Voudriez-vous voir ma maison ce soir?

[muckefuck]

There's still more rant left in me, but in the interests of YOU, my dear reader, I'm going to balance it out with a little happy talk. When I finally saw monshu last night, I apologised for not stopping by earlier, telling him (in the course of a sonambulant conversation he'll be lucky to remember) that I had a really good reason for being delayed. Here is the story of that reason (which, if you're pressed for time, can be summarised in four words: Smokin Hot French Guy).

bunj and I had a mid-afternoon flight, so even with Southwest's enviable record for on-time arrival (and they were, in fact, on time or better both arriving there and coming back), it was always going to be tight making it back to the Loop before full-on rush hour. I stopped off to greet e. in the West Loop before heading north, so I ended up on monshu's express bus of choice, the 136.

At the second stop on La Salle, I saw a rather prissy-looking middle aged gentleman in banker's gray with well-coifed steely hair take a seat on the main level, breathing a sigh of relief that he hadn't chosen to sit by me. Who knows what kind of thoughts I was radiating into the aether, because a few minutes later he reconsidered his choice and asked if he could take the window seat inside of mine.

As he settled in, I cracked open one of the books I'd gotten at the Historical Museum (75% off!)and did my best to ignore him. Intuition, you need a recalibration! He struck up a conversation about St. Louis by remarking on the title of my book and that pleasantly carried us through all the way to my front door--an hour of stop-and-go on LSD, all told.

Even though it was by now 6:30, I thought I'd press my luck and head to $1 burger night at Big Chicks. Après moi le deluge! I got my order in right before it really began filling up and, not seeing any friends, I took my out to the back patio to eat.

Actually, that's not entirely true: I did see one old buddy at a table with a couple of guys I vaguely recalled being introduced to. I went up and chatted a bit, but didn't get an invitation to sit, so breezed on. The high from incessant chattering that day--with the man on the bus, with my brother on the train and plane, with my aunt in her home, with my sister in her car--made this kind of superficial socialisation basically effortless for me.

In any case, I did end up chatting with a bar acquaintance or two as they came out to smoke. The burgers were top-rate that night: Medium-well (it's impossible to get those skinny buggers any rarer than that, alas) but juicy as a 21 year-old virgin. I was full, drunk, and happy and ready to go find my bear and pounce on him, but I thought I'd stop by and say goodbye to my aforementioned buddy in the salon.

But once I got there, I only had eyes for the husky stunner who was sitting to his left. He didn't say much, but was following the conversation avidly. So avidly, in fact, he turned his head with every change of speaker, which I found a little odd. But once I heard his accent, I understood completely; in fact, I recalled countless attempts to follow a colloquial exchange in a foreign language amid the distractions of a noisy barroom and felt full of sympathy.

"Est-ce que vous êtes français?" I asked on a hunch and he answered in the affirmative. It's one of the few times in my life when I've genuine regretted not speaking French. He had some English, but attempting to discuss architecture, I was reminded poignantly of the opinion piece where a non-native speaker of English recalls the frustration of wanting to comment on a exquisite neo-Romanesque structure his friend has just pointed out and only being able to say, "Pretty church."

There was some teasing about pictures of him in leather, so I asked him, "If I wanted to see these photos online, where would I look." frenchbikerbear, with minor variations, is his moniker of choice. And though I didn't find any pictures of him in leather, I did find some that were...er...interesting enough pour me faire jouir. Et deux fois en outre!

In any case, he's in town for the week and showing himself our lovely architecture. I'm heroically resisting the temptation to send him a poorly-translated mash note. I'm really too busy with this house crap to offer my services as cicerone, and why start something I can't finish properly anyway?

Comments

Care for a drink?

[monshu.livejournal.com]

You could always invite him to the usual patio setting for Saturday if he is still in town. Or the Monday sing-along for that matter.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

A little dickie bird tells me that he's not a boxers kind of guy...