Frostbite and the Long Held Kiss

By golly what a jolly evening I had. It's now 11:32am in the morning, and thanks to school vacations, I will be highly unoccupied all of today, which is for the best, given the state of this girl's woolly head. I believe I'm still drunk.

I met up with Jane, the sister of my oldest friend, the Nance, at Temple Station. From there, I had indefinite plans to take her to a bar on rue Amelot, but backed off at the last minute because had sudden urge not get barraged by idiot twentysomethings and their friends. So we headed to my secret bar, near Oberkampf and the Canal Saint Martin.

Jane and I popped in around 9:30 in the evening, after wandering like idiots for an hour, since the secret bar must be found by Skywalker vision. She reminded me, because I was muffled in furs and woolens, that the weather was springtime climes for Canada. This reminds me of how idiotically crazy it is to spend 6 months of the year freezing your buns off. Why do people choose to suffer? However, the real jaw dropper is how delicate I have become with the cold. Jane thinks this is a sign I'm becoming french.

Another sign, she said, was that sometimes I have a weird twang in my english, which can only be, sigh, a french twang. She said, "yeah, you have this kind of weird semi-french accent, every now and then. Don't worry, it's cute." WHAT! This is the problem with being a good chameleon. North American friends, this is your moment to save the Nardac from her horrible Continental slide... call the Nardac and give her North American accent lessons! Better still, send over tapes of rappers and their cars... or Flip Wilson... or NBA/NCAA games...

So... we spent the better part of the evening getting sloshed, talking about men and lovers. Getting late in the night, I suggested going to another bar, but then the owner told me to sit down because he was now going to keep us drunk, on the house. Jane looks over at me with a funny look, as if to say, but "we're already wasted you ninny... and if we stay here and drink, we will most definitely fall down, and get ass-fucked"... or was that another look... "oh my god Sam! How do you do it! Everywhere you go, the free drinks follow!" I'm not sure what the look really was... So, lovely old moustache man just readies the beer, winks sweetly, then comes over, tilts his head down, holds my jaw in two hands delicately, then serves me a kiss on one cheek, holding the kiss for several wet seconds. So erotic, you yummy old man!

We get thoroughly hammered, after which Jane and I somehow manage to wander off in the general direction of my home, stopping by the crepe shop to pick up a Bolognaise Panini, which was disgusting, and then good... which is always better than the other way round... Imagine if it's good, than disgusting, and that's the Hamburger Crepe. Then woke up the neighbourhood with mad german accented english about ze rotten Beethoven ninth, Ode to a Lucky Bastard with holes in his pants striking up a line to his swarthy black forest of Triumph!...

Later...now drooped over my kitchen table with a lovely mug of verveine tea, stare curiously at my big toe and become convinced, from almost lack of feeling, that have frostbite in said toe. Paranoia starts to mount until the moment I put the mug next to toe, at which point screeching pain shoots up everywhere. Yes, I almost had frostbite of the big toe, but luckily saved myself from the lifetime offer of a wooden toe which would make me the favourite for barefoot tapdancer of the year*, by a mug of tea. At the same time, notice that the rest of my body is experiencing some vague numbness. Try to talk to Jane but notice her eyes are almost closed, which is well, because am becoming verbally incoherent.

Tottered off, convinced that I was dying of overall frostbite and need giant man-size mug of tea to ward off possible limbs breaking off... then reptilian brain kicks in and tells me to fall headfirst into the bed because I'm numb from drunkness. But, while bumbling over, amphibian brain hollers out to write the email first... at which point I flail haplessly at the keyboard for several minutes, smashing inanities out in a rabbitted storm, and send the monkey down the chute. I hope that lucky recipient is happy with this great marker of devotion and inebriation.

Damn... I think I'm hungover now. Time for a real steak.

*I always wondered why they've never exploited that angle with peg legs. I mean, I think a Moby Dick Musical, with a tapdancing Ahab, could be a real good thing. Imagine him singing "Revenge revenge, I'll have my revenge tonight, the whale will be killed tonight, the beast will be done tonight... revenge revenge... I have a peg leg tonight.." after which he clacks off into a solo breakdancing tapdance routine. I will be ready to preview this for the next Berlin Musical Festival, if someone would like to sponsor....