peeny wally

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October 25, 2002

I Love Living in the City

Well, things are looking up. I had a good nap yesterday. Last night Josh and I went to the Blackthorn Pub, which was a place in my old neighborhood that I was scared to go to for a long time for no good reason. My friend Cary ultimately made me go, and I was very sheepish afterward, seeing nothing inside but the stray motorcycle rider and SLU student. It’s just very dark and I swear it used to look a lot seedier. It ended up being one of my favorite bars.

When we got inside we went to the bar, ordered pizza and pitcher of local beer(Schlafly, Pale Ale, delicioso!) and a Chicago style pizza pie (I’m a big fan of the St. Louis style, but in a bar, Chicago style is way more substantial) and made our way over to a wavering booth. As we sat down, the Soft Boys’ “Queen of Eyes” came on the jukebox and I went, “Aaaahhh.” It was good to be there. We waded through two pitchers and half a pizza (which is quite a feat) and talked and talked and talked and then walked up the street to my friends’ Cary and Jason’s house and visited for a short time. Saw all the photographs that had just come down from Cary’s recent show and got reacquainted with all their four cats that are very dear to my heart (Isaac, Oscar, Gala and Goo.)

Right now it’s raining like crazy. It woke me up early. I saw a bit of the news and traffic’s been backed up for two hours on one of the major highways because of a bad accident. That’s another thing I remembered liking about living in the city — lateness is always accepted because you can shrug and mutter, “traffic,” and that will be that. The rain is nice, it’s still warm-ish outside, but I’m sad because I’ve no umbrella and now I have to wait for the weather to clear up before I can take my leisurely morning coffee walk.

The best thing that’s happened so far was yesterday when Josh and I were returning from our walk around his very pleasant neighborhood. There was an older woman in the courtyard, struggling to pick up five phone books and unlock the door. We rushed over to help her and she and Josh started talking. She abruptly turned to me and exclaimed, “I think he’s just darling!” which was a sentiment she’d repeat at least twice in our conversation. Marie’s lived in the building for twenty years and is my brother’s friend. She likes to gossip about the other tenants. Josh told me a funny story about her. This neighborhood is so close to the Hill (the fiercely Italian neighborhood very close to here) that they may as well paint all the fire hydrants red, white and green and annex it. One day as Marie and Josh were gossiping she mentioned to my brother (who also gets presumed for Italian around here) that a very nice girl had moved in next door to him, and had he met her? “She’s very cute,” she assured him. “Now, she’s not Italian, but she’s very nice…”

I like Marie. Now I’m going to have some cold, leftover pizza for breakfast.

Posted by pogo at October 25, 2002 8:35 AM