead focus on the suddenly more complicated task of shuffling.  Another hand fell atop mine – I should have folded but I made a big bet.  I stood and rounded the corner of the table and kissed her.  It was instantly familiar: my left hand starting on her cheek and moving to her neck and hair; her right hand starting behind my thigh and moving to the small of my back.

I pulled Jordan from her chair to meet me.  With her facing away from me, she pressed her body to mine while my lips had a conversation with her neck.  There was urgency in her touch and mine. My fingers found the hem of her skirt, the soft of her skin.  Curving around her thigh until the temperature increased, I caught sight of her face in the mirror on the opposite wall.  Watching her closed eyes, slightly parted lips, I suddenly felt like I was spying on her moment.

Refocusing on Jordan, I undid the top button that had been begging for freedom all night.  Fingering the lace of the bra that I’m certain matches the panties, I appreciated the effort – liberating another button, then another until her blouse hangs open and my right hand roams unabated by fabric.

Jordan turned to face me and we kissed with the fervor of teenagers bumping against curfew.  Leaning against the dinning-turned poker table-turned erotic prop, Jordan wrapped a leg round mine until I lifted her onto the table.  Both of her legs are crossed behind me now and my hands wander up her back.  I consider undoing the clasp of her bra but stop myself for reasons I don’t know.

Urgency became insistence as Jordan unlatches my belt, trousers and zipper in rapid succession.  I raised her skirt past her thighs and over her hips, feeling a hint of a tremor on her skin.  Lace moved to the side, and Jordan took a deep and audible breath with me inside her and her nails in my back.

We moved quickly but deliberately in a slightly un-syncopated beat.  Taking off my shirt suddenly became an imperative for Jordan.  “I always hated this shirt” she moaned into my ear just before leaning back and ripping it open sending buttons across the room and me just a bit hotter for her.

Before long Jordan has reclined on the table in a sexy, spent mass.  I start to speak but am preempted by her “Shhhhh, not yet.”

We sat silently for a few minutes until she rose to extinguish the lights.  There was one playing card stuck against the salty sweetness of back.  It was the Ace of diamonds.

6 Comments | dating, deep quiet, fiction, insomnia, random stuff, skin hungry - to borrow a phrase, women | Permalink
Posted by restaurant refugee

Lessons from the METRO and Sprint

2 May 2009

Saturday was a whirlwind of activity for me.  It started with a meeting to review a writing project on which I am assisting a friend, moved to a boozefest disguised as a barbeque, smoking more cigars with a friend in town from NYC.  Despite all of the implied and explicitly stated drinking throughout the day, I was very much in command of my faculties when I hoped the subway for the 25 minute ride home about 1am.

Metro had a different plan for me and the amount of time required getting home.  The first train experienced some unannounced malfunction and was off loaded after just two stops.  The replacement train arrived 15 minutes later and an apparently impatient conductor closed the doors before even half the people on the platform could board.  My final chariot home arrived almost twenty minutes later.  Upon boarding, I discovered that I had lost my cell phone somewhere during that odyssey.  I blame METRO for the loss.

My shiny new phone arrived in the mail on Thursday. 

I’ve changed my phone number before as a mechanism for pruning my list of contacts, but I still had the same names, numbers, and potential for trouble stored in my phone.  This time I had to compose an email and consider the people who’s number I wanted to have.  My list was shorter than I thought it would be.

I am sure that I missed a person or three; and I hope that over the course of time those unintentionally slighted people will call me.  The thing that struck me, however, was the degree to which I prefer to be disconnected from this increasingly connected world.  I am not sure if the question is about my space or about the old habit of pushing away those that get too close.

1 Comment | deep quiet, sucks to write this | Permalink
Posted by restaurant refugee

Gone Deep Quiet

10 March 2009

The first time I unplugged from the world was right before I entered high school.  Spending a week as alone as possible has been an infrequent ritual since – a periodic respite to recharge.  Whether an act of safety (like an auto-shut-off switch for your life,) deliberate vacation, or one day of avoiding someone (usually a woman) that simply crept into seven this has been a part of my life for which I am usually grateful.

Even though nothing is wrong, life is good, and my optimism is unabated, I have spent the last week or so away from the trappings of the electronic world. 

I’ll see you all in the morning, and thanks to all of the people who sent emails of concern.

7 Comments | deep quiet | Permalink
Posted by restaurant refugee

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