Bleeding Fiction

Last night was the going-away party for Will, one of my (now former) co-workers. It was also Adi's housewarming party. The two events took place a ten minute walk from each other, which was very convenient.

Will's party was at McSorley's, an old Irish pub on the lower east side. The place is about as authentic as you can get and has all of the charm you would expect. It was opened in 1854, the walls are covered in old maps and pictures, the floors are covered in sawdust and women weren't allowed inside until 1970. The boasts exactly one drink: beer. It's brewed on the premises and it comes in light and dark varieties and that's it. It's very good.

The waiters at McSorley's dress in grey button-down barber's shirts and are some sort of beer-serving super-men. I saw the eldest among them, a white-haired, crag-faced man, clench no fewer than eight beer glasses in each of his massive, stoney hands. Unfortunately, that feat of dexterity is pretty much all the waiters are good for, since beyond that they're a pack of assholes. The rules at the bar include: you can't stand, you can't take chairs from other tables, you can't take chairs from the back. If you aren't lucky enough to have a chair available to you, you'd best just turn invisible until the busy waiters have time to bring a chair for you. And in the meantime, pray that they don't hit you in the head with their reaching, beer-filled hands.

The Delightful Jeni Garber, sadly, lacks the ability to turn invisible. So she got yelled at more than was reasonable. Not asked politely to move, mind; actually yelled or snapped at. And I lost count of the number of people who the waiters spilled beer on.

Jeni and I left McSorley's pretty quickly to head over to Adi's, where we had to take our shoes off. to be allowed into the room. It's a nice place, a studio, but entirely too hot (Adi lacks an air-conditioner). I got to see John and Adi (of course) as well as Aaron and Jen and even Steve Miller (not Steve Miller), who I haven't seen in years and is now a doctor, occasionally working with Eugene by some strange stroke of serendipity. We had a few drinks, lamented that some of our friends were missing, talked about this and that, ate some very, very spicy (and quite good) Indian food and had several toasts.

We toasted because Aaron and Jen are now engaged. Woo hoo! Yay!

This means that something like 70% of my friends are now either married or engaged. More, it means that every one of my friends who is in a relationship (that I know of) is in a serious, long-haul, ring-bearing type of relationships. Wild!