patio

In my head I could hear Weezer singing, "you take your car to work, I'll take my board, and when you're out of fuel, I'm still afloat," because that song sounds like a metaphor for a bender: which is where I was headed Friday night.

I glided down into the East Village to my friend Asit's apartment. Three years I've known him: good guy. Always have fun. Recently broke up with his girlfriend, so now we go on double-duty patrol for hook-ups. The other benefit of the recent break-up is that I can stay at his apartment. There is no threat of things occurring between us.

Asit always photographs us before we go out looking for action.

For some reason my face looks plastic, but I love any town where Dickies and a buttondown are sexy.

First stop: Sky Bar. Fourteenth floor with glass ceiling to view the Empire State Building. Took a taxi uptown for this place, to meet some guys (Asit is 28 so many of his friends are yuppie professionals, but despite Asit's equally yuppie disposition, he lives in the most rock-star neighborhood I've ever seen).

Enter Ryan:

Those pants were a red flag.

"You're very white; aren't people from the south tan?" First thing Ryan says to me.

Proceeding that I was patronized by a pill-popping software-salesman with tapered-leg jeans while I sipped my tequila sunrise. He told me my drink was sort of early nineties.

I slapped my forehead and shouted, "GODDAMMIT I'M OUT OF STYLE!!!"

Slid off the barstool. Found Asit. Lied about having to "get my bag from his place." Ryan said he'd call when the party went dancing.

Asit turned off his phone.

Back to the East Village, belly-up to the bar at Patio, and Michael the bartender and Vanessa the waitress welcomed us as frequent patrons. He remembered our drink. He remembered my job.

So Asit and I found our night: he's in love with Vanessa and I decided that I could make a go at it with Michael.

So begins it.

We drink there until it closes. Mike is pouring us free drinks. Shots. Tequila. Bourbon.

Mike's the kind of guy who looked at me with new eyes when he inspected my tight pack-job on my cigarettes.

Mike is also smart, intuitive, and scarred: bartender.

He takes on the subject of my dating status, and decides I would be a perfect intellectual match with Niko, a fellow server at Patio, and Mike declares if he were ordained he'd marry us on the spot. Not my type, but ole Niko is a dramatic, intellectual dude, and he made for some pleasant conversation in our small circle (the four of us were the only ones in the place). Niko poses well:

But I like Michael's body. The way he moves. Methodical. Paced and sensual even. Viens on his bicept, barely showing beneath his t-shirt, forming hardened ridges when he lifted ice or popped off a bottle cap. Hand towel looped on his backside making both shoulders broad and open when he puts both his hands around to dry. Multi-tasked: only unique men can do more than one thing at once, and this is why I love bartenders.

"This margarita is so much better than the ass-juice we had uptown!" Mike hears me acclaim him above the Sky Bar. Someone asked him his speciality, and he grabbed his barely-there butt, and said "fresh-squeezed ass-juice," and gave me a wink. He's tuned into me, and I dig that.

He told me I am photogenic. I think we both look worse in the photo than in real life, and Asit says were a good-looking couple:

I prefer this candid shot, even though I'm talking in it, but Michael reveals his appeal here:

Then I broke the spell.

I smoothy slur that my name is a derivative of Michael.

"Where you supposed to be a boy?"

Eight years of waitressing and hearing patriarchal sonsofbitches make this "joke" and never being able to level them came rushing back. I lifted the remainder of my bourbon, with no intention of executing my threat, until I noticed him open his mouth and look at me like, "bring it; I fuckin dare you."

I threw my drink on him.

Asit was frenetic thinking we were soon to be kicked out, I had whiskey in my eyes from where Mike had deflected *some* of the incoming, and Niko swooped down with napkins to carressingly dry my eyes. I excused myself to the bathroom to puke and Asit said later that Michael's response was that I really pushed his buttons.

I should have just told him that illegitimate children weren't supposed to be anything.

The next morning was rough, just look at the photos here. I was in poor condition. I was hungry, too.

For brunch we went to Essex Lounge.

For $12 you get a gourmet breakfast and BOTTOMLESS mimosas, screwdrivers, bloodymary's, and coffee.

It gets no better than that! My hangover dissappeared. I had eggs benedict:

It's run by a bunch of homosexuals, which explains why my eggs were served over house-cured salmon gravlax.

After brunch I met up with my new "girl friends" and tooled around Central Park. Snow. Ice skaters. Window displays. Christmas lights. Piped music. Warm cafes. Went back to Brooklyn with them and watched "It's a Wonderful Life."

Back to Patio.

I apologized, and told Michael he just triggered something primal in me, and he liked that. He declined my apology. Kissed my hand. Asit suggested he toss a drink my way, and Michael leaned in on me, real close, and said, "I've got something else in mind for your face; something a little more up your alley."

I just stared at him like an idiot after that one and it occurred to me that maybe he and I could be really good friends one day.

The night ended without the torential, turbulent, alcoholic rip-tide through my gut that Friday night delivered. I woke up Sunday morning without hating myself.

Next weekend is Broadway.