Compass & Quill

Tonight was my first night out on the town in months, and the first time in a very, very long time that I went to a different neighborhood to drink without The Man. That sounds worse than it is, probably. I’m just a home body. I don’t have a ton of friends, I’m not really interested in going out, and when I do get the urge, it’s hard to get the friends mobilized to go out when and where I want to go. So I spend a lot of my “going out” time staying in, and the rest of it going to places that I would never naturally choose to go. Tonight was the first night in forever that I called all the shots and got to do what I wanted.

Granted, I did have three coworkers along, so I was making concessions (like making the rounds to every gay bar in town to check out the scene) along the way, but in all it was basically my night. My main idea tonight was to hit up The Maison, a bar on Frenchmen Street that normally has live music. Tonight’s band was a 60’s & 70’s cover band called The Essentials, featuring a multi-piece band of horns, guitars, drums, vocalists, keyboard, and go go dancers. The trombone player is a long-ago ex of mine, and I have wanted to see them play for a long time now. I went to see them when they first started playing about a year and a half ago, and danced & sang myself crazy. Tonight was a repeat. Loved to hear them do their thing.

While I was waiting for a second round of drinks at the bar, this devilishly funny guy walks up and says “Don’t look to your left, he’s going to smile at you and he doesn’t have a tooth in his head!” I started laughing and we struck up a conversation; it turned out that he was just back from a 3 month stint in Barcelona. He was delightfully snarky, and I was 99% sure that he was gay, so I was even more flattered when he bought me a shot of vodka and pineapple. I so seldom get hit on anymore by anyone, including The Man, and it was very uplifting to have some random man hit on me just for a lark. I looked for him after the concert but couldn’t find him; wish I had his info to hang out – he seemed very intriguing.

After seeing the band, my friend Gary and I went to get late night eats at 13, another bar on Frenchmen St., then I caught a cab home. Now it’s after 3am, and it’s past time for me to crash. I believe I’ll stay in bed all day tomorrow – how about that?