Misguided Angel

I had a very good weekend. I went out Friday night with Pamela to an art showing. The artist was a friend of hers named Slaw. I really liked his stuff, particularly his newest piece which was of the Rat Pack sitting at a round booth table. I'm waiting for him to transfer that to print form, as the $1200 price tag was a bit out of my range.

After some general schmoozing and drinking of martinis (not me, as it is still Lent, I was good and had water *sigh*), we went off for some dinner at Pancho Villa's, one of Dearborn's newer Mexican restaurants. YUMMY!!! Really no reason to go down to Mexican town with Pancho Villa's within walking distance of my place. After dinner, we went to Crave which is the sushi place readers might remember played the super loud music one Sunday night that had me calling the cops at midnight. It's pretty sweet inside, but I didn't get a chance to check out the menu. I had a very lovely hot chocolate (as it was friggin' snowing on Friday night and I was cold and cranky) while Pamela and her friend both had Spanish coffees. I had a sip and have to say that I might have to indulge in one some day (decaf, of course).

It was a nice low-key night and was home and in bed by 11:00 p.m. Hey, I'm old, and I knew I was going to be out very late the next night. And boy, was it worth it. Saturday night was a reunion party at my old bar. Old bar has a new name, but the owner is savvy enough to know that its heyday was in the past under the old name and he advertised the Reunion Party for a good month or more in the Metro Times and elsewhere. One friend who used to bartend there drove 600 miles from Iowa for the party. He explained it by saying, "I know I'm not going to any high school reunion and this is as close to a reunion that I would want to attend as I'm going to get."

It's hard to describe the feeling I get when I see my bar friends. A good number of them became friends whom I still see to this day, while others I only see when I'm there, but like the bartender, these are people I want to see, unlike high school where I see one person and she is all I really care about from there. To show the difference, when I went to my 20 year high school reunion a few years back I was dreading it. I felt I had to go, just to see if anybody had changed or if they were still pretentious assholes. And for the most part, they were still pretentious assholes. Some were cool, but for the most part, I won't go out of my way to see them again. I would go out of my way to see any number of people from the bar. It's not exactly unconditional love, but it's something similar.

It was very cool to see some of the old regulars. Mark, the ultra goth, was there. I hadn't seen him since I ran into him at the Flower Mart Spectacular down at Eastern Market at least five years ago. He's a little different, but super nice and it was great to see him. I couldn't tell if he was with the same girl, but she was skinny like all his other ones, if it wasn't. Anthony of the long crazy hair was there, of course. Anthony is great because he loves to swing his long hair around while dancing near wienies. When the bachelorette party showed up with the requisite bridal veil *gag* and took up residence on the stage right behind me, I got Anthony to come up and make some room for me. God, I hate wienies on my dance floor. No, you don't need to dance with your purse on the damn floor in your fucking stupid ass circle as five of you take up enough room for 10 people. And anybody who thinks that they're going to get me to relinquish my spot on the stage by continually bumping me is delusional. I was quite thankful when the bachelorette party moved on to the next bar on their list. Robert Smith Dan didn't show up until very late in the evening (midnight?) and he kept telling me how I haven't changed at all. He's sweet, but needs his eyes checked. Of course, the black lights and all the bloody smoke from the machine and the cigarettes are helpful for the hiding of lines and wrinkles. ;-)

I ended up dancing from 9:15 until 1:00 a.m. and it was completely worth the pain of the following two days. I haven't been dancing in so long that I danced to songs I had never heard before, just because I was there to dance. Sure, it was great seeing everybody, but they all knew to find me on the stage. That's where I was ten plus years ago and that's where I was on Saturday. I've tried dancing on the dance floor, but it just doesn't feel right after all those years on the stage. I realise that makes me sound like some sort of exhibitionist, but the stage is about four inches higher than the floor. There is no pole or cages or anything like that. The floor is surrounded by this tall metal railing on which to set drinks (Mark the ultra goth made them, and they are very cool), but they make me feel claustrophobic or something. I just don't like dancing on the floor.

Back in its (and my) heyday, I would be there four nights a week dancing. I rarely drank to excess as I usually drove myself, except for the time period when I'd go with friends D&C and we would take turns driving. That was always hilarious because whoever was driving was obviously sober, but the other two would usually be silly drunk. I can't say how many times I almost drove off the road crying from laughing too much. D is a very funny guy. Those were fun times. It's funny, though, that if you tell people you went to the bar four times a week they all think you're a drunkard when I would have one beer and that was it. I was most definitely there to dance.

Wednesdays were my favorite days because it was DEAD!!! Tuesdays were ridiculously busy (we won't discuss fire code or anything like that) which essentially led to Wednesdays not being very popular. But I loved them, because I had the dance floor to myself. The DJ wouldn't necessarily play everything I wanted (Atmosphere by Joy Division NEVER got played – pisser), but he knew what I liked and what I would dance to. One Wednesday I was getting ready to go home (I had to work at 8:00 a.m.) and DJ said to me, "Don't go, I'm playing the next song for you." I sighed heavily and said Okay. The next song was "Come on, Eileen." I was confused as although I liked the song, it's not one I ever have requested and would definitely not consider it a favorite or anything, but I felt that I had to dance to it, since he said he was playing it just for me. After "Come on, Eileen" he played a song I truly did love and I ended up staying another hour or so. When I finally went to leave, he told me that he hadn't chosen that song for me at all, he just said that to get me to stay. I recounted the story to him the night of the Sisters of Mercy concert and he laughed at his cleverness.

I miss those days of dancing and hanging with friends. I have so many good memories of that place and so many good friends, too. I can't wait for the next reunion!