Saturday, November 20, 2004
Went to work last night
Just kidding, Ma.
Well, not entirely. Dropped by at 3:30am on my way home from Nicky's house in Rialto (way the hell out in the boonies, and no, I had no idea where I was, but somehow had enough of a sense of direction to make the hour's walk home without incident). I don't need the sling anymore, but I carry it with me, and so I slung it on before I went in. It wasn't for sympathy--I don't want to make these people feel sorry for me, I just want to go back to work--it was just because it was easier than explaining why I hadn't been there that night. It was nice to be back. Hung around for a while, chilling, found it just like home. See, the thing about the Morrison is, it's where my friends are now. I see them more often than I see college friends, simply because so many of my college friendships have devolved into kaffeeklatsch relationships, where we make appointments to meet for coffee. I have to carry bucketloads of Lactaid around with me, otherwise I end up a social cripple, reduced to thick-as-paint black coffee while all around they're sipping cappuccino.
Incidentally I make a mean cappuccino. It works best if you dust the espresso with the cocoa powder before adding the foamed milk; that way, you get the cool swirl effect on top. God damn, do I need to go back to work. There are these three drinks I'm dying to test out on customers: the Sazerac (old school drink), the New Yorker and the Tie Me to the Bedpost.
Sazerac:
•thimbleful of Absinthe, abisante, or an absinthe substitute (we have Pernod, that should do)
•dash bitters
•sugar
•1 tsp. water
•2 oz. blended whiskey (Seagrams 7, etc.)--personally I think a peaty Scotch like Dewar's might be marvelous
•Lemon twist to garnish
Roll the absinthe around in a prechilled old-fashioned glass, thoroughly coating the whole thing. Dump excess. Stir bitters, sugar and water in the bottom of the glass, dissolving sugar. Throw in whiskey and an ice cube. Twist lemon peel and drop into glass.
Think an Old-Fashioned, but one that argues with you a little more. It occurs to me I can make this. Sparky left some truly ghastly Ouzo here (Ouzo is anise-flavored, too, like Absinthe and Pernod, and for this drink, all you need is the vague flavor), and while it bombed miserably in the Whiskey Ouzo Fix--I happen to hate all things anise--the bitters and the peatiness of my dwindling Dewar's should be enough to offset its fouler edges. Also the WOF had way more Ouzo. The question is, am I willing to risk wasting the last of my whisky? I ran out of whiskey ages ago. Thank God certain fathers will be passing through duty-free tomorrow.
The New Yorker
• 2 oz. bourbon
• 1/2 oz. lime juice (not Rose's, fresh-squeezed)
• 1 tsp. sugar
• dash grenadine
• orange twist
• lemon twist
Shake and strain into a prechilled cocktail glass. Touch with grenadine again (purely for aesthetics), twist orange and lemon peels above drink and drop into glass. Chill.
Effectively a whiskey Daiquiri with a twist or two, this one I'd recommend as much for the name as the flavor. It'd go down easy, I imagine, so long as you hold back a bit on the lime, excess of which can rubbish a drink. It might be a great way to get children to drink whiskey.
Of course, drinkers here are, by and large, children. Which bring me to:
Tie Me to the Bedpost
• 1 1/2 oz. Malibu
• 1/2 oz. Midori melon liqueur
• 1/2 oz. Absolut citron
• 1/2 oz. Rose's Lime juice
Shake like hell and strain into prechilled whiskey sour glass (or old-fashioned glass).
There are so many things wrong with this one I don't even know where to begin. Three of the four ingredients are so crammed with sugar that you feel like a diabetic. The hangover would be devastating beyond belief. Who ever thought Absolut Citron would be a redeeming ingredient? All of the ingredients are practically synthetic, like nylon spirits, not good for you. It has Malibu as the dominant; already that's a strike against it. I can't imagine anyone thinking it tastes anything but grotesque.
All it's got going for it is the name--though for the drink, it's a laughably incongruous label. I'd imagine a Tie Me to the Bedpost as being, oh, I don't know, somehow more...leathery? Darker, with more of a sting. Whiplash. Maybe Black Sambuca playing with Kahlua Especial (70 proof), Tia Maria or, better yet--if you can get your hands on it, which you can't in this country--Patron XO Café, which has excellent tequila in it. Then maybe a little softening Bailey's and heavy cream to act as a pillow, just for the initial caress, turning swiftly into a slap from the Sambuca/Patron blend. Shaken and strained into a cocktail glass. Garnish with--what else?--a cherry.
Either way I'll still recommend it--with the above caveats--because I get to grin like crazy while saying it.
Man, do I need to go back to work or what?
Well, not entirely. Dropped by at 3:30am on my way home from Nicky's house in Rialto (way the hell out in the boonies, and no, I had no idea where I was, but somehow had enough of a sense of direction to make the hour's walk home without incident). I don't need the sling anymore, but I carry it with me, and so I slung it on before I went in. It wasn't for sympathy--I don't want to make these people feel sorry for me, I just want to go back to work--it was just because it was easier than explaining why I hadn't been there that night. It was nice to be back. Hung around for a while, chilling, found it just like home. See, the thing about the Morrison is, it's where my friends are now. I see them more often than I see college friends, simply because so many of my college friendships have devolved into kaffeeklatsch relationships, where we make appointments to meet for coffee. I have to carry bucketloads of Lactaid around with me, otherwise I end up a social cripple, reduced to thick-as-paint black coffee while all around they're sipping cappuccino.
Incidentally I make a mean cappuccino. It works best if you dust the espresso with the cocoa powder before adding the foamed milk; that way, you get the cool swirl effect on top. God damn, do I need to go back to work. There are these three drinks I'm dying to test out on customers: the Sazerac (old school drink), the New Yorker and the Tie Me to the Bedpost.
Sazerac:
•thimbleful of Absinthe, abisante, or an absinthe substitute (we have Pernod, that should do)
•dash bitters
•sugar
•1 tsp. water
•2 oz. blended whiskey (Seagrams 7, etc.)--personally I think a peaty Scotch like Dewar's might be marvelous
•Lemon twist to garnish
Roll the absinthe around in a prechilled old-fashioned glass, thoroughly coating the whole thing. Dump excess. Stir bitters, sugar and water in the bottom of the glass, dissolving sugar. Throw in whiskey and an ice cube. Twist lemon peel and drop into glass.
Think an Old-Fashioned, but one that argues with you a little more. It occurs to me I can make this. Sparky left some truly ghastly Ouzo here (Ouzo is anise-flavored, too, like Absinthe and Pernod, and for this drink, all you need is the vague flavor), and while it bombed miserably in the Whiskey Ouzo Fix--I happen to hate all things anise--the bitters and the peatiness of my dwindling Dewar's should be enough to offset its fouler edges. Also the WOF had way more Ouzo. The question is, am I willing to risk wasting the last of my whisky? I ran out of whiskey ages ago. Thank God certain fathers will be passing through duty-free tomorrow.
The New Yorker
• 2 oz. bourbon
• 1/2 oz. lime juice (not Rose's, fresh-squeezed)
• 1 tsp. sugar
• dash grenadine
• orange twist
• lemon twist
Shake and strain into a prechilled cocktail glass. Touch with grenadine again (purely for aesthetics), twist orange and lemon peels above drink and drop into glass. Chill.
Effectively a whiskey Daiquiri with a twist or two, this one I'd recommend as much for the name as the flavor. It'd go down easy, I imagine, so long as you hold back a bit on the lime, excess of which can rubbish a drink. It might be a great way to get children to drink whiskey.
Of course, drinkers here are, by and large, children. Which bring me to:
Tie Me to the Bedpost
• 1 1/2 oz. Malibu
• 1/2 oz. Midori melon liqueur
• 1/2 oz. Absolut citron
• 1/2 oz. Rose's Lime juice
Shake like hell and strain into prechilled whiskey sour glass (or old-fashioned glass).
There are so many things wrong with this one I don't even know where to begin. Three of the four ingredients are so crammed with sugar that you feel like a diabetic. The hangover would be devastating beyond belief. Who ever thought Absolut Citron would be a redeeming ingredient? All of the ingredients are practically synthetic, like nylon spirits, not good for you. It has Malibu as the dominant; already that's a strike against it. I can't imagine anyone thinking it tastes anything but grotesque.
All it's got going for it is the name--though for the drink, it's a laughably incongruous label. I'd imagine a Tie Me to the Bedpost as being, oh, I don't know, somehow more...leathery? Darker, with more of a sting. Whiplash. Maybe Black Sambuca playing with Kahlua Especial (70 proof), Tia Maria or, better yet--if you can get your hands on it, which you can't in this country--Patron XO Café, which has excellent tequila in it. Then maybe a little softening Bailey's and heavy cream to act as a pillow, just for the initial caress, turning swiftly into a slap from the Sambuca/Patron blend. Shaken and strained into a cocktail glass. Garnish with--what else?--a cherry.
Either way I'll still recommend it--with the above caveats--because I get to grin like crazy while saying it.
Man, do I need to go back to work or what?
Friday, November 19, 2004
Mending arm
Two spots of good news, at last. One, the arm is improving already. I can flex and extend it more than before, but still nowhere near all the way--the swelling around the fracture will take another few days to subside--and the pain is considerably reduced, though that might just be the Aleve talking, bless it. I’m slingless more than half the time, now, and I can use it much more than ever, even if I still have to be careful of sudden or sharp quick movements. I can’t shake it or anything, and I’ll still wait before rushing into anything (read: work, which I miss already). And Ultimate is definitely done until January.
Two, and the best Thanksgiving present ever, the Great White Father has decided that he absolutely needed to jet over here following a protracted spell of hard work. So he’s getting on a plane tomorrow night--don’t know how the tickets were still so cheap--and flying in Sunday morning. He’ll stay through Wednesday, keep me company until Sadie gets back, and fly back in time for Thanksgiving in New York. I’m very happy about this. Very, very happy.
Two, and the best Thanksgiving present ever, the Great White Father has decided that he absolutely needed to jet over here following a protracted spell of hard work. So he’s getting on a plane tomorrow night--don’t know how the tickets were still so cheap--and flying in Sunday morning. He’ll stay through Wednesday, keep me company until Sadie gets back, and fly back in time for Thanksgiving in New York. I’m very happy about this. Very, very happy.
I hear that old piano...
Where am I? I'm sitting with my arm in a sling, listening to the streaming November 6th edition of Prairie Home Companion, the revitalizing Joke Show. It's 11am, and the Lives of the Cowboys is brought to you by Old Faithful brand deodorant, and Powdermilk biscuits give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. Has your family tried 'em? Heavens they're tasty, and expeditious. Knock knock. Who's there. Scott. Scott who. Scott'a be some better jokes than these.
The knock-knock song is so funny my sides are shivering.
But where should I be? Getting out of a 10am Victorianism. I rose early with every intention of going. Really I did. I made breakfast--try cutting your food with one arm sometime. It's really, really funny, that is, if by funny, you mean pitiful--got dressed, put on my coat and slung on my bag, and went to pick up my iPod.
No fucking battery. Just when you thought life couldn't possibly get any worse--one-armed, sick (yeah, my face is blocked up again)--everything just sinks a little lower. I almost borrowed Sadie's, but she wasn't awake yet--she's still asleep, the punk--and she might kill me if I did that, so I left the house, music-less for the first time ever. I got in the elevator, went out the door, stepped into the brilliant chilly sunshine--I hate cold sun--took about three steps, said fuck this and turned right around and went back indoors. There was just no earthly way I was making it to college without the iPod. I was going to be ten minutes late anyhow--washing, dressing, eating takes twice as long when you have half as many arms. But it was really the lack of music that did it. I consider this an entirely valid reason.
Did you hear about the Amish woman who took a lover? She liked two mennonite.
I'm sorry, it's just too important. I need the damn joke show more than I need a Victorianism lecture.
Also, I realized that last night was the first time I've gone on record as declaring my hatred for this place. It wasn't said idly,or in a passing moment of dissatisfaction. I actually do hate this place. I hate this college, and I don't like this backasswards, dead-end city. It's a dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. It refuses to teach me what I want to know. I can't fucking wait to get out of here. What I want to do most is defect to an American school, but I don't want to start from square one. I'm looking at years abroad not just in Chicago, but also at Harvard and Yale, but more than anything I want to defect and matriculate. Sadie and I are effectively in competition over how miserable this misbegotten country can make us. Honestly, the only good thing about this place is its proximity to other places. The sky is lower here. It's oppressive. There's no living here, only subsistence. The job was becoming the only thing that made me happy, and now that that's gone, well, fuck the whole shebang.
It really has to do with the courses they're making me take. Romance (Gawain, Chaucer, Chretien de Troie), Fables (the first term is effectively Chaucer, Gawain, Chretien de Troie, but I'll allow as how it gets better in the second two terms), Victorianism, and Renaissance Poetry (would be splendid if the bent they were taking--monarchy celebrity gossip--weren't utterly irrelevant, and the lecturer an obliterating Cro-Magnon woman. I'm finding I love Phil Sidney; pity they're not talking about the fucking poetry. I would love to see Annabel Patterson do him). I've had it with not being able to choose my own classes. I have a very organized picture of what I want to be learning right now, and the fact that I'm having to audit a work-intensive M.Phil class in Cyberculture to do so is dismaying. I'm squandering my college years here, I really am.
Next term, I lose the light of my life, Postmodern Fiction, and the professor I love, Brenda Silver (who teaches the Cyberculture deal), as she goes back to Dartmouth. We've a better relationship than I've ever had with any other lecturer here, and I'm very bitter she's going home. The only taste of proper, respectful top-level American pedagogy, and she's leaving me. Damn it.
So what do I do? I stay home and waste bandwidth and listen to the news from Lake Wobegon, because that's where I am right now.
The knock-knock song is so funny my sides are shivering.
But where should I be? Getting out of a 10am Victorianism. I rose early with every intention of going. Really I did. I made breakfast--try cutting your food with one arm sometime. It's really, really funny, that is, if by funny, you mean pitiful--got dressed, put on my coat and slung on my bag, and went to pick up my iPod.
No fucking battery. Just when you thought life couldn't possibly get any worse--one-armed, sick (yeah, my face is blocked up again)--everything just sinks a little lower. I almost borrowed Sadie's, but she wasn't awake yet--she's still asleep, the punk--and she might kill me if I did that, so I left the house, music-less for the first time ever. I got in the elevator, went out the door, stepped into the brilliant chilly sunshine--I hate cold sun--took about three steps, said fuck this and turned right around and went back indoors. There was just no earthly way I was making it to college without the iPod. I was going to be ten minutes late anyhow--washing, dressing, eating takes twice as long when you have half as many arms. But it was really the lack of music that did it. I consider this an entirely valid reason.
Did you hear about the Amish woman who took a lover? She liked two mennonite.
I'm sorry, it's just too important. I need the damn joke show more than I need a Victorianism lecture.
Also, I realized that last night was the first time I've gone on record as declaring my hatred for this place. It wasn't said idly,or in a passing moment of dissatisfaction. I actually do hate this place. I hate this college, and I don't like this backasswards, dead-end city. It's a dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. It refuses to teach me what I want to know. I can't fucking wait to get out of here. What I want to do most is defect to an American school, but I don't want to start from square one. I'm looking at years abroad not just in Chicago, but also at Harvard and Yale, but more than anything I want to defect and matriculate. Sadie and I are effectively in competition over how miserable this misbegotten country can make us. Honestly, the only good thing about this place is its proximity to other places. The sky is lower here. It's oppressive. There's no living here, only subsistence. The job was becoming the only thing that made me happy, and now that that's gone, well, fuck the whole shebang.
It really has to do with the courses they're making me take. Romance (Gawain, Chaucer, Chretien de Troie), Fables (the first term is effectively Chaucer, Gawain, Chretien de Troie, but I'll allow as how it gets better in the second two terms), Victorianism, and Renaissance Poetry (would be splendid if the bent they were taking--monarchy celebrity gossip--weren't utterly irrelevant, and the lecturer an obliterating Cro-Magnon woman. I'm finding I love Phil Sidney; pity they're not talking about the fucking poetry. I would love to see Annabel Patterson do him). I've had it with not being able to choose my own classes. I have a very organized picture of what I want to be learning right now, and the fact that I'm having to audit a work-intensive M.Phil class in Cyberculture to do so is dismaying. I'm squandering my college years here, I really am.
Next term, I lose the light of my life, Postmodern Fiction, and the professor I love, Brenda Silver (who teaches the Cyberculture deal), as she goes back to Dartmouth. We've a better relationship than I've ever had with any other lecturer here, and I'm very bitter she's going home. The only taste of proper, respectful top-level American pedagogy, and she's leaving me. Damn it.
So what do I do? I stay home and waste bandwidth and listen to the news from Lake Wobegon, because that's where I am right now.
Fuck fuck fuck
I broke my arm.
Well, okay, not so much broke as fractured, and not so much my arm as the radial head on my left elbow. Either way, I am effectively one-armed, slung up, on the DL for four to six weeks and PISSED OFF.
You try washing yourself, drying yourself, clothing yourself, tying your shoes with one arm.
How it happened is I was at Ultimate practice, indoors at the gym, and for the hell of it--Sam, I'll hear you if you laugh and I'll come over there and strangle you--jumped up to grab the rim of the basketball hoop, as I've done dozens of times. Grabbed it, then lost my grip. Somehow planed out, horizontal, in the air, fell, oh, eight feet, and slammed down square on my belly. Bellyflopping expelled all the air out from me, the first time in at least five years I've been properly winded. It feels like you're going to barf. I don't recall hitting my elbow--I tried to plant my hands, but there wasn't much I could do. Got my breath back, and staggered back into play. Soon became apparent I couldn't flex or extend my elbow, and that something was definitely wrong. Also, it hurt like hell. Going to the hospital, at this stage, would have been smart. But I've already shown, I think, that this wasn't one of my "smart" days.
Came home in serious pain, and Sadie and I rigged up a makeshift sling from a pillowcase and electrical wire. Decided that I would go to health services today. After a two-hour wait, I got the referral I needed--as well as a reasonable sling--and hopped the bus to St. James's Hospital. More waiting. X-Rays. Extraordinary, clear, gasping, perfect pain when the radiologist insisted on try to extend the arm to busting point. Beautiful clarity of pain. Sweating throes of pain. Like little deaths. More waiting. See a triage nurse, then more waiting. Nurse practitioner sees me, gives me the word that there's a fracture, yes, on the radial head, shit, that I need to keep it largely immobile until Sunday to get the swelling down, then try to flex it every so often, building it back together. I have a fracture clinic on tuesday. SON OF A BITCH.
I'm off work until I get back for New Year's, which sucks. Work was the only thing keeping me going. I rather hate this place. Now I hate it with one arm. I'm dying to get out. I'm not staying for next year, that's for damn sure. Chicago, here I come. Fucking Sadie's just popping off to Lille for five days on Saturday, returning the night before Thanksgiving. I'd go now, but I'm in no state to travel. I am very, very fucking pissed off. Worst of all--and it wasn't the fracture that finally ruined my day, it was this--they play some NPR stuff here on Anna Livia radio, Car Talk, Fresh Air and, best of all, Prairie Home Companion. Unfortunately, PHC is on from 1 to 3 on fridays, and I have a 2pm Victorianism tutorial.
No I fucking don't. I don't care what my schedule says. I'm coming home to listen to Garrison Keillor because I have a broken arm and I hate this country and this asshole college.
Well, okay, not so much broke as fractured, and not so much my arm as the radial head on my left elbow. Either way, I am effectively one-armed, slung up, on the DL for four to six weeks and PISSED OFF.
You try washing yourself, drying yourself, clothing yourself, tying your shoes with one arm.
How it happened is I was at Ultimate practice, indoors at the gym, and for the hell of it--Sam, I'll hear you if you laugh and I'll come over there and strangle you--jumped up to grab the rim of the basketball hoop, as I've done dozens of times. Grabbed it, then lost my grip. Somehow planed out, horizontal, in the air, fell, oh, eight feet, and slammed down square on my belly. Bellyflopping expelled all the air out from me, the first time in at least five years I've been properly winded. It feels like you're going to barf. I don't recall hitting my elbow--I tried to plant my hands, but there wasn't much I could do. Got my breath back, and staggered back into play. Soon became apparent I couldn't flex or extend my elbow, and that something was definitely wrong. Also, it hurt like hell. Going to the hospital, at this stage, would have been smart. But I've already shown, I think, that this wasn't one of my "smart" days.
Came home in serious pain, and Sadie and I rigged up a makeshift sling from a pillowcase and electrical wire. Decided that I would go to health services today. After a two-hour wait, I got the referral I needed--as well as a reasonable sling--and hopped the bus to St. James's Hospital. More waiting. X-Rays. Extraordinary, clear, gasping, perfect pain when the radiologist insisted on try to extend the arm to busting point. Beautiful clarity of pain. Sweating throes of pain. Like little deaths. More waiting. See a triage nurse, then more waiting. Nurse practitioner sees me, gives me the word that there's a fracture, yes, on the radial head, shit, that I need to keep it largely immobile until Sunday to get the swelling down, then try to flex it every so often, building it back together. I have a fracture clinic on tuesday. SON OF A BITCH.
I'm off work until I get back for New Year's, which sucks. Work was the only thing keeping me going. I rather hate this place. Now I hate it with one arm. I'm dying to get out. I'm not staying for next year, that's for damn sure. Chicago, here I come. Fucking Sadie's just popping off to Lille for five days on Saturday, returning the night before Thanksgiving. I'd go now, but I'm in no state to travel. I am very, very fucking pissed off. Worst of all--and it wasn't the fracture that finally ruined my day, it was this--they play some NPR stuff here on Anna Livia radio, Car Talk, Fresh Air and, best of all, Prairie Home Companion. Unfortunately, PHC is on from 1 to 3 on fridays, and I have a 2pm Victorianism tutorial.
No I fucking don't. I don't care what my schedule says. I'm coming home to listen to Garrison Keillor because I have a broken arm and I hate this country and this asshole college.
Sunday, November 14, 2004
More than tired. Jagged, I think. Splintered up inside.
A while back, I made a decision never again to hold a nine-to-five job. So imagine my dismay when, as we were cleaning up the club, I looked at my watch and saw it was 5am. I’d started at 9pm. Damn.
By that time I was actually near death. The past, what, 36 hours had been pretty hairy. I worked an easy five to one on Thursday, but Friday night was the test of strength. 5pm I started in the Morrison bar. By 5:45 the place was jammers; the place was rented out for 200 people, and there were only two bartenders, myself and Gerard, the blond Australian Jewish surfer dude, with whom I work happily, but whose basic bartending chops, frankly, kinda suck. That was fun. But lately, I’ve found that high volume amps me dramatically. I get wired and don’t feel any need to slow down, going full guns until we cut off service and I collapse against the wall. It’s like dancing for me. So I somehow got it into my head that I really wanted to do the club, too. As it turned out, one of the bartenders was sick that night, so I got my insane wish: at 11:30pm, after six and a half hours of violently high-speed work, I moved down to the club and went to work immediately. I did not take a break (midway through a shift, we’re legally obliged to go on break for about a half hour. But there was no way I could do that to Gerard, leave him on his own, and once you start in the club, you don’t stop). I didn’t feel like I needed one. God, that was a mistake.
It didn’t affect me that night, though. It was perfectly fun, and at 3am, when service cuts off, I finally got to get some food and take a load off. We got out of there at 5am, after a full-blown, 12-hour marathon. It still amazes me a bit, just how fast they made me nocturnal. I came home, got in bed around 6 and slept like shit. Woke up around noon. Met Roz for coffee, catnapped for twenty minutes, watched an Ed Wood movie, Glen or Glenda, with Sadie (so bad it’s not even funny. No, really, it’s painful. You can’t laugh because your diaphragm is in the grip of the sheer horror of the filmmaking. Ed Wood really is that bad. It’s excruciating, inconceivable, heart-crushing), and went back to work.
We got slammed last night, too. Place was packed, by far the highest volume I’ve ever seen. Beautiful people. It’s great. They just don’t let non-beautiful, non-rich people in. Works out pretty well for us; friday night at the Morrison Bar, I almost gave this lovely Frenchwoman with whom I’d had some scintillating exchanges (in French, of course) my number--was going to write it on her receipt--but never got the chance. But last night was better. Gerard got propositioned by this rather drunken woman, who asked him to come home with her. He declined--logistically impossible--and she offered to pay his wages. No dice. Then she returned a few minutes later, pleading with him not to tell her boyfriend. As though he knew who her boyfriend was. But I one-upped even that: I just made out with a customer. She was very appealing and very insistent that I kiss her friend, who was to be married, and who gave me a chaste cheek, as a blushing bride should. Then she demanded one for herself, and this one was considerably less chaste. Walked on air for the rest of the night
Then fell apart at close. I wrangled my last guest out of ordering another fucking round of Mojitos (I hate, and I mean HATE, making Mojitos. They physically appall me. I usually end up shouting at the fucking sugar cube) and whacked her together a very solid chocolate martini (dropped some Bailey’s and Tia Maria in it. Earlier in the night, I had the chance to improvise an apple martini with real apple juice and no sour apple schnapps (Absolut, triple sec, apple juice, tiny dash of lime and tiny splash of pineapple). This resulted in my improvising about eight more. Then her friend came up and decided he needed another Mojito and I nearly came over the bar at him.
That was the last drink I served. I walked to the other end of the bar, ignoring the shouts of clients who still hadn’t had enough to drink, and clearly had no homes to go to (walking clear from one end of the bar to the other, ignoring people, is as close to a perp walk as I ever intend to come), and slumped to the ground. All of a sudden I was exhausted. Something seemed to wrench, and the lack of sleep just dropped me. The night before had done me in way, way more than I’d expected. I eventually tried to pull my shit together as we were cleaning up half an hour later, but was still working at half-capacity. Everyone was supportive, though, and more or less insisted that I sit down. Apparently I was looking like hell. I was well enough by the end, though. We got out at 5:30. When I got home (thank God it only takes me three minutes to walk home) I was too wrecked to move, but still humming too much to go to bed, so I sat up and threw together a list of standby cocktail recommendations (I’ve been caught flatfooted a few times by people who want me to make them something special, and I’m crippled by the fact that I have very different tastes from most folks). So I have everything on there from the Irish Car Bomb (which I can finally make for real) to the Red-Headed Slut to the Red Russian to the Bronx to a Surfer on Acid. More or less covering the gamut. I don’t have to work till friday, though. Thank God. I need a break.
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In other news, briefly, because I wasn’t busy enough, I’ve decided to start auditing this M.Phil class in Cyberculture and Popular Lit that my favorite professor, a loaner from Dartmouth named Brenda Silver (teaches PoMo Fo), is teaching. The reading list is great: from Simulacra and Simulations to Blade Runner and Run Lola Run.
By that time I was actually near death. The past, what, 36 hours had been pretty hairy. I worked an easy five to one on Thursday, but Friday night was the test of strength. 5pm I started in the Morrison bar. By 5:45 the place was jammers; the place was rented out for 200 people, and there were only two bartenders, myself and Gerard, the blond Australian Jewish surfer dude, with whom I work happily, but whose basic bartending chops, frankly, kinda suck. That was fun. But lately, I’ve found that high volume amps me dramatically. I get wired and don’t feel any need to slow down, going full guns until we cut off service and I collapse against the wall. It’s like dancing for me. So I somehow got it into my head that I really wanted to do the club, too. As it turned out, one of the bartenders was sick that night, so I got my insane wish: at 11:30pm, after six and a half hours of violently high-speed work, I moved down to the club and went to work immediately. I did not take a break (midway through a shift, we’re legally obliged to go on break for about a half hour. But there was no way I could do that to Gerard, leave him on his own, and once you start in the club, you don’t stop). I didn’t feel like I needed one. God, that was a mistake.
It didn’t affect me that night, though. It was perfectly fun, and at 3am, when service cuts off, I finally got to get some food and take a load off. We got out of there at 5am, after a full-blown, 12-hour marathon. It still amazes me a bit, just how fast they made me nocturnal. I came home, got in bed around 6 and slept like shit. Woke up around noon. Met Roz for coffee, catnapped for twenty minutes, watched an Ed Wood movie, Glen or Glenda, with Sadie (so bad it’s not even funny. No, really, it’s painful. You can’t laugh because your diaphragm is in the grip of the sheer horror of the filmmaking. Ed Wood really is that bad. It’s excruciating, inconceivable, heart-crushing), and went back to work.
We got slammed last night, too. Place was packed, by far the highest volume I’ve ever seen. Beautiful people. It’s great. They just don’t let non-beautiful, non-rich people in. Works out pretty well for us; friday night at the Morrison Bar, I almost gave this lovely Frenchwoman with whom I’d had some scintillating exchanges (in French, of course) my number--was going to write it on her receipt--but never got the chance. But last night was better. Gerard got propositioned by this rather drunken woman, who asked him to come home with her. He declined--logistically impossible--and she offered to pay his wages. No dice. Then she returned a few minutes later, pleading with him not to tell her boyfriend. As though he knew who her boyfriend was. But I one-upped even that: I just made out with a customer. She was very appealing and very insistent that I kiss her friend, who was to be married, and who gave me a chaste cheek, as a blushing bride should. Then she demanded one for herself, and this one was considerably less chaste. Walked on air for the rest of the night
Then fell apart at close. I wrangled my last guest out of ordering another fucking round of Mojitos (I hate, and I mean HATE, making Mojitos. They physically appall me. I usually end up shouting at the fucking sugar cube) and whacked her together a very solid chocolate martini (dropped some Bailey’s and Tia Maria in it. Earlier in the night, I had the chance to improvise an apple martini with real apple juice and no sour apple schnapps (Absolut, triple sec, apple juice, tiny dash of lime and tiny splash of pineapple). This resulted in my improvising about eight more. Then her friend came up and decided he needed another Mojito and I nearly came over the bar at him.
That was the last drink I served. I walked to the other end of the bar, ignoring the shouts of clients who still hadn’t had enough to drink, and clearly had no homes to go to (walking clear from one end of the bar to the other, ignoring people, is as close to a perp walk as I ever intend to come), and slumped to the ground. All of a sudden I was exhausted. Something seemed to wrench, and the lack of sleep just dropped me. The night before had done me in way, way more than I’d expected. I eventually tried to pull my shit together as we were cleaning up half an hour later, but was still working at half-capacity. Everyone was supportive, though, and more or less insisted that I sit down. Apparently I was looking like hell. I was well enough by the end, though. We got out at 5:30. When I got home (thank God it only takes me three minutes to walk home) I was too wrecked to move, but still humming too much to go to bed, so I sat up and threw together a list of standby cocktail recommendations (I’ve been caught flatfooted a few times by people who want me to make them something special, and I’m crippled by the fact that I have very different tastes from most folks). So I have everything on there from the Irish Car Bomb (which I can finally make for real) to the Red-Headed Slut to the Red Russian to the Bronx to a Surfer on Acid. More or less covering the gamut. I don’t have to work till friday, though. Thank God. I need a break.
<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>
In other news, briefly, because I wasn’t busy enough, I’ve decided to start auditing this M.Phil class in Cyberculture and Popular Lit that my favorite professor, a loaner from Dartmouth named Brenda Silver (teaches PoMo Fo), is teaching. The reading list is great: from Simulacra and Simulations to Blade Runner and Run Lola Run.
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