3 bars (2 of 3): Bar I've never been.

When I was leaving the bar, I was joking with the doorman about the huge ornate church just down the street, which is the city's Opus Dei church.

"Ever get any of them in here?", I was like.

"Nah," he was like.

"Well," I was like, "You should be glad, because they're scarier than ghosts, and real!"

I then changed the subject to where exactly this other bar was, where there was this older woman who had a heart of gold and was built like a trucker and would physically throw you out if she didn't like you.

"She actually passed away a year-and-a-half ago," he was like, after telling me that the bar was just up a block and a block over. "I went to her funeral, it was actually up there, she'd gone to that church all her life."

He then proceeded to tell me that she lived above her bar just like the WWII vet had lived above the bar he worked at, but the Opus Dei priest didn't like that, and so at her funeral just shit on her because she owned a bar and said we'd have to pray and there was always purgatory, if someone didn't get to heaven right away because of their earthly activities.

3 bars (1 of 3): Nice doorman.

So the other weekend I went to hit up some bars before meeting up with a friend.

There was this packed-out hipster bar with a tin ceiling and nice woodwork I went into, and right away when I got inside and was trying to figure out how to get to the bar, the doorman was nice and was like, "So what was the last book you read?"

I went to get a beer - a couple women shared at my "I [HEART] [name of the I'm in] SEX WORKERS" shirt, then caught my eye - and then came back to talk to the guy, and he said that not everyone has a coat that can carry books so easily (I had a novel sticking out of my lefthand pocket).

"I'm a reader too," he was like, and we talked books for a while, since the bar was so packed out - 3 linked birthday parties were going on! - that that was far and away the best place to stand.

Somehow, we got on the subject of folklore and ghosts, and he said that the guy who founded the bar was a WWII veteran who had some issues and lived upstairs, since that's what all bar owners in the neighborhood did in the day. One year, the guy shot himself, and ever since then people claim that drinks sitting on the bar will just fall off and shatter for no reason, and ghost tour busses go by the bar every so often and point them out.

"Personally," he was like, "I think the bars are slightly off-level, and you get a wet bar, a full glass can easily slide off. But, whatever."

Memory forom an underground bar.

I forgot -

Like a month ago during a night of barhopping - one bar was this aging frat bar, where there were beer pong tables and a mini-basketball court and a stripper-pole cage for the girls - I joined by my one Czech lit professor friend and a friend of hers, after they had just seen that sex addiction movie "Shame"...

Anyhow, like 3 bars in, we were in this one downstairs bar at like midnight on a Wednesday, and it was a big oval bar, and over on the other side and a little down from us there was this girl and a guy who looked like her fiance, and this older woman who kind of looked like her, and had big hair and a vacant expression like in "Twin Peaks", and there was this very young hot guy in a business suit leaning in toward her and talking to her for what seemed like ever, and making jokes and smiling at her (every once in while she would burst out in a smile and look up demurely at him).... He could have been a friend of the daughter's, but he was way too interested in the mom, which made us think he was either some random gerontophile, or an escort.

My one Czech lit professor friend kept buying us drinks to make us stay and see what would happen, and every once in a while we would turn to each other and start humming that slow building-up theme from "Twin Peaks" to each other.

Eventually, the group went to leave, and my friend had me go outside like I was going to smoke to see what went down.

All four of them got in a cab, and left.

That's the thing about bars, sometimes there is no resolution to the stories that begin there - if they were even stories to begin with.

Gay spirituality group.

So a (gay) grad student friend of mine has been going through a spiritual phase, and got invited to some spiritual exploration group at some person's apartment downtown, though the Unity or Unitarian or whatever church he's been going to.

He went there, and he said it was mostly gay polyamorists, and instead of any sort of discussions or whatever, which was what he was expecting, they instead sat in a big long circle and did "heartweaving", where you stared intently into the guy opposite you's eyes for several minutes, then everyone shifted positions to the left, and you did that till everyone had looked into each other's eyes.

"Then what happened?", I was like.

"Oh," he was like, "I thought that was an icebreaker, and then we were going to do something really awesome, but then they were like, 'OK, potluck, everyone!'", and we just sat around and ate."

I also was telling him how I've been reading up on neopaganism and polyamory lately, and he said that everyone he's ever known who's done that has pretty much been a sex addict.

He also said he was in a coffee shop in the middle of the afternoon once when there was this old daddy guy interviewing a new "boy", and the daddy started quizzing him on that "Ethical Slut" book I'm reading (and which was recommended to me by the people at that sec doc series I go to as a classic polyamorist touchstone).

More tutoring.

I got a call the other week from the mom of a girl who had seen my tutoring poster at a coffee shop, and wanted to know if I could help out her daughter, since she was falling behind in Latin.

I've realized that I have to tell parents that a lot of it is efficient, consistent studying, and that I can help their kids think through study techniques and when they might study, but a lot is up to them, so that's what I told her.

I ended up tutoring the girl and the situation was pretty much as I thought it'd be - she'd do well if she studied more (and I was able to teach her a few study techniques).

I wonder how many of these one-off tutoring opportunities I'll get.

Kids are so cute: High-five.

Kids are so cute.

The other day I ran into my one (Mormon) colleague as he was coming out of some doors pushing a stroller, so I held the door open for him and held my hand out so his two-and-a-half year old could high-five me as he went by, and the kid did, just holding his hand out and keeping the same serious expression.

As an older single man, though, I feel odd about commenting how cute kids are, like people will think I'm skeezy or something. But they really are a ton of fun.

ILL books.

The other day at the main library on campus I went up to the circ desk to pick up an ILL (=inter-library loan) book.

"Can I pick up my AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL, please?", I asked the undergrad, grotesquely exaggerating the acronym.

They laughed nervously, and got it for me.