project patio meet-up no. 2

Here's what you should know if you go to The World Famous Poplar Lounge (their words, not mine). No matter what you were going to order, whether it be a beverage or an entree or a side item, you just need to put it out of your mind. Because they don't have it.

The beer you wanted? They don't have that. The cheese on your burger? Not that, either. And also, they do not have liquor, which I discovered when I tried to order a vodka and soda. The waitress, very apologetic, offered me a coupon that I could use across the street at MidTown Wines and Liquors. A coupon that I could use to buy vodka and bring it back to the Poplar Lounge. Since I couldn't think of why I was even AT the Poplar Lounge in the first place except to drink, I decided that leaving to purchase alcohol might tempt me too much to just never come back. So I ordered a beer.

But hey, a coupon! Can't hate on you for trying to look out for my fiscal well-being.


The patio is an interesting place, with about 27 different kinds of furniture, five kinds of Christmas lights and at least one barbeque smoker that left us wondering if one could throw one's own BYOM (bring your own meat) soiree right here at the Poplar Lounge. There was a TV, but it only showed one channel, and that channel had the Cubs game on. People drifted in and out, most of them either employees or regulars, all of them giving us a breed of the stink eye that rivaled even the stink eye you get at The Buccaneer. And that is a SERIOUS stink eye.

The basic message was that we did not belong there, but I don't imagine that any of us would've argued the point.



In the name of tradition, here goes:
What I Loved: According to Andrea and Mike, who both ordered food, it was DEE-lish. I hypothesized that this was because it is easier to make tasty food when only one person orders at a time.

Why You Should Get Drunk There: Because if you're drunk, you might forget you're at the Poplar Lounge. Or you might get hungry, and order some of that tasty food.


cheers,
elizabeth

safety in numbers

If you're reading this, you're invited to join me for a beverage at The World Famous Poplar Lounge (their words, not mine) tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. for Project: Patio Meet-Up No. 2. If you're thinking, "Hmm, that place looks just a little sketchy," just rest assured that I was thinking it too, but there is safety in numbers!

See y'all tomorrow!

cheers,
elizabeth

questionable decision story time

I was about to tell you that I'm going to start a new special feature on the blog called 'Questionable Decision Story Time.' But then it occurred to me that basically this 'special feature' would actually encompass every post on the entire blog, with maybe a handful of exceptions. Maybe. So instead, I'm just adding QDST to the ever-growing list of acronyms that I'm going to expect you to commit to memory for any and all future mentions. At some point I may need to create a reference guide.

Anywho. Guess what guys? It's QDST!

(When I read that, I totally hear a little theme song. Can you hear it? Hey kids, gather round! It's Questionable-Decision-STO-REE-TIIIME!)

I think that mostly I should know better than to leave my house after 10 p.m. on a weeknight, because I feel certain that those excursions can never end innocently. The laws of the universe simply do not allow for it. And I need to draw the distinction here between staying out past 10 p.m. and going out after 10 p.m. Because they're two totally different things. Because when it's 9:20 in the p.m. and I just woke up from a nap and I'm taking a shower and doing my hair and putting on shoes with HEELS, I have CLEARLY developed the delusion that I am still in college, or at least at a time in my life when alcohol before bed brought me deep, restful, brick-like sleep full of dreams about cheeseburgers, instead of turning me into a peri-menopausal sleep apnea patient for six hours of shallow breathing and hot flashes.

I digress.

I think the point of all that may have been that I was leaving the house, and that it was after 10 p.m. So let's pick back up there.

I drove over to Mr. November's apartment -- a new Midtown resident, or at least new in the time since we stopped dating -- and assisted him in changing a few light bulbs. The irony of that only really strikes me now, as I'm writing this, and I'd like to imagine that if some true literary work were ever written about my life, one of those big dense books filled with metaphors to be painstakingly analyzed by classrooms full of high school English students, that the changing of a light bulb would, in fact, be a key symbol that the students would be expected to interpret. (In case you're not following, both Mr. Barely Legal and Mr. Risky Business won favor by changing my light bulbs. Methinks the lady's standards are TOO LOW.)

Of course, my biographical literary masterpiece would probably be banned by the PTA, and later burned and bulldozed in the school parking lot for lewd and lascivious content. So probably nothing to worry about there.

Yes, right. Getting on with it. Promise.

So after the light bulb changing, we head down to the HiTone and settle in for two opening bands that can best be described as "Eh." Mostly we were catching up, anyway, which meant yelling at each other over the "Eh," except for those moments between "Eh" when there's no sound and you're still yelling.

It was good conversation. Mostly we talked about what we'd been up to since we stopped seeing each other, and mostly that involved recapping the people we'd been seeing since we stopped seeing each other. And at some point we diverted to the series of events that necessitated the stoppage of our seeing each other. And the thing about talking over music is that you've got to get really close to each other, and inevitably someone is all close to someone else's ear, and your face is all close to someone else's face, and maybe someone's hand touches someone's arm or back, and then you're closer and closer and closer, and finally I said, "Are you trying to kiss me?" And he said no, no he was not. But then we, um, did.

And y'all, he and I were never perfect for each other, but apparently this girl he dated after me just REALLY was not even on the same planet. And I think hanging out with me was a breath of fresh air. I think this mostly because he actually did say it, in not exactly those terms, but definitely more than once and with increasing levels of enthusiasm throughout the evening.

Some time around midnight, Star & Micey came on. They were playing a bunch of new stuff and the set was fabulous, and naturally I'm singing along. And he compliments me. And compliment really isn't quite a strong enough word for the effusive praise that was being showered upon my vocal cords. And though I have been known to sing a song or two, at this moment it felt particularly ridiculous because I am well aware of what drinking does to my ability to hear pitch AND I know that I've spent the last three hours screaming over rock music and I wouldn't be surprised if I sound like something between Pheobe Bouffay singing "Smelly Cat" and Cameron Diaz in My Best Friend's Wedding.

And then, after a disturbingly short set, Star & Micey were done. So we chatted with them for a minute, and then we left. And then we were at his apartment. And I was trying to be super good. Angelic good. I was looking up Star & Micey songs online to play for him. And really I was very, very good, super good, all the way up until we started kissing again. But hey -- Questionable Decision Story Time simply would not be complete without a questionable decision, now would it?

The thing is, I'm not looking to date anyone. Not for a good long time. Being single has done fabulous things for my mood, the bounce in my step, the size of my very pores. It's been amazing. I'm in no hurry to be attached to anyone again, and truthfully even if I were, realistically, it wouldn't be Mr. November. It's not that he's not completely fun to be around. (I think I may have mentioned that?) I really enjoy his company, but he's not husband material. And incidentally, I am totally okay with that, and more than okay with the idea of a casual fling. And hoping that he's on the same page.

I mean, the fling part? I think it's safe to say that is an idea he would get behind quite squarely. The casual part, though? We shall see.


cheers,
elizabeth

the continuing episodes of my cautionary tale

You know what's fun? Setting myself up to potentially do idiotic things. Well, fun for you, at least.

And hey, depending on which idiotic thing it is this time around, fun for me too!

Remember how I recently ran into Mr. November? And remember how we both said, "Oh, we should hang out sometime soon!" Remember?

Do you also remember how my phone has buzzed the buzz of a received text message at least four times in the middle of the night since that chance meeting, and that all of those buzzes have been courtesy of Mr. November, and that those middle-of-the-night buzzes, while arguably the most memorable, are only about one-fourth of the total buzzes, both day and night.

In lamen's terms, he has been blowin' my phone up daily and NIGHTLY.

The thing is, I wasn't lying when I said we should hang out, because we did used to have a lot of fun, and I am decidedly pro-fun, especially of late. It's summer. Semi-constant fun is necessary or else you might realize just exactly how miserably, unbelievably hot you are. And then your pores could explode.

So like I say, I totally meant that we should hang out. But I wasn't necessarily expecting the texts the next day, or the ones the day after, or to already have made plans with him before 48 hours had even creeped past since the initial, momentous and historical declaration, handed down and announced on the well-known diplomatic grounds of Some Back Yard in Midtown, known officially as the We Should Hang Out Proclamation.

The point of all of this is that tomorrow night we're meeting up at the HiTone to see Star and Micey. In my defense, I was planning on going to the gig anyway and needed a show buddy, and when the topic of the We Should Hang Out Proclamation came up it seemed like the natural suggestion.

Only then came all the text messages. Like the one that rolled in around 1:30 a.m. on this fine morning, and its follow-up message at around 8:30 a.m., apologizing for the previous transmission and explaining that there was a deadly combination of drunkenness + thinking about me.

And when I read that, I thought, well there THAT is. So tomorrow, off we'll go to the HiTone, somewhat near to the witching hour and I'll probably already be two vodka-tonics invested. I have promised to be good. I have promised merely to exercise my feminine wiles as a form of highly entertaining torture.

But if anyone knows about my history for keeping these types of promises, it's you, Internet. Oh boy.


cheers,
elizabeth

always that drunk lady, never a bride

I love weddings. I love everything about them. I love the dresses and the tuxes and the music and the flowers and the pomp and every last little circumstance of it all. I cannot get enough. I will spend hours looking at the wedding photos of people I barely know on Facebook, critiquing the bridesmaids' dresses, oohing and aahing over the cliched toddler-as-ring-bearer that I just cannot get enough of, because MY GOD, babies in grown-up clothes is like the BEST thing ever, except maybe, MAYBE for clothes on a dog. MAYBE.

So when I actually get to go to a wedding? And see it with my own retinas and pupils and irises? It's like Christmas, and all my presents are free drinks at an open bar and dances with strangers.

This weekend was my second wedding of Wedding Season, and I've got about another month until number three. Beyond the aesthetic (and alcoholic) reasons to love a good wedding, I also just really cherish the opportunity to witness and share in something so monumentally intimate and special with someone I love. Which explains why I would get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday to drive six hours to Louisville and then make the same drive back the very next morning -- that and the open bar, of course.

Then there's also the huge added bonus of being able to see and catch up with friends and sorority sisters who I may not have seen in years. And to stand beside them, as they debate vodka or beer, while in line for said open bar.

This weekend's particular wedding also happened to be an Irish Catholic affair, my first of either variety not to mention both combined. It was in a stunning Catholic church in downtown Louisville, and the reception was held in the Muhammed Ali Center, in a sixth-floor room surrounded by glass, making the sunset over the Ohio River the backdrop for the evening. It was perfection.

So I danced the night away with my sisters and a whole host of people I'd never met, made friends with a groomsman who let me steal the cummerbund from his suit -- well, more like I wanted to put it on to see if I could, as I kept telling people, "bring it back," whatever that means -- and he told me I could keep it. Probably because it looked so good on me. Of course, now I have a cummerbund. What the eff am I going to do with a cummerbund? I'll keep you posted when I think of something.

All told, there's only one thing I would've changed about the whole affair. Early in the evening, I went to the DJ and requested Otis Redding. He said he thought he had something, so I returned to the dance floor and waited and waited and waited. No Otis. So I returned to the DJ booth to see if he had some Al Green. Nada. My next request was just for Memphis music. His response?

"I have some Elvis."

I said, seriously? SERIOUSLY? He quipped back, "That's Memphis music!" I said, yes. That is a correct statement, yes it is. But I need some Memphis SOUL. I need you to get back there and find me some Stax, some Sam and Dave, some Booker T and the MGs, some something I can make love to on the dance floor and do it STAT.

Naturally, he was unable to fill that request, either, so some time later I went back to the booth with what I thought would be a sure bet. Tina Turner.

I said, "Do you have 'Proud Mary'?" He seemed relieved -- probably because he knew that I was close to violence and that none of the wedding guests would remember what happened the next day. He said yes, and while I was momentarily also relieved, before I walked away I asked -- just to be certain -- if it was Tina. Oh, shocker. OF COURSE NOT. Now, please don't get me wrong. I like a little Creedence just as much as the next girl, but when there is a dance floor involved, I'ma need Ike, I'ma need Tina and I'ma need to pretend my legs are half as good as hers, the tramp, and get out there and do that dance.

I walked away, flabbergasted. Isn't there a law against being a DJ and not having a SINGLE Tina song? I mean, shouldn't there be? Because frankly, I would've really preferred "Nut Bush" over "Proud Mary," but if I requested that, well, he might've mistaken it for a pick-up line.

And trust me, we did not need that.


cheers,
elizabeth

life aspirations

Every summer in Memphis The Orpheum does the most fabulous thing - they show old movies on the big screen. Other than the fact that the theater is stunning and it makes movie-going feel like more of an experience than getting popcorn kernels stuck to the bottom of your shoes (or in your teeth, as the case may be) and getting the back of your stadium-seat kicked for an hour and a half, I think my favorite thing about the annual tradition is that it allows people to see films on the big screen that left theaters some 50 years ago.

Last night I saw my first Orpheum movie of the summer - 'The Philadelphia Story.' When I left the theater, I knew one thing for certain. If I had to choose a Hepburn to aspire to be, I'd pick Katherine any day of the week.





cheers,
elizabeth

hey boy, where's your sweat towel?

It's been a crazy week already and it's only Tuesday. One day I'm newly single, the next day I've decided I can go to random house party gigs on a Monday night and drink and stay out til almost 2 in the morning. What's next? Piercings? Tattoos? FORNICATION?

I kid. Well, at least about the piercings. And probably the fornication, mostly for lack of a willing partner.

ANYWHO.

Monday night, Andrea and I rolled up to a house on Court Street that belonged to people we didn't know, was filled with other people we didn't know and prepared ourselves to be crammed into an emptied-out living room to both sweat on and be sweated on by yet more people that we didn't know. I think I speak for both of us when I say it pretty much felt like college.

Naturally we got there way too early, and once we realized that we were going to be hanging out in this house waiting with about four kids who could not have been a day over 17 for the next hour or two until things got off the ground, we made the executive decision to skip over to the Blue Monkey and have a drink.

Around an hour later when we made our return, the crowd had nearly tripled in size, meaning that now there were about 12 people in and around the premises. We hung out in the kitchen, because it seemed to be the coolest place in the house that allowed us to people watch the backyard, chat with strangers who passed through and also avoid standing around in the empty living room staring at a drum kit. Also, there was this.


And also, a utility bill stuck on the fridge for a whopping $312. I KNOW. You will believe me when I tell you that this face, though recreated here for photographic posterity, was in fact my actual reaction.



Little by little people started streaming in, and some time before or after I let a guy I'd never met put ice cubes in my drink that he had touched with his bare fingers, we did run into one of The Magic Kids (one of the three bands playing that night) in the kitchen, at which time I decided to share the story about that time that I accidentally played their "Hey Boy" 45 on my record player's 33 1/3 setting, a story which really was only funny when it actually was HAPPENING, and certainly not on the fifth retelling. But he humored me by sharing that he likes the way his voice sounds slowed down and brought up a pitch, which admittedly I could not quite imagine in my mind's ear, but I went with it and decided to stop talking, for everyone's sake.

Incidentally, later in the evening I ran into a friend of mine from elementary school who I hadn't really seen, with maybe one exception, since the first grade. Turns out? She dates the very Magic Kid who I decided to regale with that story of ineptitude. ALL HAIL, QUEEN OF AKWARDTONIA.

During the first band, a local outfit called Bake Sale, Andrea and I camped right outside the living room where we could hear (and also dance) but where we could simultaneously avail ourselves of the fan in the hallway, which I mostly stood over as I was wearing a dress and found it was the most direct route to cool that which was heated. Ahem.

For Magic Kids, though, we had to get ourselves in the middle of things. And by the end of the set we were just about all up in the front of things, really. But I need to back up here, because I need to tell you who we ran into right before they went on -- none other than Mr. November and Mr. Whoops.

We chatted for just a brief minute, but then Magic Kids were on and we were dancing to an extent that a.) if the floor had collapsed beneath us, in later reports about the incident I think everyone involved would note that they were in no way surprised at said loss of floor; b.) I sweated far more intensely and in yet MORE places I didn't know existed than I ever did in a Bikram Yoga class and it only cost me A DOLLAR.

I danced like my ass was on fire. I don't even really have any other way to describe it.


After their set, we headed outside because SOMEHOW in the summer time in Memphis, Tennessee, it had become a cooler option than staying in that house. Andrea and I had made the executive decision that staying to see Wavves (who I had really wanted to see, playing a house party, no less) wasn't in the cards, because it was around 1 a.m. and we were both teetering on the edge of heat exhaustion AND we both had to be up and out the door in about seven hours to go to our jobs. Like grown-ups. DAMMIT.

But we stood out in the backyard for a bit and chatted with Mr. November and Mr. Whoops. It was not at all awkward, except for maybe Mr. Whoops was being awkward or maybe he was just stoned. Much like the number of licks to get the center of a tootsie pop, we may never know.

What I do know is that it seems my experiment in platonic friendships will not be limited to Mr. Risky Business -- Mr. November will be joining me for drinks and a gig at the HiTone next week. Now THIS could get interesting.

cheers,
elizabeth

P.S.: You can read Andrea's take on her blog -- she will provide you with a photo of the communal birthday cake that we watched at least four people pass through and take bites of with the SAME FORK. Too disgusting for words. But hey, this from the girl who let someone finger her ice cubes. You decide.

the summer of the spinster is nigh

Saturday morning, somewhere between the farmers market and the friends of the library book sale, Mr. Risky Business and I parted ways.

It had nothing to do with zucchini. Or 50 cent paper backs.

The thing is, I'd been waffling around the idea that maybe this whole thing, romantic as it all was, wasn't going to work out, for a little while. But RB was headed out for a long road trip, and I thought the time apart might be the perfect opportunity to figure out if that idea had any traction. And while he was gone, I missed him. And when he came back, I was more than excited to see him. Thought about nothing else the entire day at work but seeing him. And it was a fabulous feeling.

Unfortunately, though, it didn't take but a few days for that little thought to float right back up to the surface. Only it wasn't so little any more. And it was near about all I could do to keep shoving it under because its powers of flotation were gnarly and unprecedented.

And it had to be pretty obvious that something was bothering me, because I'm pretty much garbage at hiding things like that, and so when Mr. RB asked on Saturday morning, "Is anything bothering you?" I answered in the affirmative. And not five minutes later, it was over.

The thing is, we just weren't as compatible as I'd initially thought. These are the things you find out when you date someone. This is, arguably, the point of dating. To get to know someone, and to get to know how they might fit in to your life and whether or not you're compatible. It seems that being wildly attracted to someone is not actually, all on its own, the key to happiness, though I would argue that in combination with a few other things it is still of supreme importance.

Ultimately the biggest issue was that we just couldn't talk the way I need to talk. The way I talk to my closest friends, the talking about nothing but not running out of things to talk about kind of talking. Observing and analyzing and generally just chitter chattering until you literally fall asleep mid-sentence because you can't even shut up when it's way past your bedtime. Our conversations often felt forced and I often filled in every available blank space of air with my own words. Which, while admittedly entertaining for at least the first little bit, does wear on one after a time. Even me, and God knows never was a hobby invented that I was more suited for than talking about myself.

So the split was about as friendly as something like that really can be. We hugged, and parted ways, and then he stopped by Sunday night to get the birthday present that had been absconded from my front porch (and later replaced, hassle-free, by the fine people at Amazon who have now earned my ringing endorsement for LIFE). Despite the fact that I, my very own self, have written on this very blog several times in the past that I do not believe that men and women can have platonic friendships, I did tell him that I want us to remain friends, because I genuinely do. And hopefully we can prove me wrong on this. I'd very much like it.

As for the next mister? I'm hoping he's very far off. This may be the Single Summer of 2010. I've got a boat load of live music to see (including a gig at a midtown house tonight that promises to be EPIC), happy hours to attend, pools to lounge by and fruity beverages to sip.

And we can't forget all those patios! They're calling my name.


cheers,
elizabeth

i hear a symphony

Ladies and gentlemen, summer has arrived.

Solstice be damned, we all have our own particulars for marking the beginning of this season. For some it's the first dip in the pool or the first cook-out. For many people, it's the mini-vacay known as Memorial Day weekend. And while mine, in the past, has typically had less to do with a tangible event and more to do with reaching a minimum number of gallons of sweat excreted through, say, my upper lip or that awkward place under your bra, this year it had everything to do with one very momentous occasion.

Saturday was the first Live at the Garden concert.

A while back Stef and I decided to go balls to the wall on this one and get season tickets, which means that Saturday at 5 p.m. as we lined up at the Botanic Gardens with our booze and our cheese and battery-operated fans and blankets and general overwhelming SQUEEEE -- yes, that is a thing -- we were embarking on the beginning of a five-concert journey into awesome. SUMMER.

Saturday's concert, it just so happens, was the legendary Ms. Diana Ross. She sang our favorite songs, we drank about a bottle of wine each and sweated our lips and boobs and asses off dancing like wild women for about an hour and a half, in a PRIMO location if I do say so myself, since I was the one who ran like the wind upon entering the gates, passed everyone lumbering in front of me with coolers and camp chairs, and flung myself onto said location to save it for our enjoyment. It was the least I could do, really, for the Queen of the Divas herself.

(But frankly, just between me, you and my flop sweat, I would totally do it again for every concert, and not just my lover Al Green. For every one of 'em. Because it was a TOTAL rush. Who needs drugs when you can foot race people for the best patch of grass at an outdoor concert?)

Anywho.

At work on Monday we were chatting about Ms. Ross, and someone was sharing that they'd heard tell of her epic bitch-tastic-ness in the backstage area. And you know what? It didn't even phase me. Because she's Diana Effing Ross. She's a legend. She's like 70 years old. She helped invent the girl group. She is responsible for some of the most amazing pop music in the American Songbook. I don't give a flying rat's patoot if she wants only green M&Ms in her dressing room or if you're not supposed to look her directly in the eye because by God, she had about 17 wardrobe changes, and they ALL sparkled, and she sang and I danced and I think all of us pretended, at least for a second, that it was 1966 and we were in the audience of The Ed Sullivan Show, witnessing something that we instinctively knew was history, screaming our teeny bopper lungs out.

Oh y'all. It was awesome.







cheers,
elizabeth

seriously?

Once upon a time it was 2:17 a.m. on Saturday, and my phone rang.

Typically this would not be so dramatic an affair, excepting that a.) it was 2:17 a.m. and me and the rest of my friends in the AARP had been asleep since 10 p.m.; and b.) because of the volume of the box fan in my bedroom I've had to take my phone off of vibrate in the night lest the alarm not wake me up in the morning, and what that means in THIS particular situation is that at 2:17 a.m. on Saturday I was awakened by Robert Plant screaming "HEY HEY MAMA SAID THE WAY YOU MOVE GON' MAKE YOU SWEAT GON' MAKE YOU GROOVE" all kinds of right up in my dead asleep face.

It can be slightly upsetting to one's blood pressure.

Turns out, though, the phone call was from friend and upstairs neighbor Megan, who wanted to let me know that the light inside my car was, in fact, sending out a beacon of light into the darkness.

I immediately pulled my pants on and headed outside, at which time I shared with her what I very much knew to be true -- that light had been on since 9 p.m. Thursday. THURSDAY. Did you forget that this story takes place on Saturday? At 2:17 a.m.? You doing the math? Yeah, the only proper response there is whooooopsie!

So I turned the light off and headed back in the house where I had an absolute bitch of a time getting back to sleep, but y'all -- at 10 o'clock Saturday morning when I put the key in the ignition to head down to the library and do some farmer's market hopping, it turned over like a champ. Not even one single ounce of opposition to the idea. And that light had been on for almost 30 hours.

Let me tell you about my car. The Green Bean. She's a little Mazda from a year long, long ago, and she's about old enough for a learner's permit and pierced ears and a glass of wine with dinner. But by god, I don't know what it is. And I won't say it out loud, and don't YOU even say it out loud as you read this -- there is a distinct possibility that the Green Bean is I-N-V-I-N-C-I-B-L-E.

I swear to GAWD if you just said that out loud. Knock on wood or something, and do it quick.

cheers,
elizabeth