That makes more sense

Last night at The Club was fun.

Apparently, Blondie is no longer my partner. I’m with a new girl every time now. Last night, I was working with Mary, a barmaid I find incredibly pretty. She looks classy and elegant, though she really isn’t! She has fake boobs, which I hate, but hers are still human sized.

I played my usual nice but indifferent attitude. We’ll see where this goes, but so far, The Club has never proven a source of disappointment in that matter..

A girl I really like came to the club tonight. I’m not even sure she knew I was working there, she looked as surprised as I was. She works with me at my teaching job, she’s a beautiful medical student, smart, funny, flirty, witty. Her name is Claire. I always engage in flirting at work, but I still keep my distances. I’d probably fall in love with a girl like that.

Next Friday is our end of the school year party and we’re all supposed to go to The Club. We’ll see how things are in a non-working environment.

I was at The Drinkery with her good friend Julie just earlier this week. Julie is a friend of Chuck, Brad’s brother, and she was there with him. She was worried she wouldn’t know anyone at the party.

Julie: I don’t have any friends there. You have plenty of friends.
Me: actually, you have Claire, I only have Brad (he’s actually our boss at this job)
Julie: But you always talk to people
Me: yes, but we don’t exactly hang out on week-ends, are you really that antisocial?
Julie:…
Me: Don’t worry. I promise I’ll be your best friend there for the whole night, it’ll be great.
Julie: Watch me follow you around everywhere.
Me: Is that a promise?

Ok that was slick, but that’s not exactly keeping my distances. I made friends with Julie, Claire’s best friend. And I framed the situation so that I’ll actually be making Julie a favor, by hanging out with them all night. Bad me.

So yeah, it was a little funny to see Claire in that environment. She’s used to seeing me with kids and there I was, flipping bottle next to a model with fake tits.

Funny anecdote: At one point in the night, one of the managers comes and gives me one of those little plastic tubes, in which they sell individually wrapped flavored cigarillos. It’s unsealed. “Here, a customer gave me this”.

Because that’s what I normally use these things for, I assume it’s a joint. Yé!

I’m in the office with another manager and Mary, counting my cash at the end of the night, when I decide to check that thing out.

I open it and in my hand falls a tiny bit of chalk, the exact size of the bits teachers used to throw at me when I was a kid. I’m thinking, now why would someone give me a piece of chalk. I touch it and it collapses.

Oh… it’s cocaine. That makes more sense.


I have NO IDEA how much that is, how much it’s worth or anything about it. I hate coke, I despise it and I don’t touch that shit.

Being me, I still kept it. It’s tucked away, somewhere safe. Just in case someone comes over and wants to do some blow, a good host would never refuse that.

Does your boss hand you over cocaïne, just like that, thinking he'll make you happy? My life is weird.

Could have been worst

I haven't written much this week. I got a new phone, the HTC Magic and all of my "online" time has pretty much been spent on setting up the phone (enter all 150 contact numbers, set up email accounts, download programs, setup rss reader...).

It's pretty much an iphone except it's better cause it's no iphone. I fucking hate macs. The only real difference, is that if I go to your place and you got a song I like on your computer, I can just put in it in and listen to it right away. My phone is not locked up with my itunes at home (which is good, cause I don't have iTunes and certainly don't want it). I know there are ways around this, but that's what I hate about macs and ipods in particular, they're specifically engineered to be less convenient than they could be.

I guess I have to find new music to listen to now. Some old Joni Mitchell or Cohen that I know by heart is just fine as background music when I invite a girl over, but blasted at full volume while I'm in the subway or on my bike... meh.

Speaking of bike, I finally got around to go get my bike. Last Saturday, I took my bicycle to go work at The Club. It's pretty much downhill all the way which makes this idea even more stupid. Like there was ANY way I'd get on that bike at 5 in the morning, tired and still a little drunk. The bicycle stayed right where it was and I shared a cab with Blondie.

It was cold and rainy all week, so I never got a change to get my bike back. It's like there was a curse. Thursday night, I went out with Scarlett in this trashy gay club, in the village. They had completely redone the place and they had invited us to check it out. I was supposed to take my bike to get home, but it started raining HARD just as we got out the club.

Anyhow, so I finally got around to retrieve my bike. And I had my first face plant. It could have been worst, WAY worst. It was at low speed, I was manoeuvring through immobilized cars in traffic and I made a turn a little too sharp and pulled on the front brake a little too hard. I flew right over the handle bars.

My left wrist is sore and so is my right knee, but besides that I'm ok. I completely fucked up my rear shifter though. It was bent across the wheel, I had to bend it back using my hands, so that I could still ride it to the bike shop. Some nice woman with a kid in a stroller offered me a wet wipe she had in a Ziploc bag to get all the grease off my hands.

I doubt they'll be able to save that shifter, but when I think of my friend who just had a rear taxi door flung open on his path and who broke a finger, I think I'm pretty lucky.

--

Oh and there's this nice little video I took in the park the other day with my newfound camera that I want to post here. But I need to edit it a bit (mainly cut the beginning off) and I need to get familiar with adobe premiere.

A cheap and fun night

Tonight, I went to dinner with Brad at this restaurant in Yuppie Town. This part of town is quite literally a suburb but for yuppies.

It’s only condos and townhouses, it’s located near downtown, but it’s a suburb in the sense that there was nothing there 25 years ago. It’s not a part of town that grew organically, it’s just a huge upscale development project with a grocery store and a few restaurants. And it’s completely secluded; one road to get it, one road to get out.

That’s where Brad actually grew up. His family moved there like 12 years ago, when Yuppie town was barely blossoming.

And that restaurant was on his way home. I might have passed in front of it a thousand times and it never occurred to me to go there. It always looked pretty sketchy. There were hardly ever more than 5 or 6 cars in the parking lot, but they were always S class Mercedes or Bentleys or Porshes.

But tonight, I actually had to go.

Turns out, my boss at The Club also owns this restaurant.

I have many bosses at The Club. A 3-story, multimillion dollar club in the trendy part of town is never owned by only one person. Now I’ve never looked at the shareholder’s chart, but I’m pretty sure that Mohamed, a 45 years old bonafide gangster, owns the bulk of it all. By all, I mean the 3 different multimillion dollar clubs. Oh, and a stripclub also.

So Mohamed owns this restaurant. It totally makes sense. I had actually heard of the legendary Mohamed who owns this place, when I was working in another restaurant nearby. I heard he once literally threw out bitchy customers (and they’re legions in Yuppie Town), cause they were condescending with their waiters.

Yeah so tonight, I had to come here.

I don’t know exactly what’s the point behind those nights, but once in a while, the staff at The Club have to go out altogether to some restaurant. It’s normally a restaurant owned by the friends of our bosses or owned by our bosses like tonight. And it’s always free.

The dinner is always free and the wine is always something like “wine store price + 5$” (normally, the markup here on wine at the restaurant is around 250%... sometimes more).

I guess the whole point is to launder money… and it might win you a few new customers as a bonus.

So Brad came with me, cause I also had to bring someone. I wasn’t sure he’d be up for it.

Now I know that for some of you, a paid dinner at a somewhat upscale restaurant is not such a burden. Especially when you’ll be spending the night with amazingly hot barmaids.

But these hot barmaids, as pretty and attractive as they might be, they come from and live in a totally different universe than Brad and I.

Every Saturday, at The Club, I meddle with these utmost superficial people with whom I don’t have anything in common, the beautiful people, and I get paid awesome money to do so. But I don’t know if my friends are into such a sociological experience.

And don’t get me wrong, I say they’re superficial, but most girls I work with at the club are great persons, considerate and thoughtful, most guys are fun and trustworthy, I love them all. I don’t want to sound like some elitist fuck who despises the people he surrounds himself with. I enjoy these guys’ company, I’m just not sure my friends would.

But then again, if there’s one guy who I know I can bring ANYWHERE and not only will he fit in, but he’ll also make a great impression on everyone, it’s Brad. From a fortune 500 CEO benefit dinner to an ice fishing week-end with a bunch of truckers.

This restaurant is known to have the most beautiful patio in town, with gardens and waterfalls. But it was raining, so we sat inside.

Brad actually enjoyed himself, and so did I.

Not only was the dinner free, but another one of my boss sitting with us ordered like 4 bottles of a very decent Italian wine, the Carpineto Farnito. Brad and I ended up ordering a bottle of my all time favourite wine, the Zenato ripassa.

The celery root and pear soup was simply amazing. The braised veal cheeks sucked ass. I didn’t really mind though. Every time I go to the restaurant, I’m hardly hungry when the main course arrive. After a few drinks and an appetizer, I’m good.. I can’t remember the last time I finished a plate at the restaurant.

The guestlist girl was totally over Brad. She’s not insanely pretty, but she has the body and the sex appeal of a porn star. I would have given her 21 or 22. She’s 18. Which means that not so long ago, she was 17 and didn’t look much different. That’s unsettling

With the staff from our other bosses club, we were around 40, occupying most of the restaurant. Beside us, there was a couple in their sixties. The man constantly looked around. He seemed pretty amazed by the fact that all the girls in the room were at the very least beautiful, but mostly top model material.

After dinner, Brad drove me home and came up for a joint.

A fun and cheap night!

Didn't happen

So that party?

Yeah I didn’t go.

When I left to go teach at 3, I knew I pretty much had no chance of getting in. The tickets didn’t sell in one after noon, they sold in 14 minutes. And the girl in charge of the media guestlist? Yeah… same as last year.

Meh, whatever. I figured, I’d stop by The Drinkery on my way home.

Just before I’m done, I receive a text message from Cynthia: Come have dinner with me at The Drinkery.

How perfect!

Cynthia is among my very best, best friends. She works in the office at The Drinkery, doing all the accounting. Now she’s actually a shareholder of the restaurant, but when I used to work there, she was just an employee as well.

Back when Cynthia was single, she would always party like there were no tomorrow. I can’t even remember the number of times we got ourselves completely wasted at the best restaurants and most exclusive clubs in town. She had the same spending problems as me and fancied the same things: cocktails and nice restaurants. We hit it off right away.

A year and a half ago, she met her boyfriend, a really great guy, perfect for her. So she left the circuit and disappeared quite abruptly. I was not on the circuit anymore myself at that time, mind you.

But now I’m back, and she’s not. And it’s just ok like that. Cynthia really wanted to find her guy, the one, the father of her kids. And she did, so I’m way happy for her, even though I hardly see her anymore.

But Cynthia is this kind of friend that I know will always be there in my life, no matter how much I actually see her.

All this to say that I was more than happy to join her at The Drinkery.

The last time we had dinner there, we stayed until closing time and I took a girl home, a girl I had just met an hour earlier at the bar. She left in the middle of the night in a hurry, I think cause the spell broke and she just snapped: what the hell am I doing here with a guy at least 5 years younger than me who I don’t know at all. I say I think cause I was way drunk and don’t remember a thing.

I know it’s not something I've done. First, I stay pretty much the same no matter how drunk I get. Sure I’ll be a drunk version of myself, but I’ll never be out of place, I’ll never do things I wouldn’t do if I weren’t drunk. And if I do reach such a stage, it means that I’m about to fall into an ethylic coma. Just give me one more shot and you won’t hear anymore from me.

But yeah, the next morning, when I woke up, I had NO IDEA what the girl looked like. Nothing, zip, not even a blur. I know she was cute, I don’t hit on non cute girls, but I still had to make sure. I called my two friends who were working the bar the night before. They confirmed that she was cute, also confirmed my impression that she was a bit older than me.

I saw her again. It made for an interesting date: So hello girl, basically you must assume that I know strictly nothing about you, no matter what you told me last night. Let’s start off by you telling me what you know about me. She was actually much prettier than I expected, she looked like a good girl, an intelligent girl, the kind of girl you’re proud to introduce to your parents. She certainly doesn’t strike you as the kind of girl who’d go home with a guy she’s known for a full hour. That either says a lot about appearances or about my abilities. You pick.

Tonight, sitting at a table behind us was an amazingly beautiful girl. I mean, truly beautiful. She was sitting with 4 other girls, they all look about 30 and they all look pretty.

The guy who was there with Cynthia and me last time and who had a great deal of responsibility in my drunkness, and the amnesia that followed, was supposed to be here on a date with a girl. We hadn’t seen him yet.

At one point in the night, I turn around and look at the table of girls.

“Cynthia… is it me, or Frank is actually sitting at the table of hot girls?”

We go say high to Frank. Turns out his date evolved in a dinner with friends. Cynthia knows one of the girls, I realize I know one of them too. She was sitting facing back, so I didn’t recognize her at first. She used to come with her sister all the time, back when I was working here.

At this point, I had spoken or introduced myself to everyone at the table, except the beautiful girl. I purposely ignore her.

She points at me and says : you..!

I point back at her and say : you!

She says: Don’t I know you from somewhere?.

I say: Well I’m the lead singer of Green Day, so that’s probably why ( I do look like this guy, a lot!).

She laughs.

And then I say, while looking her straight in the eyes, with a little mischievous smile and deep confidence: No. If we had met, I’d remember

At the same time, the waiter comes with their plates. “Bon apetit.” And I go back to the bar with Cynthia.

After we’re all finished eating, we return to their table to have a few shots. The pretty girl immediately starts to talk to me, obviously wanting my attention. Turns out she’s been an entertainment lawyer in LA for 6 years and she came back in town to celebrate her 30th birthday with old friends.

It was cute, after those 6 years in LA, she now had an English accent when she spoke.

We chatted a bit, but it was one of these times where you just can’t beat logistics. She was sleeping at her friend’s house and they had to wake up at 5 am to be somewhere.

Good night and have a nice life.

If I ever go to LA… well no. There’s already another girl I’d go see if I was in LA, but that’s a story for another time.

Aperitif

There’s this party tonight where I really want to go. It’s the French Aperitif, it happens in over 20 cities around the world. Basically, it’s just a big marketing event to promote French products, mainly food and liquors. It’s a 60$ ticket open bar party where all the people from the restaurant and bar industry go to every year, my people.

Two years ago, I wrote a column about the party for The Journal.

Last year, I called the organizers to be on the guestlist. They said that due to limited places they could only accept journalists. I was asking for two places on the guestlist, since Harry had come home that very day from his year in Europe. So I told them that yes, it would be two journalists, and I gave her the name of a colleague from The Journal.

At the door, the girl with the guestlist appeared suspicious when Harry introduced himself as my colleague. They let us in, but the girl ran up to me and told me: I’m sorry, but [colleague’s name], I know him. I don’t like being lied to.

That kind of ruined my mood for the night.

This year, I still don’t have tickets (they normally get sold out in one after-noon). And I don’t want to call the person responsible of the media, just in case it’s the girl from last year.

I called my buddies who do the bar for the event, they’ll se what they can do.

I also emailed my uncle. He’s there every year, the party is organized by one of his best friend. The first year I went, I knew he’d be there, but he didn’t know I would. It was funny to see the shock on his face, when he saw me walk through the crowd. Later in the night, he introduced me to everyone he knew, sometimes twice, but at first, he was a little paralyzed by what probably made him feel 20 years older, just like that.

Oh. My uncle emailed back.

“24 hours, I would have said yes, but not today.… I think you can find some at the door.”


Yeah, but at what price? I want to invite Blondie. She’s the perfect date for such a night: incredibly hot and we’re just friends. But I can’t tell her to meet me there, all dressed up, in the hope that I can find tickets at the door. And two tickets, from a scalper at the door? That’ll set me back a good 200$.

I hope the boys will be able to come through on this one.

Maybe Scarlett, with her infinite address book, will be able to help. If she’s there, I can go alone with her. She’s probably an even better wingman than Blondie could ever be.

And it’s almost 3pm now and I don’t know if Blondie even wants to come.

The greatest ally

One of my greatest ally in terms of meeting women, the greatest wing man of all time is patience and also maybe a little faith in destiny.

Sure, sometimes, when the stars align, when everything falls into place, you can spend the night with a girl you just met.

But that’s the exception more than the rule. Most times, you just have to wait.

That’s how it happened with my good friend who’s halfway around the world saving orphans, literally. Had I tried to pull a move on the first night we met, I would have never seen her tattoo. But I flirted, waited and trusted my good friend, the destiny. And one night, the night she came alone at the bar, without her friends, when she knew me enough to be completely comfortable with me, I was there.

That night, over three years ago I joined her near the DJ when things had settled down enough for my partner to finish the night alone at the bar. I was just being my usual flirty self and at one point, she tells me: Wow, you’re really doing everything so that I can’t resist you tonight!

All this brings us to last fall, when I started school. There was this girl which I immediately noticed. I’m pretty sure half the students on campus noticed her, girls included. She would always wear mini skirts or short shorts. She let us enjoy the sight of her legs late into fall, even when the temperature was plummeting.

On the first few days, I managed to meet her, but kept my usual indifference. Her name is Julia.After a while, things started to be a little more flirty between us, but always light and playful. Then Christmas came.

During the winter semester, we had no classes together and barely even ran into each other in the hallways.

Just like that, two weeks before the end of the semester, I sent her a facebook email.

Title: It’s the time of spring and mini skirts
What’s up cutie
As soon as we’re done with this bitch of a semester what do you say we go have a real mohito at The Drinkery to celebrate spring?

She answered
Mini skirts eh? ; p
For a mohito, anytime




Then, when the semester was over, I dropped her another facebook email.

So, this mohito, when does it happen?

She never answered that one.

Now most guys would have been a little hurt by this, a few would have even confronted her with her this silence, probably trying to make her feel bad in the process, thus ruining their chances of ever seeing her again, her or any of her girlfriends for that matter.

Me? I really don’t care. You come, we have fun. You don’t come, I’ll figure out a way to have fun anyways. And I’ll still be as nice and flirty the next time I’ll se you, no hard feelings whatsoever.

Tonight, just before I went to bed, I checked my facebook page. One new email. It’s her.
She replied to my message, like I just sent it yesterday, and not 20 days ago.

“As soon as possible. I’m now completely addicted to mohitos. I’ll be in the area tomorrow night after work. You avaaaaaaaaaaaailable? Here’s my cell number…”.

I actually have my stupid exam tomorrow, from 6:30 to 9 pm, the one I missed a few weeks ago. Maybe 9 will not be too late for her. I don’t know what after work means. If she’s still a waitress, 9 might actually be a little too early.

But whatever happens tomorrow, I now have her cell number. And she gave it to me. Now I can send her a text message, once in a while, to suggest something fun, with the same “be there or be square” subtext.

Oh did I mention she won’t turn 20 until the end of the year? I know what I said, but that plan was set in motion almost a year ago, way before that resolution was ever taken.