Somewhere That's Green

After two days home sick, I’m back at the office trying to translate documents using my 8th grade French. My French was never very good, and now it’s rusty, but I’m the only person in-house that can read it at all. So I’ve spent the day stuffed up and achy, trying to understand enough of the words to get rough grasp on what these documents say. It’s less than fun.

This little cold was brought on in part by my allergies, and in part by drinking myself senseless Sunday night. The evening started out, innocently enough, with a trip to the theatre. Matty had an extra ticket to Little Shop of Horrors, and after parking at Pacific Place (you nearly have to blow someone there to get your car valeted), we managed 2 rounds of margaritas at the Mexican restaurant and cocktails at 727 before taking our seats. The show was amazing. The best part was in the first act, when Audrey sang “Somewhere That’s Green.” Audrey was the female lead, a blond with a checkered past who dreamt of settling down in the quiet of suburbia with Seymor:

Still, that Seymour's a cutie
Well, if not, he's got inner beauty
And I dream of a place
Where we could be together at last

A matchbox of our own
A fence of real chain link,
A grill out on the patio
Disposal in the sink
A washer and a dryer and an ironing machine
In a tract house that we share
Somewhere that's green.

He rakes and trims the grass
He loves to mow and weed
I cook like Betty Crocker
And I look like Donna Reed
There's plastic on the furniture
To keep it neat and clean
In the Pine-Sol scented air
Somewhere that's green

Between our frozen dinner
And our bedtime, nine-fifteen
We snuggle watchin' Lucy
On our big, enormous twelve-inch screen

The song goes on in that vein for quite awhile, but I couldn’t follow it because Matty and I were falling out of our seats laughing. We actually got shushed by the people in front of us, so I tried to hold it in and almost gave myself an aneurysm. It was funny because it so closely paralleled JPK’s giddiness about Issaquah, right up to the green grass and the desire to cook. Girls with a checkered past always want a fresh start where no one knows them, and where they are far removed from the temptations of old. Of course I’m sure it will be all rainbows and unicorns, just as JPK predicts. Unfortunately it didn’t work out so well for Audrey: she got chewed up by the plant, and then fed to it by Seymor after he pulled her from it and she died. It’s a little warning D4L would do well to heed whenever he gets an arm close to JPK’s ass. On a more personal note, it was a nice return to the Paramount for Matty and I. The last time we were there it was for Mamma Mia, when JPK dumped Matty the day of the show to go back to Ben. I’m regularly the consolation date (he was stood up by his mother this time) but I don’t mind.

We had drinks at intermission, and after the show went to check out Timberline. It was annoying as usual, so after a round we went up to R Place. R Place was slow; they’ve stopped doing karaoke and are doing “Funk Night” instead. It was painful, so we went downstairs to have a couple of drinks. At this point, it was either wrap it up or step it up. It was late, I was tired, and I had promised Carlos I’d be home by 10 pm (this was close to 11 pm). But Matty was fired up. Paul and Mark were having a bit of a spat, and earlier in the day Matty had gotten involved when Paul dredged up a piece of ancient history about David and told Matty about it. It was a previously unknown allegation against Mark that turned out to be true. So Matty was pissed at Paul for telling him, pissed at Mark for doing it, and liquored up enough to get really confrontational. Henry showed up at R Place, and after a final round (Henry slammed one of the strongest Long Islands I have ever seen) we dragged up to Madison Pub for the endgame. There we ran into Mark, Mike, and some of his friends playing darts. Jerome and his boyfriend Mark were there as well (won’t anyone please shoot a few Marks?), but Matty zeroed in on evil Mark, and between shots of Jaeger proceeded to skewer him.

Mark (wisely) made himself scarce after about 30 minutes of verbal hammering, so we socialized a bit with the other boys. Henry was making some new friends, especially with Mike and his friend Kyle. I’d never met Kyle before, but chatting with him a little I thought, “This guy’s fun, he’d fit right in.” In retrospect I realized it’s because he’s completely crazy, and God knows we have enough of that. Anyway, we chatted for a bit, but one by one the boys started to drift away until it was just Matty, Jerome, (good) Mark, and I left holding down the bar. Reasonable, sensible people would have gone home at that point, so we went up to CC’s for a nightcap. Fortunately it truly was a nightcap; Matty and I hit the wall at the same time and departed for our respective homes.

I arrived home exactly 3 hours late. Carlos was less than amused, and he’s been calling me chico malo (bad boy) ever since. He was actually very eloquent when I rolled in; he’d done some drinking waiting for me, and his English is always better when he’s drunk and pissed off. Fortunately we resolved our issues, but by morning I had another problem: my cold was back. I tried to get up and go to work, but it just didn’t happen. Same thing Tuesday, but today I’m feeling much better. So back to work, back to the blog, and back to somewhere that’s green.