Me and Sandi went to the park and did our mile walk. We've both started walking after work, but usually
we do it in different parks. It was still light when we started out, and it didn't take long until we were
scoping every boy on the course. It was one of two things we do together: ogle boys or cut people up based on how they dress. It's the way we vent; our
individual sarcasm is heightened when we get around each other in the off hours, and boy, is it fun!
We then went to Juan's Flying Burrito and ogled some more. It's one of those local Bohemian places where the college kids go to be cool. The boys behind the counter are always lusciously scruffy and the food is always cooked to order. The Abita was a little warm and the restaurant was a little warmer, but we were happy to just be out.
Sandi called her husband on her cell phone to let him know where we were going next, just out for a few beers. Her husband is insanely jealous of my friendship with her, which is a new thing to me, so it's always teetering on a fight when I'm involved. We left for Molly's anyway.
All the Jazz Fest cretins were out in full regalia in front of Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville, whose name alone makes me retch. Balloon hats, blinking pins, Mardis Gras beads and girls on boys' shoulders, standing in line to drink.
We ended up at the Hideou, a shady bar as far down Decatur Street as you can go without being in a bar with a stripper's pole coming from its center. Here, we contemplated our sex and drug riddled past, looking around to see that the people there were still in the midst of it, still riding out the crave wave we had long let crash on the rocks. We gestured to the beautiful bartender, a leggy blonde from some other country who had rotated her employment to cover most of the bars on this block. What did she spend her money on? we asked ourselves. Will she ever escape this life? Is she a junkie too?
Walking home, we realized something. We had, FTMP, normal lives: bills, pets, SO's, utilities. If we ever wanted to go back to the lives of chaos we thought we so liberating, all we have to do is bar hop down Decatur to realize that that door is no longer open to us, and that suits us just fine.