Bears! Bears! Bears!

[muckefuck]

I'd like to think that this is just a quick summary report, to be followed by more detailed entries when I get the chance, but who am I kidding? That would represent a shudden shift in my current behaviour and how likely are those? So I'd better get down the things I absolutely don't want to forget.

Very low-impact year; I never even made it to the hotel at all. Friday night, we forwent our usual Palmer House lobby voyeurism for a few drinks a Buck's (and, for my part, a game of pool with a couple of transplants and their out-of-town friend). Afterwards, we found out that Arco de Cuchilleros doesn't suck. In the home of Café Ibérico, it will never be anyone's favourite tapas bar, but it does have the advantage of (1) no wait and (2) conversational volume. (Although be forwarned that sitting in the front windows means you'll hear the bloody door slam all night.)

Saturday was the Leather Mart and Bears in Boxers on Buck's patio. Didn't pick up much at the former, but we did have the delight of conducting a first-time visitor. Every time we looked around and realised we'd lost him, all we had to do was backtrack to the last booth we passed that was showing fisting videos. As for the latter, the rain held off until well after most people had made their decision to take a chance on clear skies. At the first sign of serious drops, I located some umbrellas behind us and we slid one into our table and sat back to watch the harrowing sight of the hired help trying to erect a pre-fab canopy. After that, events progressed as they are wont to do and my choice of the practicality of cotton over the sheer sexiness of silk was happily vindicated.

We then headed back to monshu's for for dinner for him and tapas for me. It being the final day of his Birthday Week, I graciously allowed him a dinner that was more laced with gorgonzola than Dom Deluise's veins. Thereafter I blew off the A-list bear party (funny, my invitation must've gotten misplaced) in favour of an even more exclusive engagement (so exclusive, in fact, that I am not even allowed to discuss it here).

The next day, monshu and I attended to our respective errands and rendezvoused in the evening for juicy pork roast. As it was finishing up, I managed to talk him into cocktails on his newly-open deck where the weather was absolutely splendid, if a bit breezy. (Twice we ended up chasing after his pack of smokes before they blew into the tennis courts.) I babbled excitedly about what I had discovered about a Japanese-language shirt I'd seen the day before as we speculated on the ethnic make-up of the grillers at the next table. He guessed Korean, but I heard Chinese, and then we heard someone introduce himself as "Jorge". It turned out to be an eclectic mix of neighbours, friends, friends of neighbours, and a realtor. A woman with family in Tianjin gave us advice for our upcoming holiday and we were exhorted to try another woman's homemade sushi.

Unfortunately, my errands had tuckered me out, and I'd had no opportunity for a disco nap, so I started off the dance that night pre-tired. I proceeded to lose monshu's neighbours with whom I had shared a cab (G was just a little too sluttily dressed to be fully comfortable on public trans--how darling is that?) immediately and hook up with Dutes and the crowd he'd had with him at Guy Maddin last weekend (minus the fogeys--alas!)

But I'm afraid I faded fast. Sometime around midnight or so, Terry The Bear appeared and his suggestion of grabbing a couch on the top floor proved fatal. I rested my head on his chest and shut my eyes on the crowded room just for a second only to open them and find next to no one there. So he escorted me to the door and I went to find a cab. grunter was still waiting on the bus back to the hotel and I kept him company with sympathetic talk of our shared middle-aged decrepitude.

Unfortunately, as decrepit as this body is, it doesn't like me sleeping in past 9 or so. When it became clear there was to be no golden siesta, I impulsively hustled myself to an express bus in order to check out the Leather Mart one last time before I was expected at Sidetrack for farewell videos. There I discovered what I already knew: The magical pair of perfect tit-clamps which dance in my memories are the stuff of myth and legend. One vendor though he'd heard of what I was describing; another had "never seen it in all my years". eBay, you are now my only hope!

The bomonshu, Nuphy, and ottr4bear--had snagged their preferred table on the patio and--to my unbreakfasted relief--the buffet was already out. I preceeded to spend the next five hours in a spell of sleep-drunkenness which was tolerable as long as I didn't make the mistake of sitting down. Once I did, on the sundeck, the thought of the sea of people I had to ford kept me immobile for the better part of an hour. As I left, I ran into two friends I'd been hoping to see the whole weekend, but monshu was awaiting me at home so our time together was brutally curtailed.

All in all, I think it will go down as one of the more successful ones--even if I somehow missed spending as much as an instant with e_ticket, aadroma, or other treasured regulars. But I've learned a lesson about how little I'm able to short myself on sleep any more. Next year, more napping!